Suck the Boob
Can You See The Big Picture? (12/20/06)
There is a current civil war being fought among the minds
of Americans. As someone once said, you are either a part of the problem or a
part of the solution. The subject of this blog is The Big Picture. Either you
can see how most of modern America's problems stem from 1970 or you can't. You
either perceive the manner in which all of the weapons wielded in The Civil War
of the New Millennium are interrelated or you don't. I have declared myself as
one of those who does see it. The trees are concealed by the forest. In no
particular order, here is a list with which to begin the stimulation of your
newfound thought processes.
(1) George Bush is not stupid, and he is not The Devil, although his pal Rove
may be. There is a much more valid argument to call Reagan The Devil because he
started it. Neither Reagan nor Bush is or was the smartest bear in Jellystone,
but they have been much guiltier of assholiness than stupidity.
(2) The marriage between Wall Street and the evangelicals has truly been a
marriage made in hell. It's one thing to know that a certain wealthy segment of
the population desires nothing more than to own all the money in America. It's
quite another to have another, much larger, segment help them get it by
utilizing the ballyhoo of God and Country.
(3) Make no mistake about it. All the major corporations in America care about
nothing except their ultimate plan of a race to the bottom of the wage scale for
everyone except their highest ranking corporate officers and their major
stockholders.
(4) The hippies of The Sixties were right. We had already reached the point at
which we should have been questioning the future of our policies involving,
foreign wars, corporate mergers, birth control, population control, energy
expenditures, and many more obvious issues. The Baby Boomers did not sell out:
the military industrial complex crushed them.
(5) Iraq is just a war to control the oil supply, and it has never been anything
else. We could have encouraged conservation, developed alternative energy
sources, and purchased fuel-efficient cars. As John Belushi used to say, "But
nooooooooo!" We chose to fuel the SUV explosion instead.
Compassionate Immigration Hawks (12/22/06)
In spite of what the cable news show talking heads want us
to think, there are a lot of us out here, and we are not going away. We are not
racists. We are intelligent, educated, American citizens who think for
ourselves. Who made up the rule that emigrants from all the nations of the world
except one have to get in line and follow a carefully structured process in
order to become United States immigrants? Other than sheer proximity, is there
any reason whatsoever why the emigrants from one particular country are allowed
to just walk into the USA and declare themselves citizens, while they wave
politely to the long lines from all the other countries in the world? On what
planet does this make sense? Is the economic plight of a Mexican immigrant
somehow considered more dire than that of a Polish or Chinese immigrant? I
didn't think so.
Let's act like sane, compassionate human beings for once and forget that whole
racist nonsense. Let's talk about rubbers. You know what they are, little things
that are very cheap to manufacture and buy. Rubbers are astoundingly cheaper
than babies to anyone even remotely connected with the babies. Let's talk about
NAFTA, the one really big screw-up perpetrated by The Clinton Administration.
That particular fornication of the Mexican people has been so enormous that Bill
ought to buy them all cigars! Raise your hand. Has anyone here smelled the air
in McAllen, TX, when the southern breeze is blowing? U.S. corporations did not
have anything to do with that stinky air, did they? Could there be a correlation
between the stench and the presence of the EPA in the U.S. with its restrictive
power halted at the border?
Mexico will never repair its own socioeconomic problems as long as the U.S.
provides a safety net. Illegal immigration of any kind and amount is not a
long-term solution to any problem. The type and quantity we are now allowing is
just setting up the playing field on which all the teams will lose the final
ball game. Repeat the following phrase until you genuinely hear what you are
saying. American corporations are exploiting illegal immigrant workers purely
for the economic benefit of the corporations. This is not a tale of racism.
It is the story of greed taken to an insane level. The current policy of
ignoring, supporting, and/or promoting illegal immigration is nothing but a
self-defeating prophecy. In the long term, everyone but the stinking,
ridiculously overpaid CEO's will lose. Make no mistake. This is a race to the
bottom for almost everyone involved. Every time someone plays the race card and
someone else is stupid enough to buy it, we all lose. If you really want to
become one of us, control your population and speak our language. Genuine
compassion for all the millions of babies not yet born requires that we let
every race card fall to our feet without comment. Haven't you heard? All of us
except the highest corporate executives are in this together. It's time to act
like it.
Hillary & The Briar Patch (12/23/06)
All the television pundits remind me of the old Uncle Remus
story of Br'er Rabbit & The Briar Patch every time I hear them assuring us all
how certain Hillary Rodham Clinton is to get the Democratic nomination.
Just like old Br'er Rabbit begging, "Pleeeeease don't throw me in that briar
patch", the talking heads are implying that the worst threat the Dems can make
is to choose Hillary Rodham Clinton as their nominee. Don't you just love
the way they include (and accent) that name Rodham every time they
mention her name? You know they are doing that just to make sure everyone gets
the message that she is one of those gawdawful women's libbers who has to use
her three names. Start paying attention whenever these overpaid buttheads bring
up the subject of the '08 election. You will notice that they never miss a
chance to sling this particular line of bull. Karl Stinkface Rove could
not have said it any better himself.
