Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Why I'm Not a Democrat


Well, besides Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh, Rahm Emmanuel, Lawrence Rockefeller, the Iraq war vote, carte blanche for Israel, telecom immunity, torturers' immunity, there's Joe Lieberman. Immunity for Joe Lieberman is prima facie proof that the Democrats can't even stand up for their own brand, that Harry Reid, et al.. care about nothing but their own power. They're going to press one of the most deservedly hated men in America to their breast, and then they're going to act all surprised when this desperately cynical and cowardly betrayal of their supporters boomerangs.
It's not even tragic, it's ...indescribable.


Saturday, November 15, 2008

The G-20 Meeting

Sure now it warms the heart to see good American veterans in front of the National Archives waiting to pay all due respects to his Irrelevancy and Cheney the Evil Dwarf as they go the the G-20 meeting (in the Builidng Museum) on how to recharge the magic in the Free Market Unicorn. Probably this will involve selling virgins to Satan, but hell, if it gets the Dow back up over 10,000, that'll be small price to pay.

I'm sure our newscreatures will be falling all over their teleprompters to gush about how the brave, wise, white suits of Washington will figure it out and kiss the boo-boo and make it all better again. So we can go back to watching American Idol and The War on the SUV's TV while driving off to the big box store for a pallet-load of Cheetos and Xanax and toilet paper. A "leibniz leibkins," commentor at Artrios points out, "In a corporate society the corporate media is the state media."

Ah yes, America the Bestest, Free-est Country Ever!

History Lesson

It was the custom, in the England of the third King George,
(the hideous dictator deplored by our forefathers with such warlike
oratory) that no man had to surrender the road to the king
or his entourage; his beery, bad-teeth people would have strung
him up for such presumption. I think of this considerate king
whenever the cops stop traffic on Constitution so the Underflunky
of Something Or Other can have the whole eight-lane avenue
to roar by importantly in a racket of sirens and snarling Harleys,
his wasp-eyed Praetorian morons scowling down the barrels
of their burp-guns, twitching their trigger fingers at the sheepish
polite people to whom they will never, ever have to answer.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Black Bush?


I voted for the man, notwithstanding my reservations about his craven stance on FISA, notwithstanding his infuriating enthusiasm for state-sponsored religion (faith-based Federal programs), but his obstruction of reprisal against Joe Rape-Gurney Lieberman strikes me as a very ominous sign. It's hard to think what more Lieberman could do to to sabotage the Democrats, and ye they think he's essential to their lockstepping phalanx of sixty die-hard loyalists. Right. It is said Obama's actually going to bat for Lieberman. This would seem to continue George Bush's practice of not holding anyone accountable for anything. This may augur a long four (eight?) years.


If Obama can't stand up to Joe Lieberman, how's he going to stand up to [insert instransigent asshole here]?

Friday, November 07, 2008

Omen or Statement?


God is a bad novelist: Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 5AM, I was leaving the Ministry of Elegance for my European mission when across Constitution Avenue, next to the Fountain of the Homeless, across from the Newsoleum, a large red-tailed hawk hit a fat rat and flew up the avenue and into a tree, there to devour him. End of an era!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Devoted to Voting


I voted a few days ago, and it took me two hours. Ordinarily this would have been a purgatorial DMV-like experience, but there was a real, if subtle, vibe of urgency and determination in the room, along with a mitzein sense of mission. The beleagured people who ran the whole show were very pleasant, efficient, helpful and even humorous -- a thing one doesn't often encounter in the hard-pressed DC government worker. I chatted with some gals who were headed down to Newport News to get out the vote for Obama, filling them in a bit on the lay of that estuarial land -- since I lived in that area for many years. I brought a good magazine to read and the time went by fast actually. When it was all over I was actually rather buzzed, I was suprised to realize, with a little cold sweat, like I'd gotten a grain of Ecsatasy in my coffee or something. Not of course that my vote, in the District of Columbia, was anything momentous. But, strange the way the group-vibe can work on you, reaching down into the reptitilian lobes of your brain and goosing things a bit.


Yesterday morning, as I was ironing a shirt I had the local Fox News on for weather and they were giving prominent play to the "ten-hour voting lines" story. It occured to me, that, intended or not, this type of story could definitely help suppress the vote, especially when matched up with deliberate attempts to sandbag black polling by cracker official and scumbag judges. Read here: soldiers, presumptive Republicans in the eyes of McCain, may vote any time at all basically, block people -- not so much.
Professional people, or the relatively privileged anyway, may not have too much trouble devoting all day to voting, but if you're an hourly wage slave, that's a hundred bucks out of your pocket -- if the boss lets you take it off at all. It occurs to me that it would be healthier for America if a lot more people voted. Given this we should go to early and/or weekend voting. We should have voting at least on a Saturday, Sunday and Monday -- this last being a Federal Holiday.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

It's Not Who Votes that Counts...


...it's who counts the votes. So don't get too optimistic about any Democratic landslide. It should be a landslide, but the networks and the newspapers have been doing all they could to ignore and conceal GOP criminality -- though at Bushian levels of malfeasance this becomes challenging. And of course the Dems have predictably done all they could to fuck it up, so I predict it'll be close enough to steal. The only question is whether the powers behind the scene feel it's worth the risk and stink of stealing.


Blogging these last few weeks has had limited appeal. Maybe it's overchoice, a function of the "target rich environment" (as Custer might've termed the Little Bighorn). It does seem that the Republican party has really devolved quite disastrously, doubling down (and redoubling and re-redoubling) on their inherent awfulness, their clueless evil to such a degree that even former and recent fans, in fact all but the most bigotted yobboes, are repulsed. If we are very, very, very lucky, the Republican Party will cease to exist or at least be trimmed back to a ridiculous vestige like the National Socialists and the KKK -- which it increasingly resembles. But don't cry for the Grand Yobbo Party. Because people are inherently falliable, often weak, selfish and foolish, it will probably always be possible to profitably exploit ignorant bigotry (The Krupps and the I.G. Farben did it, much as did Halliburton, Blackwater, KBR and many, many more.), so the moral equivalent of the GOP will spring up soon in some other pernicious form, like a cancer. There might be an outside chance that men could grow generally wiser than that, but real education being the low priority that it is in America, it is, at best, that outside, perhaps even a sweepstakes chance.


In the meantime we need to do all we can to eliminate not just Republicans, but the Vichycrats like Lieberman, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Lawrence Rockefeller and the many others who have abetted the Republicans in their degradation of democracy.
I already voted, and am off next week to Europe on a mission for the Ministry of Elegance. Let's hope there's a reason to come back.