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Sometimes, where no exit exists, you must make your own.Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
"Catch-22" - Time to re-rent the video.
Bush flexing her muscle"Tonight on Larry King Live, First Lady Laura Bush said she understands 'how the American people feel' when they express frustration over Iraq, but insisted that 'to leave now would be a serious mistake.' She said of Iraqis, 'This is their opportunity to seize the moment, to build a really good and stable country.'
"As...Bush added, 'Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.' "
In that the latest figures (Nov. 2006) indicate there are now 185 attacks in Iraq every day according to the Brookings Institution, I think it's time we revisited Joseph Heller's book, "Catch-22". Or perhaps re-rent the video. At the very least, it should be required viewing for every soldier before deploying to Iraq.
In that novel, John Yossarian, a World War II B-25 bomber crew member, tries to deal with the insanity of war that his leadership actually seems to be enjoying. Wishing to be relieved of his flight duty, his commander keeps upping the number of missions crews must complete before they can be rotated out. (Sound familiar?)
Seems the only way for Yossarian to get out of flight duty is to be declared crazy. But when he approaches his squadron doctor, submitting to him he is unfit for flying because he is insane, the doc explains only a crazy person would want to fly those bombing missions and by Yossarian not wishing to participate further in the insane war, he is actually proving he is perfectly sane. And that's Catch-22. Yossarian's request is denied.
Conversely then, can we not apply that same logic to today's Iraq war leadership? When the Yossarian 's doctor explained that only a madman would want to continue with an insane war, maybe we can take this as validation of the mental status of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Laura Bush and the rest of the right-wing nuts.
Not wishing to quit this insane war and denying we're losing our asses in Iraq, are they not battier than hell? And under Heller's "Catch-22", are they not then qualified to be disqualified from further participation in their insanity?
"As...Bush added, 'Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.' "
In that the latest figures (Nov. 2006) indicate there are now 185 attacks in Iraq every day according to the Brookings Institution, I think it's time we revisited Joseph Heller's book, "Catch-22". Or perhaps re-rent the video. At the very least, it should be required viewing for every soldier before deploying to Iraq.
In that novel, John Yossarian, a World War II B-25 bomber crew member, tries to deal with the insanity of war that his leadership actually seems to be enjoying. Wishing to be relieved of his flight duty, his commander keeps upping the number of missions crews must complete before they can be rotated out. (Sound familiar?)
Seems the only way for Yossarian to get out of flight duty is to be declared crazy. But when he approaches his squadron doctor, submitting to him he is unfit for flying because he is insane, the doc explains only a crazy person would want to fly those bombing missions and by Yossarian not wishing to participate further in the insane war, he is actually proving he is perfectly sane. And that's Catch-22. Yossarian's request is denied.
Conversely then, can we not apply that same logic to today's Iraq war leadership? When the Yossarian 's doctor explained that only a madman would want to continue with an insane war, maybe we can take this as validation of the mental status of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Laura Bush and the rest of the right-wing nuts.
Not wishing to quit this insane war and denying we're losing our asses in Iraq, are they not battier than hell? And under Heller's "Catch-22", are they not then qualified to be disqualified from further participation in their insanity?
Preview of Man's Brush Strokes
Poppy season in the Franklin Mountains of West Texas, Dada, March 2005
Oooh, it's coming up that time of year again when the poppies on the mountain bloom. One never knows exactly what kind of poppy year to expect. Last year was a bust. But 2005 was quite nice. It just depends on the right climatic conditions.The poppy seeds on the local mountains were dropped from an airplane many, many years ago. They were sewn by a man in the memory of his late wife. They seem to found the perfect environment, having flourished and spread over the years until some springs they explode in riotous color on the hillsides.
In the next day or two, I want to post here a blog showing the influence of man around the desert southwest where we live. I'll call it something like "Man's Brush Strokes" and it will contain images of all things manifested in the desert as a result of man's interventions -- some, like the poppies, incredibly beautiful, some not.
There is some urgency in that upcoming blog. That's because one of the more incredible manifestations begins to vanish this year just as the poppies begain to appear. Stay tuned.
Friday, February 23, 2007
To be or not to be, that is the question
To senator (former democratic, now independent) Joe Lieberman: You're doing great. You have your former democrats trembling on one side of the aisle, republicans on the other side drooling, praying you switch gender or, er, sides.
Best thing for you to do is continue to straddle the middle of the aisle, keeping one ball on either side its dividing line. Look at the attention you get, the power you enjoy. You've found your perfect spot.
Remember, once you commit to one side of the aisle or other, you lose all that. You become just another fuckin' republican, or fuckin' democrat and god only knows, Americans are plenty disgusted with both of those.
Best thing for you to do is continue to straddle the middle of the aisle, keeping one ball on either side its dividing line. Look at the attention you get, the power you enjoy. You've found your perfect spot.
Remember, once you commit to one side of the aisle or other, you lose all that. You become just another fuckin' republican, or fuckin' democrat and god only knows, Americans are plenty disgusted with both of those.
What price is a gang raped 14 year old girl and her murdered family worth?
I confess, I was a little disappointed in the sentence handed down to Sgt. Paul Cortez yesterday at the end of his court martial. According to his plea agreement, Cortez was sentenced to 100 years in prison for his part in the murder of a 14 year old Iraqi girl after gang raping her and murdering her family.
As long as Sgt. Cortez will be eligible for parole in 10 years, why not make a real statement to other GI's serving in Iraq before participating in the commission of a similar atrocity.
Instead of a 100 year sentence, with a possible 10 year parole, why not really make soldiers think twice in the future by knowing if they go astray, they could be given a 900 year, or say a thousand year sentence even! (With eligibility for parole in 10 years, of course).
Knowing one will face a thousand year sentence may go a long way towards eliminating rapes and murders by GI's tempted to step outside human civility during wartime.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Feel the love!
Yesterday in El Paso we were visited by Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church. A small group from his congregation and their supporters held a demonstration outside the gates of Fort Bliss while a memorial service was being held inside for the troops from that post recently killed in Iraq.This photo, courtesy of the El Paso Times, shows the demonstrators. I was most intrigued with the young girl in the photo just above the "Thank GOD for EFP's" sign standing in the shadows. She must be all of 12 years old. And she's wearing a shirt that reads "God hates fags.com."
Thank God for Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church who came all the way from Kansas to spread their love.
While we were sleeping
Leaning heavily on the NYTimes this morning, but as one commenter in response to this story said, when Bush declares martial law, the story will be buried deep inside the section of newspaper carrying a picture of Britney's bald head on its front page.
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
...The newly enacted provisions...shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.”
Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate. The president made no mention of the changes when he signed the measure, and neither the White House nor Congress consulted in advance with the nation’s governors.
In response to Jane Smiley's article on the NY Times piece above, one commenter suggested, somewhat naively in my opinion, that all the terrible consequences of Bush's increased authority
is just paranoia because, as he assures, there are "mandatory congressional circut breakers built into the provision."
But one need only look at how well our congress has neglected their checking and balancing duties of Bush in protecting our diminishing rights under this administration. Somehow, I won't sleep any better nights knowing congress is our safeguard. Remember, this huge, potentially dangerous expansion of Bush's power occurred when inserted in the light of darkness into a defense appropriation bill passed in the middle of the night. When most of us are sleeping.
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
...The newly enacted provisions...shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.”
Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate. The president made no mention of the changes when he signed the measure, and neither the White House nor Congress consulted in advance with the nation’s governors.
In response to Jane Smiley's article on the NY Times piece above, one commenter suggested, somewhat naively in my opinion, that all the terrible consequences of Bush's increased authority
is just paranoia because, as he assures, there are "mandatory congressional circut breakers built into the provision."
But one need only look at how well our congress has neglected their checking and balancing duties of Bush in protecting our diminishing rights under this administration. Somehow, I won't sleep any better nights knowing congress is our safeguard. Remember, this huge, potentially dangerous expansion of Bush's power occurred when inserted in the light of darkness into a defense appropriation bill passed in the middle of the night. When most of us are sleeping.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
President's Day stroll
Yesterday being President's Day, celebrations were held sporatically across the nation. Our current president celebrated by visiting Mount Vernon and, in his usual brashest of audacities, compared himself to "the first George W."
UTEP students at the beginning of their peace march.
Locally, it was a beautiful day for a stroll in the park. In a wonderful display of concern for the nation, a very dedicated, peaceful, yet at times wonderfully boisterous, group of University of Texas at El Paso students held a peace march.
Beginning with speakers at the campus' Leech Grove, students listened to faculty members, former and current military members and student members of NION (Not in Our Name) speak before marching to San Jacinto Plaza in the heart of downtown El Paso.
UTEP students downtown in the plaza. Note the "PACE" flag.
A fountain alligator aids in holding up a demonstrator's sign
More speakers assumed center stage, along with graceful dancers. Even the dogs present came in peace.
All in all, it was a very peaceful and festive event and even the police officers in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves.
I came away very impressed with university "Not in Our Name" student organizers and all who attended their event in support of peace.
I'm sure the nation's "first George W." would have been proud of yesterday's demonstration for a peaceful end to our aggressions, despite the current George W's inability to appreciate such displays.
UTEP students at the beginning of their peace march.Locally, it was a beautiful day for a stroll in the park. In a wonderful display of concern for the nation, a very dedicated, peaceful, yet at times wonderfully boisterous, group of University of Texas at El Paso students held a peace march.
Beginning with speakers at the campus' Leech Grove, students listened to faculty members, former and current military members and student members of NION (Not in Our Name) speak before marching to San Jacinto Plaza in the heart of downtown El Paso.