I hope all you loyal, intelligent Suck the Boob readers have sense enough to
know the whole thing is a ruse. Of course the Repugs really want Hillary to be
the candidate. Giuliani or McCain will take all her baggage and throw it off the
train, and then they will send her packing so fast they won't have time left to
say Rodham before beginning their victory celebration. The Repugs have a
trainload of ways to win if Hillary is the candidate. Here are some of them (in
no particular order). (1) She is a liberated woman with three names. (2) She
tried to secure health care for all Americans back in '93. (3) Her last name
once had a blow job in The White House. (4) She supports abortion rights. (5)
She has been known to criticize The President. (6) She is of a gender we have
never before allowed to rule The Oval Office. (7) A lot of Americans do not
trust her. (8) A lot of Americans do not like her. (9) Even if she does win, she
is not as anti-military-industrial-complex (including the war in Iraq) as all
those other Democrats. (10) If she wins, of all the possible Democratic
candidates, she is the friendliest to Wall Street.
So, go ahead, throw her in that briar patch! Wink, wink. Nod, nod. Whatever you
do, pleeeese don't select Hillary as your nominee. McCain will fall flat on his
face before an uppity liberated woman that nobody likes, but who tried to give
us a health care plan that was only a gnat's butt this side of Communism. Hell,
if you guys run Hillary, we'll have to run Condi! Cat fight! Cat fight! We'll
get so many hours of that worthless cat-scratch news on the tube that we'll feel
like suckin' the boob! Make sure all those talking heads have enough to say to
validate their million-dollar salaries! Nod, nod. Wink, wink.
Gerald Ford’s Legacy (12/27/06)
President Ford chose to pardon Richard Nixon because it was time for America to move past the issue of Watergate and all that it entailed. We now have a new Democratic Congress that must make a similar decision. Should they begin impeachment proceedings against a President who makes Nixon look like a petty crook, or should they focus their energies to try to solve some of the many current crises in America? Nixon had already been thrown out when Ford made his decision, so you could say that the necessary impeachment had already been done. A factor that must be considered now is that our television media is so much more consolidated than it was in the Seventies. Partisan politics is so much more consistently vicious now. How much time would be wasted by the talking heads babbling over the issue in today's America? Would we ever see health care reform? Would lobbying reform be forgotten in the blur of nonsense with which we would be bombarded by the pundits twenty-four hours a day? I don't know the answer. Maybe you think you do. Let's talk about it now before the talking heads bury us in bull-puckey.
How to Destroy America (12/31/06)
The right wing is not right about much, but on this issue,
they are. The following reprint of a speech made by Richard Lamm, the former
Governor of Colorado, is poignant to the max. Open your mind, because he is
referring to what caused the civil war between the left and right wing that is
currently raging through the minds of many Americans.
(Reprinted from housingpanic.blogspot.com 12/29/06)
Last week there was an immigration overpopulation conference in Washington, DC,
filled to capacity by many of America 's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant
college professor by the name of Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest
book, Mexifornia, explaining how immigration, both legal and illegal, was
destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the
country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.
Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a
stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he
described eight methods for the destruction of the United States He said, "If
you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's
destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived
the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise
and fall and that an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit
suicide.'"
"Here is how they do it," Lamm said: "First, to destroy America, turn America
into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country." History shows that no
nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more
competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be
bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical
scholar, Seymour Lipset, put it this way: "The histories of bilingual and
bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension,
and tragedy." Canada, Belgium, Malaysia , and Lebanon all face crises of
national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence.
Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France
faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans".
Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, "Invent multiculturalism and
encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of
belief that all cultures are equal, that there are no cultural differences. I
would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are
due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other
explanation is out of bounds.
Third, "We could make the United States an Hispanic Quebec without much
effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz
said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: "The apparent experiment might
have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that
once dictated ethnocentricity and what it meant to be an American, we are left
with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together." Lamm said, "I would
encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace
the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure
that we have various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their
differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."
"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated.
I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic
to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate
from high school."
"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and
business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity,
and I would establish the cult of Victimology. I would get all minorities
to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start
a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population."
"My sixth plan for America 's downfall would include dual citizenship, and
promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would
stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly
engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A
diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent.
People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the
ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they
possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods.
All of Greece took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy, Persia, threatened
their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two
factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political
divisions. Greece fell. "E. Pluribus Unum" -- From many, one. In that historical
reality, if we put the emphasis on the pluribus instead of the Unum,
we will balkanize America as surely as Kosovo."
"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits; make it taboo to talk
about anything against the cult of diversity. I would find a word similar to
heretic in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking.
Words like racist or xenophobe halt discussion and debate. Having made America a
bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturalism, having the
large foundations fund the doctrine of Victimology, I would next make it
impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That
because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would
make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of
millions of them."
In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence
followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book
Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America.
If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."
There was no applause. A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above
every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that
everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet
pervasively across the United States today. Discussion is being suppressed. Over
100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national
cohesiveness. Even barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are
growing as we celebrate diversity. American jobs are vanishing into the Third
World as corporations create a Third World in America - take note of California
and other states - to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is
reminiscent of George Orwell's book 1984. In that story, three slogans
are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace," "Freedom is
slavery," and "Ignorance is strength."
Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference
that our nation and the future of this great democracy are deeply in trouble and
worsening fast. If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three
years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its
path, especially The American Dream.
Oink! Oink! (1/25/07)
Ford reports its biggest loss ever. Would this be the same
Ford that kicked off the soccer-mom SUV explosion by offering luxury-car
accoutrements on an SUV with its new Ford Explorer? Could it be the same Ford
that later introduced the Excursion and the Navigator, prompting GM to escalate
with its Escalade? No, it couldn't be that car company. They developed the
Escape hybrid and the Focus as a world car. How innovative can a car company be?
Well, you could start by building more than one model smaller than a Taurus!
I have this little fantasy in my head. Do you remember the Plymouth Road Runner
with the horn that beep-beeped just like the Road Runner after Wile E. Coyote
fell off a cliff or got hit by a train? I suggest that Ford design a new horn
that goes Oink! Oink! It could be their new trademark for the Expedition
and Navigator. I can just imagine the TV commercial. A Lincoln Navigator driven
by a lady dressed for success approaches a man driving another one coming from
the opposite direction. Both drivers are alone and talking on cell phones. Both
vehicles have yellow ribbon stickers on the rear. Both drivers are wearing pig
facemasks. They each look up briefly from their phone conversations with their
brokers just in time to make a brief, friendly oink-oink toot to each
other as they pass....
Hillary Smillary (2/4/07)
I hope this is the last time I have to explain this to you.
Hillary Clinton is not the candidate we need to either run for or be President!
Go back and read the Briar Patch story. The Republicans want the Democrats to be
gullible enough to select Hillary as their candidate, simply because that choice
will allow the right wing to win, no matter which way the final election goes.
Once she has been selected as the Democratic candidate, then they can pull out
their bag of Rove's nasty tricks and throw every slander in the universe at her.
If she wins anyway, then they have gotten all they really care about in the
first place: a right-wing, corporate-supported politician that will do
absolutely anything to get elected, do nothing but support the corporate attack
on the middle class, and lean whichever way the wind blows toward foreign
policy. Read my lips: Hillary Clinton is a corporate opportunist. If you have
been paying attention lately, you may have noticed that the more vicious of the
right wing pundits have been mysteriously omitting the Rodham lately. Why
is that? Could it be that they want to be damn sure the public is brainwashed
into thinking she is absolutely the Democratic frontrunner, and we should just
forget all about someone who might actually fight back against corporate
tyranny?
There is an ancient expression: that was then and this is now. All
Democrats need to spread their cheeks and remove their heads. We must remember
the somewhat populist Clinton's mantra: It's the economy, stupid! I know
ya'll are going to have a hemorrhoid when I say this, but Iraq is a symptom, not
a cause. Bush the Butthead deliberately attacked Iraq for three reasons. These
three should be given approximately equal weight. (1) He wanted it a long time
before he publicly said so. He wanted it because he wanted to prove himself
where his dad had failed, and he wanted to secure control of Iraq's oil. (2) He
sort of did want to be the stand-up guy against those bad boys with their WMD's
that he sort of felt they had. (3) He knew that a major war was the only way to
divert attention from the real issue, the war on the middle class perpetrated by
the wealthy corporate class. It's still the economy, stupid. We just have to get
a destructive, distracting war issue out of the way first. The reason this is
now is that America's situation has reached even further dire straits since The
Butthead took office. We absolutely must turn this big American cruise ship
(warship?) around. We must depose the greedy, powerful, and dangerous right
wing. We must remember that the time when most Americans felt the nation and our
economy was strongest is the time when the tax rates on the wealthiest Americans
were at their highest levels. There were no financial television channels to
disseminate their twisted economic logic in 1969.
There are two Americas: those who want to continue things as they are so their
personal millions of dollars will continue to roll in, and the rest of the
population. Practically every talking head on national network television is a
millionaire. All they have to do is swallow their scruples and keep on telling
lies. Some of the liars are only stretching the truth a little sideways. Others
are blatantly leading the middle class to a slow, torturous slaughter. Only two
Democratic candidates will actually do anything significant in the protection of
the middle class. These two guys are named Al and John. Al will gore Exxon with
the truth about global warming. John will hold the corporations accountable for
their intentional destruction of the middle class. Hillary will sway in the
breeze of big corporate money, basking in the political power she so craves.
Barack will try to please everyone. He has two weaknesses. The first one is his
obvious lack of experience. The other is his worship of everybody-make-nice
popularity. He will do everything to stay popular and nothing to challenge his
deep addiction to it. Please do not misunderstand me. I think Clinton and Obama
are tremendously better than most of the Republican candidates. The problem is
simply that it's the economy, stupid, and that was then, but this is now. As
good as Bill the tenor sax player was, he supported NAFTA, and most of our
golden goose, the middle class, is now paying the price for that ill-advised
choice. We must elect a President who is ready to challenge corporate power that
has reached a practically indestructible level. We must, for the sake of the
future of middle class America, elect John Edwards. If Gore will run, that's
even better. If Edwards and Obama will run together, that's a good choice. If
Gore and Obama will run together, that's a good choice. The best choice would be
President Gore and VP Edwards. Thank ya'll for coming.
