Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The Horror!

The Horror! The Horror!
Are the words that keep running through my mind since hearing and seeing the half-wit in Vietnam. I can't imagine anyone, even those in the White House, who are not ashamed of this cretin. As with, but nothing like, Kurtz, we are in a realm beyond language, beyond comprehension.

That's the subject line and e-mail message that arrived from an old friend last Sunday night, as the Emperor Boy George wrapped up his visit to Hanoi, but only after having himself photographed under a bust of Ho Chi Minh. Ho must have taken grim satisfaction from that one, but Mao must have howled in anguish and delight upon hearing the Bushy proclaim, while in Hanoi trying to justify Baghdad, that 'history has a long march." It is axiomatic by now that the Bushy doesn't live in "a reality-based" world; rather, he creates his own reality by unleashing the full power and lethality of the U.S. military on smaller nations, in order to force democracy on them. That's the Bushy version of another Maoism: "Revolution comes from the barrel of a gun."

So Bush is channeling Mao and Ho while conducting a dirty war in Iraq, using the U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights as toilet paper, calling his opponents traitors or worse, presiding over the torture of prisoners, who are denied every fundamental human right. He has bankrupted the country, brought shame and dishonor upon us all. His performance has no precedent in U.S. history for sheer brutal incompetence--same can be said for the Congress that enabled him. The county has repudiated him, yet he persists, like the plague. Unless Nancy Pelosi is a brilliant and lucky strategist, who can get the House and Senate to remove Bushy and Cheney, the only prospect of reining them in, but especially the Emperor Boy George, before they do more damage lies with Poppy George H.W. Bush and James Baker, the family consigliere. Laius rises from the dead. Even the classics that define our culture are shredded, perverted, turned upside down and inside out, their viscera strewn along the roadside, like the victims of Bushy's dirty war.

The Horror, indeed!

[Note: All politics being local, I've found myself in a battle against a Monstrosity. See Save Mid-Beach, Save Miami Beach, my other blog.]

Saturday, November 11, 2006

A New Day?

We hope so. Time magazine reports that victims of Bushie, especially Rummy, approved torture will request in German court indictment of Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, and their minions for war crimes and crimes against humanity--bravo, but why not go up the food chain!'

Friday, November 10, 2006

2006 Election: An alternate view.

tonight's guest blog is from Bruce Stutz, author of Chasing Spring.
Hope you and Gina allowed yourselves some pleasure over the election results. As narrow as the victories were they will give the country a breathing spell before the next election when that mental patient McCain, who's already shown himself to go to the highest bidder, will run his primary against a not much less soulless Hillary Clinton. One can hope they'll beat themselves silly and someone with some intelligence and with no particular allegiance to God (Obama fails for me on that account), runs. Bush & Co. pretty much succeeded in their agenda—stacking the supreme court with the dimmest legal minds and Christian Right to Lifers, stripping away environmental regulations and, in the Park Service, Forest Service, and BLM getting in people who will give away the store. Although the news media proclaimed that voters' concerns over the Iraq war proved that national, rather than local, issues were on the minds of the electorate, the fact is that within the context of the world at large our entire national politic is "local." What goes on in the rest of the world with regard to ideas, opinions, understanding of cultural complexities and interactions is of so little concern here—we are so ignorant of the rest of the world—that our national politics is by its nature "local." It's why we won't elect a woman president or a black senator or have a national health plan or see the world in terms other than our own local yokel concepts. If the Democratic party (notice how Bush continued in his press conference, to call it the Democrat party) remains the weak at the knees group they've been—why did Kerry apologize? Why did it take so long for Hillary to come out against the war? Why is Joe Lieberman still a fucking senator?--two years from now the Republicans get it all back with Rick Santorum leading the charge. The Dems have accomplished the impossible—become both horse's asses and pussies at the same time.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Election 2006

All politics is local, goes that old saw, and while I suppose that is true, I wonder why we don't bring it into the age of the atomized individual and say, All politics is personal. The deep alienation of Americans from their leaders doubtless results from the failure of politicians and government panels even vaguely to respond to the people--if only to educate them--even while they toady up to individuals with the wealth and influence either to help their permanent campaign fund and appeal to people's baser emotions in an effort to get them voting--or not--in discrete demographic packets--security, formerly soccer, moms, Nascar dads Evangelicals, white racists and so on. That works until national and global events begin to weigh palpably on people, as they do now, as do the lies, deceits, corruptions, hypocrisies, and bad policies of the people in power--in short, until major issues become localized and the rot in government agencies becomes oppressive. What's never addressed, however, is the fundamental disconnect between people and government. Our Congresswoman seems fairly good , as these things go, but we never had the opportunity to vote for or against because she, a Democrat, won her primary unopposed and was unopposed in the general election. What obligation could she possibly feel to us?

Thus, we have a political class perpetually out of synch in policy, if not talk, with the people. More than Iraq, the most glaring example of this failure is health insurance, where the vast majority of people want a single-payer, national health plan, where study after study has touted its benefits, but where politicians run in the opposite direction. The new Democratic Congress will be no different. Nor do I expect it to do what it should--impeach Cheney and Bush and pack them off to the Hague, along with their subordinates, to be tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes. That's unlikely--equally unlikely is a rollback of the torture bill or even a withdrawal from Iraq.

But impeachment of Cheney/Bush after the new Congress convenes in in January would make the Speaker of the House, probably Nancy Pelosi, president. I don't know how she would do, but I have long maintained that anyone who is anyone in a certain indescribable sort of way has some connection, however tenuous, to Baltimore--if only to know what a "zink" is and what to do when the "sore" ruptures--I'll skip for now the sly commentary on those Baltimore documentaries, Pink Flamingos and Hair Spray. Pelosi's Baltimore pedigree is beyond devo. She is the daughter of mayor Thomas "Tommy" D'Alessandro and the sister of mayor Thomas "Tommy" D'Alessandro, Jr. We can only hope that she has not forgotten white marble steps, painted screens, or Formstone.