UTEP students downtown in the plaza. Note the "PACE" flag.Upon their arrival downtown, students were greeted by curious onlookers and expectant law enforcement officers. Standing atop the plaza's large central fountain, a large "PACE" flag was unfurled. Not sure if it was in tribute to president Bush's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, or a tribute to bad spelling, I later learned it was an Italian "peace" flag.
A fountain alligator aids in holding up a demonstrator's signIt was a very nice rally. I watched as one citizen confronted one of the march's organizers with a difference of opinion. It appeared the man was a veteran of Vietnam, perhaps, who didn't appear pleased with this demonstration. I watched as the student organizer diffused the tension of the brief confrontation with calm discussion, culminated by a handshake between the two.
At one point, even the alligator's in the plaza's center fountain seemed aroused to the cause, as one held up a sign while its partner reared up in support of the demonstrators.
At one point, even the alligator's in the plaza's center fountain seemed aroused to the cause, as one held up a sign while its partner reared up in support of the demonstrators.
More speakers assumed center stage, along with graceful dancers. Even the dogs present came in peace.All in all, it was a very peaceful and festive event and even the police officers in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves.
I came away very impressed with university "Not in Our Name" student organizers and all who attended their event in support of peace.
I'm sure the nation's "first George W." would have been proud of yesterday's demonstration for a peaceful end to our aggressions, despite the current George W's inability to appreciate such displays.
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!"
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!"
Saturday, February 17, 2007
For the 3,200 U.S. troops in Afghanistan who learned this week they will not be coming home when their tours are completed, I truly sympathize.
Learning you've been given a four month extension on your tours is probably difficult for many of you to accept, especially coming from your Commander-in-Chief who could not manage to complete his own part-time assignment with a Texas Air National Guard champagne unit during the Vietnam war.
But take heart, president Bush has matured a lot since his military days. Now he not only completes tours, he extends 'em.
Learning you've been given a four month extension on your tours is probably difficult for many of you to accept, especially coming from your Commander-in-Chief who could not manage to complete his own part-time assignment with a Texas Air National Guard champagne unit during the Vietnam war.
But take heart, president Bush has matured a lot since his military days. Now he not only completes tours, he extends 'em.
Who needs truth when you can make up your own?
"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged." — President Abraham Lincoln.
Problem: Lincoln never said that.
This quote is sometimes used by Iraq war supporters like Diana Irey in her campaign against John Murtha last fall. (To her credit, after learning Lincoln did not say that, Irey retracted the quote and apologized.)
But what's the excuse for the latest abuse of Lincoln and what he did not say by Washington Times columnist, Frank Gaffney, Jr. as pointed out by Keith Olbermann on "Countdown" last night?
Perhaps, to quote Abraham Lincoln again, "Persons who willfully take actions during wartime to discredit those in opposition to war by suggesting they are saboteurs of the effort should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
NOTE: No, Lincoln did not say that either. Dada just said that. Point being, I admit it here, unlike conservative J. Michael Waller who originated the original misquote but, like the attitude so pervasive in the nation today, is not responsible. As Waller likes to tell us, the quotation marks attributing his quote to Lincoln are the fault of his editor who failed to remove them.
Problem: Lincoln never said that.
This quote is sometimes used by Iraq war supporters like Diana Irey in her campaign against John Murtha last fall. (To her credit, after learning Lincoln did not say that, Irey retracted the quote and apologized.)
But what's the excuse for the latest abuse of Lincoln and what he did not say by Washington Times columnist, Frank Gaffney, Jr. as pointed out by Keith Olbermann on "Countdown" last night?
Perhaps, to quote Abraham Lincoln again, "Persons who willfully take actions during wartime to discredit those in opposition to war by suggesting they are saboteurs of the effort should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
NOTE: No, Lincoln did not say that either. Dada just said that. Point being, I admit it here, unlike conservative J. Michael Waller who originated the original misquote but, like the attitude so pervasive in the nation today, is not responsible. As Waller likes to tell us, the quotation marks attributing his quote to Lincoln are the fault of his editor who failed to remove them.
A word of thanks....
....to Exxon Mobil for greatly reducing the price of gas before announcing their record 2006 profits which exceeded 2005's record busting profits by 9 percent!
In a brilliant stratagem, I beamed while filling my tank for a mere $1.88/gallon locally while Exxon and other oil companies undoubtedly were laughing their fat asses off.
Since Exxon's great profit report, the per gallon price of gas has risen 21 cents and the grumbling whenever I fill the tank has resumed.
Gee, no wonder Exxon refuses to invest in renewable technologies and has sold off its alternative energy holdings.
In a brilliant stratagem, I beamed while filling my tank for a mere $1.88/gallon locally while Exxon and other oil companies undoubtedly were laughing their fat asses off.
Since Exxon's great profit report, the per gallon price of gas has risen 21 cents and the grumbling whenever I fill the tank has resumed.
Gee, no wonder Exxon refuses to invest in renewable technologies and has sold off its alternative energy holdings.
More kudos....
....to all U.S. television stations that chose not to show us the land mine public service announcement.
Apparently TV has decided to spare us such unpleasant imagery, thus maintaining American's purity, dignity, and apathy through ignorance.
Save for the History Channel who ran it one time in the middle of the night, the Ottawa Treaty, which bans the development, manufacture, stockpiling or trade in terror-fying weapons that kill and maim 26,000 per year--mostly women and children, it's off our radar screens.
I guess one could make the case that 26,000 injured and dead from land mines is an insignificant drop in the bucket when we're busily engaged in killing hundreds of thousands in the middle east and don't give a shit about that either.
Apparently TV has decided to spare us such unpleasant imagery, thus maintaining American's purity, dignity, and apathy through ignorance.
Save for the History Channel who ran it one time in the middle of the night, the Ottawa Treaty, which bans the development, manufacture, stockpiling or trade in terror-fying weapons that kill and maim 26,000 per year--mostly women and children, it's off our radar screens.
I guess one could make the case that 26,000 injured and dead from land mines is an insignificant drop in the bucket when we're busily engaged in killing hundreds of thousands in the middle east and don't give a shit about that either.
Kudos - Warming the audience with humor at the expense of Truth....
....to Linda Wertheimer of National Public Radio for her remark spewed glibly during a broadcast from the deeply frozen Northeastern U.S.
"Sure no evidence of global warming here," she said, at once reinforcing what oil company scientists have been paid handsomely to tell us for years and reinforce The-Truth-According-To-Rush and other bubba conservatives.
"Sure no evidence of global warming here," she said, at once reinforcing what oil company scientists have been paid handsomely to tell us for years and reinforce The-Truth-According-To-Rush and other bubba conservatives.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
A few minutes rant about how sick I am of ranting.
After yesterday's blog which, with the graphic, took a couple of hours I suppose, I came away with a sense of satisfaction. This, despite knowing those who pass through here regularly, who take the time to read the blog, and/or leave a comment, are the "choir."
Lately, as a meager voice in the chamber, I've begun to feel all my singing, all our singing, is but some melodic resonance heard only by us, the members of the chorus. And, god, how good we sound--to us! But we're always rehearsing, never performing publicly, despite our best intentions.
Yesterday's simple graphic was a graphic born of love. It took an hour or two to track down images for some inspiration of an idea and "paint" them into a cohesive blog picture. Afterwards, I stepped back, studied it and, combined with the story of a sick president still stuck in some prepubescent nightly manipulation of model battleships in his bedtime bathtub war games of a lifelong egomaniacal "must have my way" manifestation on a global scale now endangering all of us on Earth, I was pleased.
But I'm only "singing to the choir." And, for all I know, the days I have remaining on this Earth may be numbered. Not by Nature and natural causes, not by global warming and all the people now reaping its wrath around the world as but a hint of better thing to come, but by some god-awful unnatural illegitimate bastardized aberration that now leads this country--and the world--into a future unknown, a future with potential dangers even these defiant nose-thumbing bastards can't foresee.
And so I question how I might better spend my time, the time I spend here raging against the machine--or rehearsing, always rehearsing, here in a chorus of beautiful voices that do just that--rehearse, but never publicly perform. And--as a result--I have vowed to back off, knowing that what I do here isn't worth the electrons written on these faux pages, dependent on some increasingly tenuous faith in them to reach the "congregation," or project these thoughts forward into the future.
Oh, I still enjoy blogging as a means of expressing myself. It's what I'm expressing that makes me weary. Yet, before I go quietly into a new direction (hopefully), I have a rant or two to express yet. So bear with me--hopefully--after that, the aesthetics herein will improve! (I think.)
Lately, as a meager voice in the chamber, I've begun to feel all my singing, all our singing, is but some melodic resonance heard only by us, the members of the chorus. And, god, how good we sound--to us! But we're always rehearsing, never performing publicly, despite our best intentions.
Yesterday's simple graphic was a graphic born of love. It took an hour or two to track down images for some inspiration of an idea and "paint" them into a cohesive blog picture. Afterwards, I stepped back, studied it and, combined with the story of a sick president still stuck in some prepubescent nightly manipulation of model battleships in his bedtime bathtub war games of a lifelong egomaniacal "must have my way" manifestation on a global scale now endangering all of us on Earth, I was pleased.
But I'm only "singing to the choir." And, for all I know, the days I have remaining on this Earth may be numbered. Not by Nature and natural causes, not by global warming and all the people now reaping its wrath around the world as but a hint of better thing to come, but by some god-awful unnatural illegitimate bastardized aberration that now leads this country--and the world--into a future unknown, a future with potential dangers even these defiant nose-thumbing bastards can't foresee.