Ronald Obama Pajamas Reagan (2/25/07)
Let's examine two Presidential
candidates for a moment, shall we? I call Mr. Obama names because I like him. I
don't like him enough to want him controlling the White House when we have
other, more experienced choices, but I would be honored to have him as VP. He
has plenty of time left in his career to run for President. Right now we need
Gore if we can get him, and Edwards if we can't. I don't have any cutesy names
for Mr. Reagan, and yes, you can surmise that I have never been one of his fans.
The popularity of Reagan and Obama is the spawn of the same disease. They come
from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but the secret of their popularity
is the same. I use the negative connotations of spawn and disease
because the method of which I speak is not the most thoughtful, intelligent way
to improve our democracy. We elected Reagan in the same manner we chose our
Homecoming King and Queen in high school, via beauty contest or popularity
contest. Reagan offered the quick-fix to authoritarian-minded Caucasians who
were not afraid to succeed at the expense of everyone else. The Reagan plan was
one of short-term profits and vision. He had no intention of trickling down the
money, just the slavery. He cared only about white Christian voters, and the
richer the better.
Obama's strength is also his Achilles heel. He will never rock his personal
popularity boat. He comes from the opposite side of the aisle from Reagan in
most, but not every, way. Reagan was a popular authoritarian and Obama is a
popular liberal. Reagan was anything for a buck. Obama is pie in the sky. Nobody
is all wrong, and Reagan was no exception. The left wing did have a few things
that had gotten out of control by 1980. Reagan was a unifier of the right wing
voters. Obama wants to be a unifier of all the voters, and that of course, is
why I like him a lot better than Reagan. The problem comes from the sheer number
of voters that I feel are simply dying to see a black President, and they are
putting this element of his candidacy far above the multitude of important
issues of the day. I think there were many white Christians that did the very
same thing in 1980. That election began the journey that took us down the rabbit
hole. The coming '08 election is beginning to resemble too simple an inversion
of the 1980 one. What I fear is that Obama will turn the bus around, but then he
will find that he is unable to get all the bus's wheels going in the same
direction. He could be like Reagan, Bush, or Bush. He could stop the bus and
tell those unruly kids in the back that the bus is going forward, either with
them or without them, and they may as well take a seat and behave, but I am
afraid that, unlike the aforementioned three buttheads, that Obama does not have
the guts.
If the Republicans do one thing right, it is their organizational capability.
They are like the rival football team that always seems to do whatever it takes
to win. They get in the huddle and choose a winning play, and then they execute
it. This is also why they seem to keep getting elected, even when we know they
will just sell us all out to Wall Street after they move into the Oval Office.
Does Obama have enough to guts to follow Reagan's example? Will he tell Wall
Street to sit down and behave? Don't tell me Hillary will, because I know she is
just one of them in a girl suit! The only candidates who will properly stand up
to the real enemy, and I mean Wall Street, not some country in the Middle East,
are Al Gore and John Edwards. Obama would make a fine VP with Edwards in charge,
but the bull balls of Cheney would be replaced by the chipmunk balls of Obama.
John Edwards is an excellent warrior for the middle class, but his experience
level in foreign affairs is minimal. How much would really get accomplished? If
Al doesn't run, heaven help us.
The Rebirth of Populism (3/9/07)
After pondering the situation for years, I have finally
figured out the problem. What both the Democratic and Republican establishments
passionately hate is populism, and populist candidates. I have spent countless
hours wondering why I have always liked Pat Buchanan about as much as I like
Jerry Brown. I don't like Nancy Pelosi much more than I like John McCain. Both
of them are anti-populists. How bad off would the USA have been if we had
elected Ross Perot or Ralph Nader? I can tell you that America would really suck
if we had let Steve Forbes institute a flat tax for all his millionaire buddies!
The most famous populist of recent years certainly has to be Howard Dean.
Letting the media scream Kerry onto the ballot surely was one of the
stoooopidest events the supposed intelligent half of America ever allowed to
happen!
Those in power do not want the populace to even have the option of electing a
President who represents them! The corporate media will do absolutely
anything to discredit any populist candidate. They don't care if that candidate
is a right-winger like Pat or a leftie like Howie. Why do you think they are
spending so much time and energy trying to throw Hillary into the briar patch?
Why do you think John Edwards is seen on TV a lot less than Barack and Rodham?
THEY WILL DO ANYTHING TO SEE THAT WE DO NOT HAVE A REAL CHOICE. The
Republicans will never rein in Wall Street or force Wally-World to offer decent
healthcare to its employees. The Democrats will put out the welcome mat on the
Mexican border. We can only vote for the lesser of the evils. Do we want to
continue spending money in Iraq and letting CEO's receive hundreds of millions
to go somewhere else after they have driven their company into the ground? Do we
want to watch America swirl down a deep drain before our children can educate
themselves out of poverty? Fat chance; slim future. Diversity is not populism:
it's corporate-sponsored bullcrap wearing a populism Halloween costume. The only
thing that can save us is a strong rebirth of populism of the real kind.