And so I question how I might better spend my time, the time I spend here raging against the machine--or rehearsing, always rehearsing, here in a chorus of beautiful voices that do just that--rehearse, but never publicly perform. And--as a result--I have vowed to back off, knowing that what I do here isn't worth the electrons written on these faux pages, dependent on some increasingly tenuous faith in them to reach the "congregation," or project these thoughts forward into the future.
Oh, I still enjoy blogging as a means of expressing myself. It's what I'm expressing that makes me weary. Yet, before I go quietly into a new direction (hopefully), I have a rant or two to express yet. So bear with me--hopefully--after that, the aesthetics herein will improve! (I think.)
Sunday, February 11, 2007
"Oh the games people play."
Mimicking the president's nightly pre-bedtime war games, the world's mightiest navy, reinforced almost daily by aides sent to Toys-R-Us for more toy warships, grew and grew inside George Bush's Persian Gulf bathtub.
Shortly after his nightly challenging Wheel of Fortune, George announced, "I'm going to early bath, early bed," giving Pickles a good night pat on the top of the head.
After five months, Laura accepted her "wartime president" husband's newest obsession. She had taken to showering in a downstairs bath to avoid disturbing George's Gulf fleet movements.
But tonight's anticipation of infusing this newest carrier group--the third since last September--excited George. His almost orgasmic glee of enlarging his naval build-up in his nightly strategic bathtub war games had been difficult to conceal. It would, no doubt, scare the shit out of the Iranians.
George's baths had been bubbleless for months now, lest they obscure the menacing multiplying warships designed to instill fear.
Easing into the warm waters of his little Persian Gulf, George carefully unwrapped each of the newest toy warships and carefully placed them inside his Strait of Hormuz. In his excitement, George failed to notice the drop of spittle that fell onto the deck of his mini-atomic powered U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower, preventing its little F/A-18F Super Hornets from taking off or landing on its saliva slimed carrier deck.
As his fleet had grown over the past four and a half months, so had the length of Bush's baths. The bathtub was growing increasingly conjested with light cruisers, missile cruisers, battleships, submarines, destroyers, mine sweepers and his favorities, those behemoth aircraft carriers capable of raining down terror from the skies. George knew it would soon be time to put them to good use.
Putin of Russia was getting testy. Threatening even. And the Iranians were craftily avoiding George's provocations for war. Their nuclear program had been dropped as pretext to blow the shit out of the bastards. Even if they were developing nukes, it would be years. George didn't have the attention span nor time for such.
So George had changed plans. He would focus on the bomb materiel being exported to and used in Iraq. Inevitably he would corner the Iranians and provoke them to strike out at the Americans. "It will be a cakewalk," George heard him say gleefully to himself.
But at the same time as Bush was relishing in all his bathing beauty, the Iranian Minister of Defense, somewhere deep within the secret subterranean bowels of Tehran was reassuring his leadership against their increasing nervousness of the naval buildup in the Gulf. Adding little ships to a large bas-relief map of the Gulf, he wondered to himself, "Had his leaders never heard of America's General Custer?"
Raising a miniature model of a Sunburn missile before them he spoke. "Patience. Wait for more American ships to arrive. When they do," he said stroking his mini-missile with erotic like pleasure, "we will close the doors of Hormuz. The Americans will have no escape. Trying hard to conceal his ecstasy, he drooled, "It will be like shooting toy boats in a bathtub!"
Unnoticed went the excited Defense Minister's drop of spittle that fell atop the flight deck of America's little nuclear powered U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Just another Sunday morning serving of tequila sunrise and more MSM bullshit!
There's this picture in this morning's Sunday paper of a bunch of spent artillery shells recovered after being used in one of your normal, everyday run-of-the-mill Iraqi suicide bombings. The photo tells us the serial numbers and markings link the shells to Iran.But I prefer the picture of this morning's sunrise. Why? Because, unlike the photo in the Times, I will vouch for this picture's authenticity. That's because I just took it. I then uploaded it to the blog straight from the camera. I didn't arrange the clouds like the artillery shells, and I can't say with certainty where the sunrise originated or who's responsible. And probably most importantly, I'm not going to bomb the shit out of whoever's responsible for it.
But the article in this morning's Times goes on to say--quite seriously, "After weeks of preparation and revisions, U.S. officials are preparing to detail evidence supporting the administration's claims of Iran's meddlesome and deadly activities." (emphasis mine)
Mainstream media also tells us how haunted the administration is over "intelligence blunders about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction as the United States tries to document that Iran is providing lethal help to Iraqi fighters."
Well, as we've known for years now, Bush's Iraq war and the hundreds of thousands now dead as a result of it is all just total bullshit. So please MSM, spare me the illusions "mistakes" were made and we're now to believe Bush is trying to get his reasons for our next war right. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit! I guess you must think the American public is dumber than the media that beats Bush's drum for war for us.
And while I'm at it, does MSM tell us about Saudi Arabian Sunnis buying similar weapons now being used in Iraq? No, of course not, because we're not planning to invade Saudi Arabia.
Oh wait, we're not planning to invade Iran either. Tony snow told us (again) this past Thursday.
No, I prefer to look at my own unadulterated picture of this morning's sunrise instead of artillery shells lined up for an anti-Iran Bush photo op. And after we stop provoking Iran and start bombing Iran, a nation we've been assured we aren't planning to invade with Bush and Cheney in charge of whether "to Armageddon or not to Armageddon," I honestly don't know how many more sunrises like this morning's we have left. And I think, "That is the question."
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Aliens landing in El Paso
On February 21st there will be a memorial service held on Fort Bliss for its six troops from the 1st Calvary Brigade recently killed in Iraq.Coincidentally, February 21st is the same day the aliens intend to invade El Paso, landing at Fort Bliss at the very same time as the scheduled service for the lost soldiers.
It's really no coincidence at all. It's simply Fred Phelps' Westboro "Baptist"* army that carries on attacks from another planet located behind ten foot high security walls in Topeka, Kansas.
According to the El Paso Times quoting from the church's website, the soldiers "were slain by God Almighty, the Man of War, for enlisting and serving in a (homosexual) army and (homosexual) nation."
"This is the message, you simpletons: fight for a doomed nation, and you will suffer the consequences."
* As noted by the Southern Baptist Convention, any resemblance of Fred Phelps' "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist Church to that of an authentic Baptist church is purely coincidental.
Friday, February 09, 2007
It all depends on what your definition of "is" is!
Before we all get to sleeping better at night based on assurances of white house spokesman Tony Snow, it might wise if we analyze what he reiterated to the media again yesterday.
In today's paper, it was reported Tony Snow was quoted as saying, "We have NO plans to invade Iran."
But notice what Snow did NOT say. Snow did not say, "We have NO plans to provoke Iran."
Snow also did NOT say, "We have NO plans to bomb Iran."
Of these latter two, you know the administration is doing its damnest to provoke Iran so it can bomb Iran. And I pity the American troops in Iraq when we do.
If I were you, I would continue to "march," that is, I would continue to lose sleep. I know I am.
In today's paper, it was reported Tony Snow was quoted as saying, "We have NO plans to invade Iran."
But notice what Snow did NOT say. Snow did not say, "We have NO plans to provoke Iran."
Snow also did NOT say, "We have NO plans to bomb Iran."
Of these latter two, you know the administration is doing its damnest to provoke Iran so it can bomb Iran. And I pity the American troops in Iraq when we do.
If I were you, I would continue to "march," that is, I would continue to lose sleep. I know I am.
Next stop: HEAVEN! (Please have your Social Security cards ready.)
"We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge!"
Thursday, February 08, 2007
More than Anna Nicole Smith is slipping away from us!
It was interesting listening to Wolfe Blitzer discussing the (now) late Vickie Lynn Hogan's silicon breast implants this afternoon on CNN. (Ah, that would be Anna Nicole Smith to those of us not familiar with her real name--or breasts.)
Smith in recent months claimed a major portion of cable network channel's news with the birth of her daughter, father unknown, who lost her brother three days after her birth. Anna's newborn is now motherless as well.
But did you hear about the pipe bombs found in a Los Angeles aqueduct that supplies water to millions of people in Southern California that were discovered near a valve when the water level was lowered? Probably not.
While Smith's death at age 39 was sudden and unexpected, it was nice to absorb all the attention she so richly deserves now being heaped on her in the news. Among her accolades were those of Hugh Hefner who said, "I am very saddened to learn about Anna Nicole's passing. She was a dear friend who meant a great deal to the Playboy family and to me personally," leaving us to only imagine the source of Hef's fondness for Anna.
Others who will miss Smith, besides her new born daughter, of course, will include members of the mainstream media who found her a valuable distraction from real news and certain people in congress who insert little known provisions into laws passed late at night as we sleep. Provisions like the Patriot Act's reauthorization last year that changed the existing law to allow the attorney general (in this case, Alberto Gonzales) to appoint replacement U.S. Attorneys for an indefinite period of time whenever vacancies occur (as are now being forced upon unsuspecting government appointees by the Bush administration).
Condolences to the Smith family. With her loss, the layer between fluff and real news just got a little shallower, just like that L.A. aqueduct with the pipe bombs you likely won't hear about on the news.
(Note: Dada would like to lay to rest all rumors that Anna Nicole Smith will be laid to rest in Silicon Valley--just not true!)
Smith in recent months claimed a major portion of cable network channel's news with the birth of her daughter, father unknown, who lost her brother three days after her birth. Anna's newborn is now motherless as well.
But did you hear about the pipe bombs found in a Los Angeles aqueduct that supplies water to millions of people in Southern California that were discovered near a valve when the water level was lowered? Probably not.