The Rodham Mop (3/12/07)
If the Democrats insist on running Hillary against Fred
Dalton Thompson, and they lose, which they most certainly will, every last scrap
of my respect for the Dems will be lost forever! The only ticket that can beat a
celebrity that the Christians will embrace with such open arms is some
combination of Gore, Edwards, and Obama. When are you moronic Dems going to wake
up and smell the obvious odor? The stink is coming from you! You insist that
Hillary must be our candidate so we can continue with the status quo of support
for the corporations. You don't give a rat's ass about anything else. Populist,
schmopulist! Hillary is just Rudy in a dress. Sorry, I couldn't resist the
reference.
Thompson will first utilize McCain's big head as his mop. Then after he has
thoroughly demoralized any of hope of Presidential dreams for the
illegal-immigrant-supporting, Bush-butt-kissing McCain, he will move right on to
Rudy's suitcases full of flip-flopping on silly issues the Christians love to
hate and, oh yeah, Giuliani's feminine wardrobe. Fred's next mop will have
blonde hair and the dress will actually belong there. Her stance on Iraq will
not vary enough from his to make a difference. She will ride the ship with the
illegal hordes as her fellow passengers right to the bottom. Oh, you think
Hillary might actually do something about health care? Will that action threaten
the corporations? Would you like to purchase The Golden Gate Bridge?
Wake up, Democrats. Your party is about to continue its lifelong passion as the
party of losers. I assume that F. D. Thompson is a sensible immigration hawk. I
would be shocked if he is not. Which Democrat do you think will really fall on
the populist side of this issue? Did you say none? You are probably right
about that. The only hope we can muster for long-term success is to get Gore
and/or Edwards in office while we still have the chance. They may not be the
populist, immigration hawks I would hope for, but at least they are a lot more
populist in their views than is Hillary Rodham Clinton. The only thing populist
about her is her husband.
Oh, so you think Obama is the populist we need? That would be a good idea if he
would really take the necessary actions after he is elected. I'm not betting ten
cents on that horse. He is so obviously addicted to his popularity and charisma
that he will never risk or threaten his own power. He will approach the
corporations; they will slap him back down; and the process will be repeated
until he quietly apologizes and goes back to being Mr. Popularity. Obama would
be a very pleasant change from the snarling Cheney, but if the Republicans are
smart enough to run Thompson, I am not even sure that we can win without Gore. I
shall happily vote for any of the following combinations: Gore/Edwards,
Gore/Obama, Edwards/Obama, or Obama/Edwards. I cannot imagine Gore accepting a
VP position, no matter what happens between now and November, '08. It is my very
strong opinion that no other combo can whip celebrity butt in such a
celebrity-obsessed society.
Like most of America, I have been watching Law & Order for many years. I
love to hate Arthur as much as viewers of the '70's loved to hate J.R. Ewing.
One of my favorite episodes is the one in which that arrogant, right-wing
butthead fires Serena simply for being compassionate! In case you forgot, this
is the scene in which we learn that Serena is a lesbian just as she is being
dismissed from her job and getting kicked off the series at the same time.
Arthur says he doesn't care that she is gay, just that she has too big a
conscience. The Christians will love this guy!
I might have to vote for Fred Dalton Thompson myself. I am a compassionate
immigration hawk who is against gun control. I think spanking should be allowed
back in public schools, along with prayer. I would roll back what I call the
protected species laws over the next few years. You know what I'm talking
about. The most famous of these is affirmative action. I didn't say I would yank
out the rug immediately, but I would phase it out over a period of several
years. Gay people can do whatever they want as long as they don't make me watch.
They aren't threatening my marriage. As a wise person has said, the biggest
threat to marriage is divorce. I'm not just pro-choice. I'm pro-birth control of
all kinds! If I was elected boss, I would halt the War on Drugs tomorrow and use
the money to fund treatment programs and universal health care for all
Americans. Do you see? I am one of those populist, liberal Democrats. I am the
sort of blogger the ones in power love to hate. I am one of those who thinks
some of the Republican issues are the right ones. I have always voted Democratic
because I think more of the Democrats' ideas are the right ones, but, like so
many other intelligent liberals in this country, I am rapidly getting fed up
with it all. That means bad Democratic ideas as well as bad Republican ideas.
If I genuinely felt that Hillary would actually do something about the corporate
stranglehold on America, she would have my support. This is the key reason I
support Gore and Edwards: they might actually do something about America's
deepest problems. At least a vote for Thompson would be a vote for someone who
might actually do a few things right. I doubt that I am alone in my political
stance. In fact, I suspect that I have a lot of company, populist voters from
both parties.
Ten Questions (in No Particular Order) (4/9/07)
1.When are the Democratic voters
going to wake up and choose the candidate standing on the right issues instead
of just being of a sex or race that gives the talking heads something to blather
about?
2. When are Al Gore and Fred Thompson going to remove themselves from movies and
TV, and enter our presidential race, where America needs them?
3. When is somebody going to speak up politically about the insanity of
America's war on drugs? (a) We lost that one already. (b) Stop all the lying!
(c) Restrain the prison industry. (d) Take a realistic approach toward America's
drug use. (e) Use the public funds wisely for treatment. (f) Stop funding
organized crime. (g) When is the public going to realize that Ambien is a lot
more dangerous than marijuana, making the legal/illegal status of certain
drugs a travesty of the truth.