While Smith's death at age 39 was sudden and unexpected, it was nice to absorb all the attention she so richly deserves now being heaped on her in the news. Among her accolades were those of Hugh Hefner who said, "I am very saddened to learn about Anna Nicole's passing. She was a dear friend who meant a great deal to the Playboy family and to me personally," leaving us to only imagine the source of Hef's fondness for Anna.
Others who will miss Smith, besides her new born daughter, of course, will include members of the mainstream media who found her a valuable distraction from real news and certain people in congress who insert little known provisions into laws passed late at night as we sleep. Provisions like the Patriot Act's reauthorization last year that changed the existing law to allow the attorney general (in this case, Alberto Gonzales) to appoint replacement U.S. Attorneys for an indefinite period of time whenever vacancies occur (as are now being forced upon unsuspecting government appointees by the Bush administration).
Condolences to the Smith family. With her loss, the layer between fluff and real news just got a little shallower, just like that L.A. aqueduct with the pipe bombs you likely won't hear about on the news.
(Note: Dada would like to lay to rest all rumors that Anna Nicole Smith will be laid to rest in Silicon Valley--just not true!)
Sam's Plea
Sammy Cincos in front of his sign which reads, "Alto A La Agression,"which in English means, "Pleeease! Somebody give me a cookie!"
Today I'm going to take time out to give Sammy a good brushing
and bath. To make sure he's protected from unnecessary wants
and needs, I'll be using a heavy duty plea shampoo.
and bath. To make sure he's protected from unnecessary wants
and needs, I'll be using a heavy duty plea shampoo.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Dada's dream (No. 37)
(Sometime in the very near future.)The last bald eagle on Earth has died. America's national symbol since 1792 is now officially extinct.
The bald eagle, on the brink of extinction earlier, had been on the endangered species list, but its comeback to 14,000 in number by early 2007 under the protection of that act, warranted its removal from that list. The eagles were then transferred to the less vigilant Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
Protection of the bald eagle then came down to George Bush and how his administration defined one word -- "disturb" -- because under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act it is illegal to disturb such a bird under the law.
Bush and Alberto Gonzales, his attorney general, decided disturbing a bald eagle would be defined as"causing permanent organ damage or loss of life" of a bird.
As more and more new building expansion overtook bald eagle lands, developers observed the eagles closely. They reported there was no permanent organ damage or loss of life observed due to new homes and shopping malls. But sadly eagle populations began to decline again until reaching a point of no return.
This past Monday in New Jersey, the last surviving bald eagle, "Uncle Sam," an eleven year old male was found on a roadside, its remains being eaten by vultures.
Many Americans, saddened by this news, are speculating whether the national symbol's extinction might not be an omen for the future of the country.
Meanwhile, John McCain has already placed a motion before the senate to consider replacing the bald eagle as our national symbol with a vulture. As McCain noted, vultures are plentiful. "They live off the carnage of the weak, dying and dead of the world and there will always be plenty of that so long as America remains strong."
It can't happen here (or my ship came in but the dock workers were on strike!)
(NOTE: Today's blog is entirely too long. You don't have time to read it. Please skip it. It's just a sketch of economic collapse we know can't happen in the U.S. anyway.)
Washington, D.C. Feb. 6 — For close to seven years, the U.S. economy and quality of life have been in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, but with one notable difference: the pace is no longer so slow.
Budget cuts in education and rising school fees due to taxpayer revolts against local taxes may force many U.S. children to learn at home.
Indeed, the U.S. economic descent has picked up so much speed that president George Bush, the nation’s leader for 6 years, is even starting to lose the blind support of his own party.
In recent weeks, the Department of Energy has warned of a collapse of electrical service. The recent breakdown in water treatment set off the cholera outbreak in Washington D.C. in early December.
All public services were cut off in Baltimore, a city of 650,000 in north-central Maryland, after the city ran out of money to fix broken equipment. Just a hundred miles up the interstate in Philadelphia, electricity is supplied only four days a week.
The government awarded all civil servants a 300 percent raise two weeks ago. But the increase is only a fraction of the inflation rate, so the nation’s teachers are staging a work slowdown for more money.
Despite these raises, measured by the black-market value of the U.S.'s ragtag currency, the dollar, even their new salaries now total less than 137 Euros a month.
Doctors and nurses have been on strike for five weeks, seeking a pay increase of nearly 9,000 percent, and health care is all but nonexistent. Washington D.C.'s police chief warned in a recently leaked memo that if rank-and-file officers did not get a substantial raise, they might riot.
In the past eight months, “there’s been a huge collapse in living standards,” the editor of the Washington Post newspaper said in a telephone interview, “and also a deterioration in the infrastructure — in standards of health care, in education. There’s a sort of sense that things are plunging.”
President Bush's fortunes appear to have dimmed as well. In January, his republican supporters that have traditionally bowed to his will, and with their backing from the Christian Coalition of America, balked at supporting a constitutional amendment that would have extended Bush's term of office indefinitely. The rebuff exposed a fissure in the party, between president Bush's hard-line backers led by Pat Robertson, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and others who fear he has brought their nation to the brink of collapse.
The trigger of this crisis — hyperinflation — reached an annual rate of 1,281 percent last month, and has been near or over 1,000 percent since last April. Hyperinflation has bankrupted the government, left 8 in 10 citizens destitute and decimated the country’s factories and farms.
Pay increases have so utterly failed to keep pace with price increases that some Washington civil servants and lobbyists now complain that bus fare to and from work consumes their entire salaries.
Citing a leaked Federal Reserve bank document, Reuters reported Tuesday that prices of basic items like meat, cooking oil and clothes had risen 223 percent in the past week alone.
Soaring costs have made it impossible for both national and local governments to meet budgets and for businesses to afford raw materials, while subsidies for basic commodities have drained the government treasury and promoted more corruption.
Seeking to revive farm production, for example, the government sells gasoline to farmers at a bargain rate of 330 dollars per gallon — and farmers promptly resell it on the black market for 10 times that, leaving their fields idle.
Bush, who blames an Iranian plot against him for America's problems, has rejected all calls for economic reform. The government refuses to devalue the dollar, which fetches only 5 to 10 percent of its official value on the thriving black market. As a result, foreign exchange to buy crucial imported goods like Toyotas and Chinese manufactured American flags has effectively dried up.
Despite acceptable rains, one Venezuelan international aid official said the U.S.'s corn crop is currently lagging behind last year’s — which was among the worst in history. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the assessment had not been made public in the United States.
The Federal Reserve's latest response to these problems announced this week with the backing of president Bush, was to declare inflation illegal. From March 1 to June 30, anyone who raises prices or wages will be arrested and punished. Only a “firm social contract” to end corruption and restructure the economy will bring an end to the crisis, said Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke.
The speech by Chairman Bernanke, who is a favorite of president Bush, was broadcast nationally. In downtown Washington, D.C., the last half was blacked out by a power failure.
Sixty years old, wily and defiant as ever, president Bush has survived both international condemnation and domestic indignation and rage before.
Efforts to suppress dissent are rising: in recent weeks, trade union officials were seriously injured in police beatings, arsonists burned the homes of leading pro-democracy activists, congressman Dennis Kucinich and Cindy Sheehan while church leaders were arrested as they met to discuss the rising economic crisis threatening to tear the already deeply divided nation into multiple warring factions .
Foreign journalists remain barred from the country under threat of imprisonment, and harassment of domestic journalists has sharply increased.
But hyperinflation is eroding the government’s control over every aspect of public life and, by extension, over its own future.
“It’s out of control now, and they have to bring it back in control,” said Keith Olberman, host of MSNBC's nighly show "Countdown" and frequent critic of government policies. “We’re reaching the steepest slopes of the process. Bush says he can fix prices, but the things that cause price increases come from so many different directions that the government can’t control them all.”
That growing loss of control is apparent. The black market, which already flourishes beyond the reach of tax collectors and regulators, is likely to grab an even larger share of the economy when the government freezes prices in March, because stores will be unable to make a profit selling products at government-fixed prices.
Problems with water and power supplies have become acute because of a lack of foreign exchange and salaries for workers; a wave of blackouts hit the nation early last month when 10,000 electrical workers walked out to protest low pay.
The U.S.'s democratic political opposition has failed for years to mount an effective work stoppage to protest living conditions. But public workers, the bedrock of government support, this year have begun to walk off the job because there is no longer enough money to pay them a living wage.
The average teacher, for example, earns barely one-fourth of the salary needed to keep a family of four out of poverty. The military, unhappy with January’s 300 percent pay hike, is seeking 1,000 percent. It's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now refuse to go out on patrols. American G.I.'s in Germany can no longer afford to buy German beer, an economic spinoff that has Germanany's Finance Minister frothing.
The growing number of strikes also has emboldened Trade Unions, a center of opposition to president Bush, to make their own plans for a general work stoppage.
“People of America tend to be resilient,” said Jamal Jafari, an analyst for the Washington-based International Crisis Group, which monitors political risks worldwide. “But that having been said, what has to be the scariest statistic for our government is the fact that large sectors of the civil service and the military are far below the poverty line. They simply can’t raise salaries fast enough.”
Mr. Jafari and some political and economic analysts say they now believe that the U.S. faces a political showdown within months, as the governing bodies wrangle over whether to grant president Bush an indefinite term in office or to put less radical members of the government in power.
Few expect a democratic revolution; the one rival party, the Democrats, is riven by splits, systematically suppressed by the government and without an effective leader. Regardless, these experts say, by failing to arrest this accelerating decline, the U.S. is edging toward a day of political reckoning that years of diplomatic jawboning and political jockeying have failed to produce.
For the government, “the big problem about the U.S. is that the one thing you can’t rig is the economy,” said one Washington political analyst, who refused to be identified for fear of being executed. “When it fails, it fails. And that can have unpredictable effects.”
(Attribute: Michael Wines, The NY Times As Inflation Soars, Zimbabwe Economy Plunges NOTE: Much of this story of Zimbabwe remains intact as written by its author, with words Mugabe, Zimbabwe, Harare, being substituted with Bush, United States or U.S., Washington, D.C., etc. with the intention this is to be taken as parody, seriously. If you think it might not happen here you're probably right. Maybe.)
Washington, D.C. Feb. 6 — For close to seven years, the U.S. economy and quality of life have been in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, but with one notable difference: the pace is no longer so slow.
Budget cuts in education and rising school fees due to taxpayer revolts against local taxes may force many U.S. children to learn at home.
Indeed, the U.S. economic descent has picked up so much speed that president George Bush, the nation’s leader for 6 years, is even starting to lose the blind support of his own party.
In recent weeks, the Department of Energy has warned of a collapse of electrical service. The recent breakdown in water treatment set off the cholera outbreak in Washington D.C. in early December.
All public services were cut off in Baltimore, a city of 650,000 in north-central Maryland, after the city ran out of money to fix broken equipment. Just a hundred miles up the interstate in Philadelphia, electricity is supplied only four days a week.
The government awarded all civil servants a 300 percent raise two weeks ago. But the increase is only a fraction of the inflation rate, so the nation’s teachers are staging a work slowdown for more money.
Despite these raises, measured by the black-market value of the U.S.'s ragtag currency, the dollar, even their new salaries now total less than 137 Euros a month.
Doctors and nurses have been on strike for five weeks, seeking a pay increase of nearly 9,000 percent, and health care is all but nonexistent. Washington D.C.'s police chief warned in a recently leaked memo that if rank-and-file officers did not get a substantial raise, they might riot.
In the past eight months, “there’s been a huge collapse in living standards,” the editor of the Washington Post newspaper said in a telephone interview, “and also a deterioration in the infrastructure — in standards of health care, in education. There’s a sort of sense that things are plunging.”
President Bush's fortunes appear to have dimmed as well. In January, his republican supporters that have traditionally bowed to his will, and with their backing from the Christian Coalition of America, balked at supporting a constitutional amendment that would have extended Bush's term of office indefinitely. The rebuff exposed a fissure in the party, between president Bush's hard-line backers led by Pat Robertson, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and others who fear he has brought their nation to the brink of collapse.
The trigger of this crisis — hyperinflation — reached an annual rate of 1,281 percent last month, and has been near or over 1,000 percent since last April. Hyperinflation has bankrupted the government, left 8 in 10 citizens destitute and decimated the country’s factories and farms.
Pay increases have so utterly failed to keep pace with price increases that some Washington civil servants and lobbyists now complain that bus fare to and from work consumes their entire salaries.
Citing a leaked Federal Reserve bank document, Reuters reported Tuesday that prices of basic items like meat, cooking oil and clothes had risen 223 percent in the past week alone.
Soaring costs have made it impossible for both national and local governments to meet budgets and for businesses to afford raw materials, while subsidies for basic commodities have drained the government treasury and promoted more corruption.
Seeking to revive farm production, for example, the government sells gasoline to farmers at a bargain rate of 330 dollars per gallon — and farmers promptly resell it on the black market for 10 times that, leaving their fields idle.
Bush, who blames an Iranian plot against him for America's problems, has rejected all calls for economic reform. The government refuses to devalue the dollar, which fetches only 5 to 10 percent of its official value on the thriving black market. As a result, foreign exchange to buy crucial imported goods like Toyotas and Chinese manufactured American flags has effectively dried up.
Despite acceptable rains, one Venezuelan international aid official said the U.S.'s corn crop is currently lagging behind last year’s — which was among the worst in history. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the assessment had not been made public in the United States.
The Federal Reserve's latest response to these problems announced this week with the backing of president Bush, was to declare inflation illegal. From March 1 to June 30, anyone who raises prices or wages will be arrested and punished. Only a “firm social contract” to end corruption and restructure the economy will bring an end to the crisis, said Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke.
The speech by Chairman Bernanke, who is a favorite of president Bush, was broadcast nationally. In downtown Washington, D.C., the last half was blacked out by a power failure.
Sixty years old, wily and defiant as ever, president Bush has survived both international condemnation and domestic indignation and rage before.
Efforts to suppress dissent are rising: in recent weeks, trade union officials were seriously injured in police beatings, arsonists burned the homes of leading pro-democracy activists, congressman Dennis Kucinich and Cindy Sheehan while church leaders were arrested as they met to discuss the rising economic crisis threatening to tear the already deeply divided nation into multiple warring factions .
Foreign journalists remain barred from the country under threat of imprisonment, and harassment of domestic journalists has sharply increased.
But hyperinflation is eroding the government’s control over every aspect of public life and, by extension, over its own future.
“It’s out of control now, and they have to bring it back in control,” said Keith Olberman, host of MSNBC's nighly show "Countdown" and frequent critic of government policies. “We’re reaching the steepest slopes of the process. Bush says he can fix prices, but the things that cause price increases come from so many different directions that the government can’t control them all.”
That growing loss of control is apparent. The black market, which already flourishes beyond the reach of tax collectors and regulators, is likely to grab an even larger share of the economy when the government freezes prices in March, because stores will be unable to make a profit selling products at government-fixed prices.
Problems with water and power supplies have become acute because of a lack of foreign exchange and salaries for workers; a wave of blackouts hit the nation early last month when 10,000 electrical workers walked out to protest low pay.
The U.S.'s democratic political opposition has failed for years to mount an effective work stoppage to protest living conditions. But public workers, the bedrock of government support, this year have begun to walk off the job because there is no longer enough money to pay them a living wage.
The average teacher, for example, earns barely one-fourth of the salary needed to keep a family of four out of poverty. The military, unhappy with January’s 300 percent pay hike, is seeking 1,000 percent. It's troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now refuse to go out on patrols. American G.I.'s in Germany can no longer afford to buy German beer, an economic spinoff that has Germanany's Finance Minister frothing.
The growing number of strikes also has emboldened Trade Unions, a center of opposition to president Bush, to make their own plans for a general work stoppage.
“People of America tend to be resilient,” said Jamal Jafari, an analyst for the Washington-based International Crisis Group, which monitors political risks worldwide. “But that having been said, what has to be the scariest statistic for our government is the fact that large sectors of the civil service and the military are far below the poverty line. They simply can’t raise salaries fast enough.”
Mr. Jafari and some political and economic analysts say they now believe that the U.S. faces a political showdown within months, as the governing bodies wrangle over whether to grant president Bush an indefinite term in office or to put less radical members of the government in power.
Few expect a democratic revolution; the one rival party, the Democrats, is riven by splits, systematically suppressed by the government and without an effective leader. Regardless, these experts say, by failing to arrest this accelerating decline, the U.S. is edging toward a day of political reckoning that years of diplomatic jawboning and political jockeying have failed to produce.
For the government, “the big problem about the U.S. is that the one thing you can’t rig is the economy,” said one Washington political analyst, who refused to be identified for fear of being executed. “When it fails, it fails. And that can have unpredictable effects.”
(Attribute: Michael Wines, The NY Times As Inflation Soars, Zimbabwe Economy Plunges NOTE: Much of this story of Zimbabwe remains intact as written by its author, with words Mugabe, Zimbabwe, Harare, being substituted with Bush, United States or U.S., Washington, D.C., etc. with the intention this is to be taken as parody, seriously. If you think it might not happen here you're probably right. Maybe.)
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Riding with Huey Newton
I received a request from a friend in Taos, NM who doesn't have a computer (as mentioned in my blog this past weekend) to send a few of my blogs to read. It is with that request in mind I went in search of something to send her. My apologies, but below is the first entry ever entered on this blog in June, 2005, after it's initial dedication entry to our very beloved, departed greyhound, Cooper, for whom this whole effort was begun.
I reprint it here as historical, yet still very pertinent, for all Americans in light of Bush's recent State of the Union and even more recent 2008 budget.
Here then, from Saturday, June 18, 2005......
***********
With the advent of Juneteenth, I was reminded of the first time I wore my Black Panther Party, "The struggle continues" tee-shirt (from Urban Profile) out in public a couple of months ago.
While adorning it, stopped at a red light, Huey Newton scared the shit outta me when he suddenly appeared in the passenger's seat beside me. He wasn't wearing his seat belt. In place of it was a broad leather belt across his chest holding shot gun cartridges. He reminded me of Pancho Villa.
Smiling, he turned to me and spoke. "There's a huge majority of you rapidly becoming the new minority of this country," Huey said, extending a pack of Marlboros in my direction.
That sounded a little strange to me, but I thought about it til the car behind me honked, signaling the light change.
"For Christ's sake, hide that shotgun! You wanna get us both busted!" I pleaded.
Emptiness once more overtook me as I glanced over at his fading smile--and shotgun. I'd have to do the shopping alone sans armed escort.
It was somewhere in front of the butcherless Wal-Mart meat counter before I got to the beef of what Huey had said. No longer just a racial struggle of thug booted cops in black and brown neighborhoods, it's now blacks, browns, Muslims, uninsured, under-insured, poor whites, the middle class, teachers, the sick, atheists, unions, soldiers, retirees, veterans, young folk, immigrants and aliens, librarians, soldier's families, United Airline employees, Wal-Mart butchers (whoops, forgot, they're "extinct" for organizing) etc., etc. under assault. (My apologies to anyone left out--it wasn't an all inclusive list).