4. When are we going to increase taxes on the wealthy? We had a much higher
tax rate on the rich back in The Sixties, a time when America was so much
better off economically than it is now. In addition to that fact, the definition
of rich now, as compared to then, is so outrageous that it is ludicrous!
5. When is it time to reign in our corporations and Wall Street? The time to
take action is already so far gone that to not do so immediately is absolutely
insane. I suggest that (a) no CEO be paid more than 100 times the salary of the
lowest-paid company employee; (b) all tax breaks be withheld from any
corporation utilizing unnecessary downsizing, outsourcing, or imported labor;
and (c) all corporate harassment of employees attempting to unionize should be
declared illegal in all industries.
6. When are we going to stop illegal immigration? The word is illegal and the
craziest right-wing Christian war-mongers among us are right on this issue, even
if they are just crazy Christian warriors otherwise. Illegal is illegal is
illegal. Nobody is winning at this game but the richest and greediest of our
corporations. Since when has it become right, moral, or compassionate to allow
Mexicans to cut in line ahead of those legally applying for citizenship?
7. When are we going to get the puck out of Iraq? Can you spell Vietnam?
8. When are we going to tell the politically correct left wingnuts to sit down
and shut up? We are a Christian nation and the rest can just lump it! Yes, I
rail against the marriage made in hell between organized Christian churches and
Wall Street, but that issue is not meant as a denigration of the moderate mass
of Christian Americans. Get your noses out of other people's social lives and
we'll gladly let you practice the dominant religion in America. If the world was
flat, I would advocate pushing the Christian crazies off the right edge and the
politically correct left wingnuts off the left edge. Then maybe the rest of us
could vote a few quality leaders into office and get some much-needed sleep.
9. When are we going to stop the SUV madness? Nobody needs a two-or-three-ton
SUV to commute alone into work in the city from the suburbs every damn day! Do
you realize how much oil we could save daily if every stinking one of these
oinkers was replaced with a Honda Civic? We don't need new technology or hybrid
cars to make a tremendous difference in the amount of fuel we consume. It's time
to get real about our patriotism. It's time to frown at these gas piggies as we
pass them on the crowded freeways of America. It's time to take the first step.
10. When are we going to realize that the #1 A-holes of America are the
insurance companies? We must control healthcare costs. If John Edwards wants to
let these buttholes stay in the system for now, maybe that is what we need to
do, at least for the first step. As with the SUV madness, we don't have to throw
out the entire system to improve it. We just need to take the first step to
actually bring the madness and greed under control.
Are Liberals the New Christian Crazies? (5/4/07)
Back in The Eighties, Reagan began the destruction of
America by encouraging the large white Protestant section of the citizenry to
throw common sense out the window and support his legendary Trickle-Down
Economics. Yes, sports fans, he actually had the gall to tell people that if
they would support Wall Street on absolutely every issue that Wall Street
wanted, the millionaires would gladly give some of the money back to the middle
class. No, he didn't actually say it that way. He said, through secret messages
to the holier-than-thou church crazies, that he wanted to disenfranchise black
people as much as possible. He kept quiet about the part that, in the long run,
the white middle class (yes, even the Christian crazy sector) would be
disenfranchised, too. In other words, Reagan sold the line of bull that lions
don't eat gazelles. He told the gazelles that if they would turn on the zebras,
exposing them to the lions, that the lions would simply eat the zebras and leave
the gazelles alone.
Well, folks, all the zebras have been turned into lion food and there are no
more left. Now the lions are, indeed, eating the gazelles, just as common sense
should have told you they would all along. We've gone a long way into the depths
of right-wing insanity since the relatively benign '80's. The Republican '08
candidates are all a bunch of old lions with worn out teeth. Don't listen to the
buttholes who want to tell you the word conservative is golden when it is
used in the same sentence with Reagan. It's all a pack of lies. Bush the
Attacker just continues the same crazy policies Reagan started. The only reason
Reagan didn't do it first is because he did not have a Congress stacked totally
in his favor. I want to add also that I think the public would not have been
quite ready to accept in 1980 what they blindly and stupidly embraced in 2004.
We still had a few zebras left to eat in '04, but their numbers are rapidly
shrinking. In case you are a blockhead reading this, the zebras are not really
black people; they are the blue-collar workforce of our wonderful, earlier age.
Modern day engineers and computer jocks are the gazelles.
The worm has already turned. George Bush and the ten old lions running for the
GOP nomination are the only ones who haven't realized it yet. The 2008
Presidency is the Democrats' to lose, and if they don't remove their heads from
their rectal openings and quit voting with their emotions, they will lose it.
Yes, they will lose the election to one aging old lion or another, one way or
another. One way is to insist that Hillary be thrown in the briar patch so the
Republicans can laugh all the way to The White House. Another way is to let the
Republicans wise up and nominate a D.A. from Law & Order while the
Democrats sit on their thumbs and let Gore stay in the movie business. Wake up,
morons! Thompson is their best man and Gore is ours. Edwards is our second best
man and they don't even have one! So what are the supposedly intellectual
Democrats doing? Voting with their emotions instead of their brains. Putting the
first woman on Pennsylvania Avenue would be a glorious step forward for America.