So I guess I'll pause a moment tomorrow to remember the significance of June 19th; and be reminded "The Struggle Continues" as Huey so nicely put it. Maybe I'll wander down to Wal-Mart; ask to speak to the butcher.
I reprint it here as historical, yet still very pertinent, for all Americans in light of Bush's recent State of the Union and even more recent 2008 budget.
Here then, from Saturday, June 18, 2005......
***********
With the advent of Juneteenth, I was reminded of the first time I wore my Black Panther Party, "The struggle continues" tee-shirt (from Urban Profile) out in public a couple of months ago.
While adorning it, stopped at a red light, Huey Newton scared the shit outta me when he suddenly appeared in the passenger's seat beside me. He wasn't wearing his seat belt. In place of it was a broad leather belt across his chest holding shot gun cartridges. He reminded me of Pancho Villa.
Smiling, he turned to me and spoke. "There's a huge majority of you rapidly becoming the new minority of this country," Huey said, extending a pack of Marlboros in my direction.
That sounded a little strange to me, but I thought about it til the car behind me honked, signaling the light change.
"For Christ's sake, hide that shotgun! You wanna get us both busted!" I pleaded.
Emptiness once more overtook me as I glanced over at his fading smile--and shotgun. I'd have to do the shopping alone sans armed escort.
It was somewhere in front of the butcherless Wal-Mart meat counter before I got to the beef of what Huey had said. No longer just a racial struggle of thug booted cops in black and brown neighborhoods, it's now blacks, browns, Muslims, uninsured, under-insured, poor whites, the middle class, teachers, the sick, atheists, unions, soldiers, retirees, veterans, young folk, immigrants and aliens, librarians, soldier's families, United Airline employees, Wal-Mart butchers (whoops, forgot, they're "extinct" for organizing) etc., etc. under assault. (My apologies to anyone left out--it wasn't an all inclusive list).
So I guess I'll pause a moment tomorrow to remember the significance of June 19th; and be reminded "The Struggle Continues" as Huey so nicely put it. Maybe I'll wander down to Wal-Mart; ask to speak to the butcher.
The America We Deserve, pt. 37 (or is this pt. 38?)
This is the lead story in today's paper. The headline reads, "How Bush wants to spend $2.9 trillion." I'm sure it's basically the same story running in paper's across the nation today.
In it we learn, "President Bush proposed deep cuts to federal health-care, education and transportation programs, searching for new money in the federal budget to pay for increasingly costly defense programs and the war in Iraq."
The article went on to say the president's budget "calls for saving $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments, and for limiting eligibility in the State Children's Health Insurance Program...as the nation spends $141.7 billion next year on fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Gee, I'm surprised at the insouciance of the press and the audacity of the administration in that Bush seems to be saying, "Fuck the elderly and fuck the infirm. Screw the poor, the uninsured, and the children.
I don't expect there'll be any outrage in the MSM at forgoing things like healthcare, education and aid to those in need to build bombs that'll kill people and boost the profits of the military-industrial complex.
We're spending hundreds of billions in a war on terrorism that's buying us more and more terrorists to plot against us from without while the terrorists in Washington, D.C. are terrorizing us from within. And it's coming at a cost we can ill afford.
Is it to late to regain the nation Americans deserve? Maybe. Or, just maybe we already have it.
In it we learn, "President Bush proposed deep cuts to federal health-care, education and transportation programs, searching for new money in the federal budget to pay for increasingly costly defense programs and the war in Iraq."
The article went on to say the president's budget "calls for saving $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments, and for limiting eligibility in the State Children's Health Insurance Program...as the nation spends $141.7 billion next year on fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Gee, I'm surprised at the insouciance of the press and the audacity of the administration in that Bush seems to be saying, "Fuck the elderly and fuck the infirm. Screw the poor, the uninsured, and the children.
I don't expect there'll be any outrage in the MSM at forgoing things like healthcare, education and aid to those in need to build bombs that'll kill people and boost the profits of the military-industrial complex.
We're spending hundreds of billions in a war on terrorism that's buying us more and more terrorists to plot against us from without while the terrorists in Washington, D.C. are terrorizing us from within. And it's coming at a cost we can ill afford.
Is it to late to regain the nation Americans deserve? Maybe. Or, just maybe we already have it.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Quote of the Day
"We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people." ~ Majority Leader Harry Reid after Republicans blocked a full-fledged Senate debate over Iraq Monday on the Democratic majority's nonbinding resolution on escalating U.S. troops in Iraq.
Apparently minority republicans are still setting the agenda for the democratically controlled senate. While admirable, perhaps democrats could learn something from those republicans who don't control the senate on how democrats might control the senate during those times they actually do!
(NOTE TO DEMOCRATS: Americans didn't vote in November for NONBINDING resolutions denouncing Bush's wars. Americans voted to end Bush's fucking wars!)
Apparently minority republicans are still setting the agenda for the democratically controlled senate. While admirable, perhaps democrats could learn something from those republicans who don't control the senate on how democrats might control the senate during those times they actually do!
(NOTE TO DEMOCRATS: Americans didn't vote in November for NONBINDING resolutions denouncing Bush's wars. Americans voted to end Bush's fucking wars!)
Good luck, Ehren Watada!
Lt. Ehren Watada, going on trial this week for refusing to obey an order, was described by MSNBC as "an exemplary soldier until he refused to go to Iraq."
Well, I disagree with MSNBC's subtle editorizing in claiming Lt. Watada's exemplary behavior as a soldier ended the day he refused to follow an order he considered immoral and illegal.
On the contrary, Lt. Watada's model as a soldier was amplified the day he defied his orders. It's an example for every brave soldier of conscience to consider when confronted with similar orders.
This past week, Mrs. Dada and I went to see the movie, "Pan's Labyrinth." I found an intense scene worth the price of admission. It occurred between a Spanish army captain and his civilian doctor, and the most powerful line in all that movie came from this doctor, spoken to his captain. It was,
"But captain, to obey for obey's sake ... that's something only people like you do."
I think those are words worthy of every soldier's consideration when given questionable orders.
As a soldier once myself, I can attest it's what every one of us was taught in our most basic training. It was drilled into us, over and over. But it takes a rare soldier to believe it, a braver soldier to stand up for it and the most courageous ones to act on it. For that I say, "Kudos, Lieutenant Watada! I would have been proud to serve under your leadership!"
If more soldiers had the courage now being demonstrated by Ehren Watada, it's possible such atrocities like Iraq could be prevented or greatly lessened.
Certainly, if mankind is to survive as a species, we need a hell of a lot more courageous Lieutenant Watadas to stand up, look our misguided leadership in the face, stare it down and defy it!
Well, I disagree with MSNBC's subtle editorizing in claiming Lt. Watada's exemplary behavior as a soldier ended the day he refused to follow an order he considered immoral and illegal.
On the contrary, Lt. Watada's model as a soldier was amplified the day he defied his orders. It's an example for every brave soldier of conscience to consider when confronted with similar orders.
This past week, Mrs. Dada and I went to see the movie, "Pan's Labyrinth." I found an intense scene worth the price of admission. It occurred between a Spanish army captain and his civilian doctor, and the most powerful line in all that movie came from this doctor, spoken to his captain. It was,
"But captain, to obey for obey's sake ... that's something only people like you do."
I think those are words worthy of every soldier's consideration when given questionable orders.
As a soldier once myself, I can attest it's what every one of us was taught in our most basic training. It was drilled into us, over and over. But it takes a rare soldier to believe it, a braver soldier to stand up for it and the most courageous ones to act on it. For that I say, "Kudos, Lieutenant Watada! I would have been proud to serve under your leadership!"
If more soldiers had the courage now being demonstrated by Ehren Watada, it's possible such atrocities like Iraq could be prevented or greatly lessened.
Certainly, if mankind is to survive as a species, we need a hell of a lot more courageous Lieutenant Watadas to stand up, look our misguided leadership in the face, stare it down and defy it!
Getting the America all Americans deserve!
"Bush’s Budget Expected to Reduce
Medicare Spending,"
Jan. 29, 2007
"Bush Plan Seeks Billions More for Iraq,"
Feb. 5, 2007
"President Bush...warned Saturday that unless programs like Medicare and Social Security are changed, future generations will face tax hikes, government red ink or huge cuts in benefits." ~AP, 2/4/07
But Bush would like to thank each and every American alive at this very moment for contributing $800 apiece for his latest "surge" in Iraq!
"Man, your pockets are bottomless, y'all are so generous!" Bush seems to be telling us, as congress, "Tsk, tsks," nonbindingly, Bush's latest escalation.
I truly am looking forward to getting to know fellow citizens more intimately as we huddle for shelter under a freeway overpass in the not so distant future! Yes, we truly are getting the America we all so richly deserve!
But Bush would like to thank each and every American alive at this very moment for contributing $800 apiece for his latest "surge" in Iraq!
"Man, your pockets are bottomless, y'all are so generous!" Bush seems to be telling us, as congress, "Tsk, tsks," nonbindingly, Bush's latest escalation.
I truly am looking forward to getting to know fellow citizens more intimately as we huddle for shelter under a freeway overpass in the not so distant future! Yes, we truly are getting the America we all so richly deserve!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
"So What Next?" or "Man at the Crossroads" or "I Paint What I See"
"Man at the Crossroads," Diego Rivera, 1933In a comment made to a blog here yesterday describing the flippant quicksand mentality of our leadership in the face of hundreds of thousands of marchers last weekend against Bush's war escalation of unending deaths now under way in Iraq, Enigma of Watergate Summer asked "So what next?" It was a good question borne out of frustration at our government's ongoing non-responsiveness to the vox populi.