But a corporate she-wolf like Hillary? She's not who we want future generations
to remember as the first female President! What about Obama? Well, what about
him? He may be a wonderful human being and his heart is certainly in the right
place, but that also describes John Edwards. Who among us is going to speak up
and tell the truth? Obama is a wonderful speaker, with his head in the clouds
and all, but Edwards is the true populist candidate. No matter how much the
American people desperately need a populist President right now, Edwards is
likely to lose the nomination simply because he is white!
If Hillary takes the nomination, and if she takes the final election, have we
really gained anything? Yes, of course she will be a lot better president than
George Bush, but so would Elmer Fudd! Or Sheriff Andy Taylor. Or Lou Dobbs. Or
Cindy Sheehan. Or Jay Leno. Or Bill Maher. Or maybe even Bill O'Reilly! Okay,
you get the picture. When are you relentless supporters of corporate Hillary
going to wake up and realize that, even if, and that's a big if, she gets
into office, she's going to do nothing more than continue to serve her corporate
masters? Do you clowns not realize that no matter what they may be otherwise,
those nasty Republicans know how to win a campaign? They want you to
nominate Hillary so they can attack her many foibles like Dirty Harry going
after the bad guys with his Colt .45 Magnum. This is not a story about Hillary
or Obama. It's a story about how you, the Hillary, and maybe the Obama
supporters, too, are being suckered. You are being played like the proverbial
fiddle.
Let's end on a serious note for a moment. I denigrate the Christians here only
to get your attention and make you laugh. Some of my best friends and some of my
own family are Christians. My wife is one. I'm one. Some of them may be more of
the evangelical variety, but my attitudes are far less evangelical and far more
moderate. The point of this story is that secret messages are being sent now,
too; only these messages are being delivered to the other team. The talking
heads and politicians sending these malignant signals are telling you that
immigrants should not be divided into legal and illegal. They are
telling you that maybe we should always be prepared to go blow the butts off
those on the other side of the world who disagree with us. They are telling us
that diversity should have no boundaries and that illegal immigrants should not
be deported, as if they really gave a rat's ass about poor Mexican families.
What they really care about is the same old thing, corporate greed at all cost.
Raise your hands: who does not realize that practically all the talking heads on
television news are millionaires? Who among you really believes that
millionaires have the same economic concerns that you do? Have you not figured
out yet that if we elect Hillary president, they will spend countless hours on
our TV screens discussing Bill the First Man and the limitless silly issues that
are likely to surface? How much screen time will they fill with stories of the
first black president? We'll hear the phrase first African-American President
so many times that O.J. and the whore from Mexia will be jealous! The
television news commentators are nothing more than millionaire celebrities who
will do or say absolutely anything to keep the dollars flowing their way. Don't
be like the fools for Reagan. The corporations will never give any money back.
The War on the Middle Class is as real as a heart attack. Feeling like a Reagan
Christian Crazy yet? Hold on to your diversity-training schedules. You will
soon. Very, very soon....
Step Up to the Podium (6/3/07)
The first of the CNN debates will begin in just a few
hours. Just as a quickie note, I want to make a statement before any of them
even open their mouths. Here is the descending order in which any of them have a
chance at becoming President. The rest can forget it. The swami has spoken.
Al We Will Rock You Gore
Barack Remember The Beatles? That's How Popular I Am Obama
Fred Dalton Bassett Hound Thompson
John How Do You Like My Haircut? Edwards
Mitt Flippity Flopper Romney
Rudy Don't I Look Good in a Dress? Giuliani
Hillary Rodham What, Me, Corporate? Clinton
John I Support the Most Unpopular President in History McCain
If You Don’t Buy It, They Can’t Sell It (6/10/07)
I adopted this as my personal motto so long ago that I
cannot even remember the year. What it refers to is simply that if the corporate
media, corporate advertising, or our politicians try a little too hard to ram
something down our throats, we should smell a skunk and hoist the red flag! If
they seem to be expending too much time, money, and energy trying to sell it,
then something must be wrong with it. Get it? This is the time to be
suspicious....
I am so fed up with the intellectual, left-wing establishment right now that I
could chew through nails, as the old saying goes. This is absolutely the first
time in my life that I have even considered voting Republican! Now when you
think we finally have those Wall Street Christians on the run that all liberals
should finally be relieved and happy. That should be the case, but it clearly
isn't, and the reason is mind numbingly simple. We have traded one marriage made
in hell for another! After twenty-five years of dealing with the ominous
aftershocks of Reagan's secret messages to the Christian evangelicals in 1980,
now we have unholy matrimony declared between Wall Street and The Diversity
Police! I'm talking about the stinking immigration law the new married couple is
having a duck fit to enact, of course. Yes, I know the latest version was
strangled in the Senate, but we all know that once a really bad idea catches on
in the land of the brave and free, it never goes away. It just gets federal
funding and a massive, destructive level of power. I'm talking about the War on
Drugs and Diversity Training here, folks. They both stink, not because the
simple basis of the idea is wrong, but because in America, there is never enough
of anything. Everything we undertake has to be blown out of all proportion or we
aren't happy!