Well, in that I have no answer to Enigma's poignant question, I did find amusement in another event that happened around the same time Enigma asked it. Was it a synchronicity, one of those chance occurrences when two or more seemingly unrelated events occur together, the conjunction of which taken collectively, hint at an answer to a question? In this case, Enigma's, "So what next?" Nah, probably not. But yet, because these two unrelated things occurred around the same time, I'll relate the other next.
See, we received a phone call yesterday from a dear friend in Taos, NM. She doesn't have a computer and was in need of retrieving an old poem that had come to mind. Trying desperately to recall it, she wondered if, given a line or two, we could help her find it on the Web.
In a few seconds we had located the requested poem. It was written by E.B.White and is entitled, "I Paint What I See." While I really enjoyed the poem inspired by Mexican artist Diego Rivera's mural that was destroyed in early 1934 by its commissioner, Nelson Rockefeller, it wasn't until this morning I connected it with Enigma's question, "So what next?"
The history of the mural sited in NY City's RCA Building relates a difference of opinion that developed between Rivera and Nelson Rockefeller over its content.
It seems that Rivera, in portraying the struggle of the working masses, had included Lenin in the mural. (Not the Beatle, John Lennon who was not yet born, but rather the communist, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the 1918 Russian revolution.)
According to Wikipedia, Rivera was not the Rockefeller artist of choice for the project. But Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were both unavailable. So the Rockefellers went with Nelson Rockfeller's mother's choice, Rivera, whom we are told was one of her favorite artists.
(NOTE: It's not clear, after the mural revealed Rivera's radical concern for "The People" and his leftist leanings, whether or not Mrs. Rockefeller was taken out back and shot for being a fucking Communist. There is no evidence of this. ~Dada)
So what follows is E.B.White's poem as relates to the mural. Fortunately for all of us, after Rockefeller's destruction of the original, Diego Rivera recreated this work in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. It was retitled "Man, Controller of the Universe." (Whether or not in tribute to Nelson Rockefeller's power to destroy great works of art, I'm not sure. )
But whether or not a Taoseña's request for the poem about this painting, "Man at the Crossroads" and Enigma's question "So what next?" of a government seemingly unresponsive to its citizens is some kind of vague cosmic clue towards an answer, I don't know. Probably not.
But I do know it's Super Bowl Sunday and I should probably cut the wild speculation about cosmic coincidence and get back to the distractions like watching the hordes of anesthetizing new commercials industry has paid millions of dollars to dazzle us with during today's game.
Here then, is the poem:
I Paint What I See
-- by E.B. White
'What do you paint, when you paint on a wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you paint just anything there at all?
'Will there be any doves, or a tree in fall?
'Or a hunting scene, like an English hall?'
'I paint what I see,' said Rivera.
'What are the colors you use when you paint?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you use any red in the beard of a saint?
'If you do, is it terribly red, or faint?
'Do you use any blue? Is it Prussian?'
'I paint what I paint,' said Rivera.
'Whose is that head that I see on the wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Is it anyone's head whom we know, at all?
'A Rensselaer, or a Saltonstall?
'Is it Franklin D.? Is it Mordaunt Hall?
Or is it the head of a Russian?
'I paint what I think,' said Rivera.
'I paint what I paint, I paint what I see,
'I paint what I think,' said Rivera,
'And the thing that is dearest in life to me
'In a bourgeois hall is Integrity;
'However . . .
'I'll take out a couple of people drinkin'
'And put in a picture of Abraham Lincoln;
'I could even give you McCormick's reaper
'And still not make my art much cheaper.
'But the head of Lenin has got to stay
'Or my friends will give the bird today,
'The bird, the bird, forever.'
'It's not good taste in a man like me,'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson,
'To question an artist's integrity
'Or mention a practical thing like a fee,
'But I know what I like to a large degree,
'Though art I hate to hamper;
'For twenty-one thousand conservative bucks
'You painted a radical. I say shucks,
'I never could rent the offices-----
'The capitalistic offices.
'For this, as you know, is a public hall
'And people want doves, or a tree in hall
'And though your art I dislike to hamper,
'I owe a little to God and Gramper,
'And after all,
'It's my wall . . .'
'We'll see if it is,' said Rivera.
Bill McDannell's "Walk to End the War" update, or how your reputation can precede you.
I just came from Bill McDannell's journal. He's the fellow walking from San Diego to D.C. that Mrs. Dada and I met up with last week. Bill is gathering signatures on a petition as he crosses the country on foot to present to our leaders in one more way to try to get them to listen to the majority of Americans who want out of these endless insane wars.
I thought Bill might not mind if I paste a bit of his latest entry herein:
Yesterday was a mixed bag. Since there was a motel in Fort Hancock I figured I could stay there for the night and leave from there in the morning, which is in fact what I did. Trouble was, It was both the worst motel and one of the highest room rates I've encountered to date. You know the kind - rooms reeking of disinfectant, pillows the thickness of pancakes, a heating system that sounded like a semi roaring through the room, six TV channels - four of them in Spanish. I felt thoroughly ripped off.
I went across the street to the local diner - Angie's Restaurant ("Home of the Chicken Fried Steak") and ordered a cheeseburger for supper. The waitress asked me if she hadn't seen me walking on the road earlier. I told her she probably did. "Are you the man walking from San Diego to Washington?" she asked. I told her I was. While I was eating my cheeseburger I heard her talking to some people in the other room. She was speaking Spanish, but every once in a while I heard her say, "San Diego" so I figured she was talking about me.
When I finished and went to pay the bill, the cashier said, "You're the guy walking to Washington to try to get our troops home, aren't you?" I said, "Yes, ma'am - I am." She said, "It's on the house. I hope you're able to do some good." It really struck me. I stammered out a thank you. She said, "No - thank you. Good luck and stay safe, OK?" I promised her I would. It's the first time something like that has happened to me. It made up for the fleabag motel.
I thought Bill might not mind if I paste a bit of his latest entry herein:
Yesterday was a mixed bag. Since there was a motel in Fort Hancock I figured I could stay there for the night and leave from there in the morning, which is in fact what I did. Trouble was, It was both the worst motel and one of the highest room rates I've encountered to date. You know the kind - rooms reeking of disinfectant, pillows the thickness of pancakes, a heating system that sounded like a semi roaring through the room, six TV channels - four of them in Spanish. I felt thoroughly ripped off.
I went across the street to the local diner - Angie's Restaurant ("Home of the Chicken Fried Steak") and ordered a cheeseburger for supper. The waitress asked me if she hadn't seen me walking on the road earlier. I told her she probably did. "Are you the man walking from San Diego to Washington?" she asked. I told her I was. While I was eating my cheeseburger I heard her talking to some people in the other room. She was speaking Spanish, but every once in a while I heard her say, "San Diego" so I figured she was talking about me.
When I finished and went to pay the bill, the cashier said, "You're the guy walking to Washington to try to get our troops home, aren't you?" I said, "Yes, ma'am - I am." She said, "It's on the house. I hope you're able to do some good." It really struck me. I stammered out a thank you. She said, "No - thank you. Good luck and stay safe, OK?" I promised her I would. It's the first time something like that has happened to me. It made up for the fleabag motel.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
It's all soooo irrelative!
So Bush hasn't shown his face at a democratic congressional retreat since 2001. He hasn't needed to. But with the shift in power, he showed up at the current one democrats are holding this weekend at a Virginia resort.
And oh, Bush was so funny, he gathered laughs and good will with "self-deprecating jokes, unusual candor and outright flattery" according to reporter Jennifer Loven's article, "Bush Woos Democrats, Pokes Fun at Self."
Sadly, I made the mistake of reading this before my dinner. Quoting speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi (whose title or body of government in which she serves I find impossible to capitalize--it's all I can do to capitalize government representative's proper names) said to Bush, "We were honored by your presence. We're also encouraged by your remarks."
Afterwards, Pelosi said to reporters of her Bush encounter of the third kind, "Let's make no mistake. The choice is bipartisanship or stalemate. We have to work together," in a reaffirmation that America is no longer a nation of laws applicable to everyone who violates them; who threaten the very foundations the nation was founded on.
However, take solace knowing laws still apply to kids who steal a 12-pack from a 7-11 on a late night beer run or presidents who somehow stain blue dresses, but not those who commit crimes others who committed lesser have hung for.
And oh, Bush was so funny, he gathered laughs and good will with "self-deprecating jokes, unusual candor and outright flattery" according to reporter Jennifer Loven's article, "Bush Woos Democrats, Pokes Fun at Self."
Sadly, I made the mistake of reading this before my dinner. Quoting speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi (whose title or body of government in which she serves I find impossible to capitalize--it's all I can do to capitalize government representative's proper names) said to Bush, "We were honored by your presence. We're also encouraged by your remarks."
Afterwards, Pelosi said to reporters of her Bush encounter of the third kind, "Let's make no mistake. The choice is bipartisanship or stalemate. We have to work together," in a reaffirmation that America is no longer a nation of laws applicable to everyone who violates them; who threaten the very foundations the nation was founded on.
However, take solace knowing laws still apply to kids who steal a 12-pack from a 7-11 on a late night beer run or presidents who somehow stain blue dresses, but not those who commit crimes others who committed lesser have hung for.
Pulled! Makind's evolutionary plug. (Or, "Is that the sucking sound of the big cosmic drain I'm hearing?")
Patriot provisions. Stock up for America's next big misadventure!I watched Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last night. I guess it's stories I saw/heard there telling us of the latest lies and deceptions that brought to mind the insatiable capacity we have for it all as a nation.