Does the mass of intelligent left-wing voters genuinely not realize that the
immigration push is first and foremost really about the H1-B Visa program, not
the multitudinous fruit pickers? It's your highly rewarded engineering and
computer jobs they want to replace, you blockheads! Just as in the Reagan secret
messages, the words on the politicians' lips and the hidden agendas are two
different entities. You've now had twenty years to mull it over. Do you still
think Wall Street really gave a gnat's butt if kids prayed in school or not? Can
you not see that the real enemy of most Americans is the unchecked greed of Wall
Street? All the corporations have ever cared about is the race to the bottom,
and we are the racers. They're just sitting back counting their cash with their
big, fluffy black-and-white tails waving in the air! Wall Street never cared a
whit about the issues of the Christians in the '80's. They just wanted their
votes to control the vast sheep population of America. They have not changed a
bit. They still want the same thing now. The only difference is that the
Christians have been traded for Mexicans and liberal, intellectual morons. This
is our new hell for the future.
What is right about depressing the wages of the legal immigrants who have been
working hard to get ahead for many years already? What is right about letting
one particular type of human breed like mosquitoes, while everyone else utilizes
control over the size of our population? What is right about letting
corporations bring as much cheap labor into the country as they desire, leaving
Americans unemployed or under-employed? What is right about moving the
lawbreakers into a line in front of those waiting patiently back in their home
countries? What is right about keeping black, native Americans at the bottom of
the job market forever? What is right about ensuring that black males remain the
most unemployed demographic in the country? What is right about searching little
old ladies at the airport while future gang members trot across our southern
border at will? What is right about filling our jails with criminals we should
have deported long ago, the first time our police caught them breaking U, S.
laws? What is right about shoving many of our cities, counties, and social
service organizations toward bankruptcy while trying to care for mass numbers of
the citizens of another country? What is right about strangling the life and
integrity out of our school systems trying to educate in two languages? What is
right about ....?
Creeping Stillness (6/13/07)
I do not remember exactly where I recently read the phrase
creeping stillness. It was a comment on a blog by someone who was
describing the way things felt to him now. Whoever this wise commenter is, I tip
my hat to him, because this phrase quite aptly describes what I have been
feeling for a very long time. America is currently in a state of creeping
stillness, a time when nothing seems to happen. The pot is about to boil
over; we are sitting on a powder keg; we all have the blahs; it's the calm
before the storm; and many other cliches. Things are changing rapidly, and yet
they are not changing at all.
We are all whining about George Bush, yet when the millionaire talking heads on
television tell us that another Clinton is the only electable candidate, we all
nod our heads and salute the TV for its harbinger of common-sense truth. We want
Hillary because that will bring back Bill, and with him will come another tech
boom. Elect Hillary and Windows 95 and 98 will magically transform our job
market again! We all complain about the hogs of our cable news channels. You
know these swine. They go by names such as the daughter of a hotel magnate, a
spoiled redneck from Louisiana, and the whore from Mexia. We even tolerate it
when the pot calls the kettle black. The talking heads report that they are so
fed up with the media channels feeding us this worthless Pabulum, and the next
story they run is the one about one of The Big Three breaking wind. Yes, Martha,
we can still smell poots from the grave! The media blesses us with corporate
bullshit news in the cracks between the hog poot stories, and we still keep
watching! Has it not occurred to anybody that the Bushes are a dynasty, so now
we need to put another dynasty back in charge? Whatever we do, let's be sure to
keep the status quo.
Speaking as someone who pays his cable bill every month, I am waiting with bated
breath to hear the stories the millionaires will be slinging on us once Bill has
been crowned the new First Lady. Will he be allowed to use the ladies' room in
The Clinton Library? What color scheme will he choose for the dining room? Does
he try to alter the silverware layout when guests are invited to The White
House? Does he recommend the use of paper napkins when Chelsea has guests, or
should the cloth ones be laundered for the occasion? Will Bill's title be
First Lady-Man or First Man or Ex-Landlord of the Oval Office?
Will he be allowed to play his saxophone in public? Will he raise the stock
prices of all the tabloids with his affairs of state? Will he, in fact, become
the biggest cable news hog of all, pushing all those also-rans off the digital
stage?
The corporations have destroyed art in America with their unbridled greed. We
haven't had enough innovation in popular music to shake a Stratocaster at since
1980. The bookshelves at Barnes & Noble are filled with drivel paid for by their
corporate masters. You can name most any market or industry and, when you think
about it, you realize that no more than six megaconglomerates own that
particular industry lock, stock, and greed quotient. They have beaten every gram
of intelligence and innovation out of every product they have controlled. Every
industry is just a hollow shell of its former self, but few of us have yet to
genuinely understand the ramifications of this fact. There isn't going to be
another Beatles or another Mustang or even another Windows 98. There is nothing
left to be excited about in our everyday lives. There is nothing in our future.
Everything is just so discouraging. Be quiet enough and you can hear the
stillness creeping in....
Timeline of America Timeline for a Psychotic Nation Go Back to Sleep, America, Your Government is in Control Home Page
07/01/07