If the experiment Homo sapiens is to avoid extermination it better get its shit together, and fast. As we were told last night, the Bush administration does not agree with the latest National Intelligence Estimates regarding Iraq and, worse, they withheld and rewrote the NIE report on Iran! But that doesn't surprise us. When intelligence doesn't match their ambitions, they make up their own to support their schemes. We've been conditioned to accept that as SOP.
Last night's Olbermann was just more of the same old news that's been pelting us endlessly the past seven years. Like Bush's latest 21,500 troop "surge" in Iraq that may actually translate to as many as 48,000 more troops being sent there. But our awakening Senate with its compromise between dems and repubs chides Bush with their ominous nonbinding resolution, "Tsk, tsk, you shouldn't do that. Naughty, naughty!" It has to leave one laughing to tears.
What makes it especially hilarious is the mountain of historical distortions, deceptions and outright lies of our leadership. From a stolen presidential election in 2000, to a post 9/11 congress that stood on the steps of the capitol reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag while chucking their presidential oversight duties into the D.C. sewers as Bush andCheney sexed up intel for war, it's been an unending littany of almost laughable lies.
From the Bush administration writing its own war justifying story, leaking it to the NYTimes and then quoting it back to us as fact after it's published, to oil soaked industry and government execs (the revolving door makes them indistinguishable) buying scientists to deny global warming so Bush can tell us their is no scientific consensus, to the latest Bush request of $245 billion for ongoing wars (which does not include the Iran war pending) while cutting Medicare and other vital social programs "because they're too expensive." It would be so very laughable if the irony wasn't so damn pathetic--and dangerous.
And what about Bush promising to fire the son of a bitch responsible for leaking Valerie Plame's name? As Bush assured us, his ass would be in trouble deeper than a sack full of drowning mice, i.e., he'd be canned, "Honest!" Let's see, how many years ago was that? And how many asses have been axed? And this past week there surfaced suspicious Cheney handwritten script at the bottom of a memo with a vague hint (but at this point unsubstantiated evidence) Bush was even in on Plame's outing.
But those of us who care, seemingly can't do shit about it. We are stuck with a sociopathic executive branch about to provoke a third losing war and our only hope to stop it, our congress, practices republican John Warner bi-partianship to chide the president nonbindingly, "Tsk, tsk, naughty, naughty!" Plainly, more of our loved ones will die on Bush's sacrificial altar that is the Middle East.
And as if that weren't enough, Olbermann shared with us images of laser tatooed tropical fish last night. It's the latest rage (and it "doesn't hurt the fish!") we're assured. And to top it all off was the hilarious imagery of the latest gadget every lazy-assed cat owner must find at a nearby pet shop. A cat washing machine with glass window so you can guffaw at Tabby as she struggles to survive death by drowning. "Cat's love it,"the pet shop assures.
Yes, Homo sapiens was one evolutionary experiment that appears headed for the dustbin of history. Maybe that's why I'm in a kind of ironic imagery mood this morning. And in evaluating mankind as a creation, God must be chiding himself, "Tsk, tsk, naughty, naughty! I really blew it big time on this one!"
Clear skies! (Bush lies & deceptions, No. 37)
When corporate America and the United States govern-ment unite for cleaner air, all Americans breathe easier!
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Walking the walk!
We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!" ~ Molly Ivins, from her last column of January 11, 2007.
Bill McDannell and Dada after walking a
short ways with him Monday afternoon.
Late Monday morning, Mrs. Dada and I hopped in the car and drove out east of El Paso where we stopped alongside the freeway and she left me. Now I'll explain why.
We drove out that way because we knew Bill McDannell would be walking out there somewhere. And when we caught up with him, I joined him for a short distance. I wanted to learn a little more about Bill and to 'walk in his shoes' a short ways--a very short way. Like, two miles of so.
You see, Bill McDannell is walking from San Diego to Washington, D.C. and he's taking names! Yes, he's gathering signatures on a petition as he walks to present to our government representatives to get us out of the insane wars in which we find ourselves deeply mired without the leadership capable of stopping it. Bill'd love to present the original petition to president Bush personally.
We had met Bill briefly a week ago today at a gallery reception for a local artist, Catholic Friar (and member of the Border Peace Presence Mrs. Dada belongs to). We had heard Bill would be passing through these parts.
A very amiable person, as I gathered from our brief visit that evening at the gallery, I wanted to know more. People with such strong commitment to their ideals have always intrigued me.
So on this Monday morning while out there walking, I imagined how being alone in the desert must leave one with lots of time to think in the midst of incredible landscapes that pass slowly, silently, save for the deafening endless stream of passing big rigs. Fortunately, after just a couple miles we came to a truckstop restaurant where we were joined for lunch by Mrs. Dada (along with a car!).
Bill is also one of those rare persons so strongly dedicated to his principles that he is compelled to honor them. As illustrated by his walk, he stands up for them in a very big way indeed!
As we learned during lunch, he had been passionately against our wars for sometime. Feeling the need to manifest his feelings in some constructive and meaningful way, an idea came to him this past August. It happened quite by chance one day when he drove a person from San Diego to Barstow. During that couple hours drive, he learned his passenger was walking across the U.S. to lose weight!
When Bill returned home, he told his wife he had a plan to express his displeasure with our government's destructive foreign policies. They would sell their home in San Diego and he would walk across the country to Washington, D.C. for peace! Bill happened to catch his wife in a vulnerable moment. She was down with a cold or something.
Sometimes seemingly chance encounters with others, or unexpected events change our lives inexplicably--forever! They spin us off in a totally different direction as a result. I'm sure everyone can recall such instances if they really think about it. We've all had them.
Bill's encounter with a passenger he shared a couple hours drive with was one of those. And the way it changed the lives of he and his wife was huge. That's because they did sell their home and they are now not just talking the talk, they are walking the walk. Literally.
Mrs. Dada and I enjoyed our couple hours with Bill; learning more of what motivates him. He and his wife have a large family. They have grandchildren. And they care what kind of future world they inherit. And for that, they are willing to forgo their comfortable past to make a huge statement for a hopeful future. For everyone.
Bill has a website called Walk to End the Wars. There you can learn more about him, track the progress of his walk across the country, and most importantly--if you are against our current and possible future wars--you can sign his petition online. It takes less than a minute what is taking Bill nine months to deliver to our seemingly immovable representatives. At the least, I urge everyone to do this. Thanks Bill and bon voyage!
As Molly Ivins continued in her last column,
Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and are trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge.
From what Bill McDannell is doing, I'm sure Molly Ivins is pleased!
Bill McDannell and Dada after walking ashort ways with him Monday afternoon.
We drove out that way because we knew Bill McDannell would be walking out there somewhere. And when we caught up with him, I joined him for a short distance. I wanted to learn a little more about Bill and to 'walk in his shoes' a short ways--a very short way. Like, two miles of so.
You see, Bill McDannell is walking from San Diego to Washington, D.C. and he's taking names! Yes, he's gathering signatures on a petition as he walks to present to our government representatives to get us out of the insane wars in which we find ourselves deeply mired without the leadership capable of stopping it. Bill'd love to present the original petition to president Bush personally.
We had met Bill briefly a week ago today at a gallery reception for a local artist, Catholic Friar (and member of the Border Peace Presence Mrs. Dada belongs to). We had heard Bill would be passing through these parts.
A very amiable person, as I gathered from our brief visit that evening at the gallery, I wanted to know more. People with such strong commitment to their ideals have always intrigued me.
So on this Monday morning while out there walking, I imagined how being alone in the desert must leave one with lots of time to think in the midst of incredible landscapes that pass slowly, silently, save for the deafening endless stream of passing big rigs. Fortunately, after just a couple miles we came to a truckstop restaurant where we were joined for lunch by Mrs. Dada (along with a car!).
Bill is also one of those rare persons so strongly dedicated to his principles that he is compelled to honor them. As illustrated by his walk, he stands up for them in a very big way indeed!
As we learned during lunch, he had been passionately against our wars for sometime. Feeling the need to manifest his feelings in some constructive and meaningful way, an idea came to him this past August. It happened quite by chance one day when he drove a person from San Diego to Barstow. During that couple hours drive, he learned his passenger was walking across the U.S. to lose weight!
When Bill returned home, he told his wife he had a plan to express his displeasure with our government's destructive foreign policies. They would sell their home in San Diego and he would walk across the country to Washington, D.C. for peace! Bill happened to catch his wife in a vulnerable moment. She was down with a cold or something.
Sometimes seemingly chance encounters with others, or unexpected events change our lives inexplicably--forever! They spin us off in a totally different direction as a result. I'm sure everyone can recall such instances if they really think about it. We've all had them.
Bill's encounter with a passenger he shared a couple hours drive with was one of those. And the way it changed the lives of he and his wife was huge. That's because they did sell their home and they are now not just talking the talk, they are walking the walk. Literally.
Mrs. Dada and I enjoyed our couple hours with Bill; learning more of what motivates him. He and his wife have a large family. They have grandchildren. And they care what kind of future world they inherit. And for that, they are willing to forgo their comfortable past to make a huge statement for a hopeful future. For everyone.
Bill has a website called Walk to End the Wars. There you can learn more about him, track the progress of his walk across the country, and most importantly--if you are against our current and possible future wars--you can sign his petition online. It takes less than a minute what is taking Bill nine months to deliver to our seemingly immovable representatives. At the least, I urge everyone to do this. Thanks Bill and bon voyage!
As Molly Ivins continued in her last column,
Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and are trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge.
From what Bill McDannell is doing, I'm sure Molly Ivins is pleased!
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