Fascinoma

I recently had dinner with an old friend who avowed that he is a Republican, and according to Sunday’s New York Times young people (especially the less-educated), are trending more Republican of late which leads me to wonder, are these people ignoring the real Republican platform or drawn to it? Might it help to elucidate the things common to virtually all Republican politicians:

Climate change denial.

Religious bigotry: the fervent wish to see “God” returned to the public classroom and Creationism given equal footing with evolution there.

Coded race-baiting bigotry, up to and including actively seeking to suppress minority voting with phony voter fraud scandals.

Voodoo economics: the something-for-nothing superstition that tax break pay for themselves, and that concentrating wealth in the hands the few “creates jobs.”

The fervent wish to dismantle environmental, workplace safety, food safey, and product safety regulations, and abolish the agencies that enforce them.

Orwellian warmongering -- a reflexive enthusiasm for whatever war a (Republican) President provides pretexts for, especially if it intersects with the racial and religious bigotry that forms the party’s life force.

An acceptance of warrantless wiretapping, torture, extrajudicial incarceration and execution, as the President’s prerogative in the eternal wars of his choosing.

Belief that pregnancy is a proper penalty for sex, and enthusiasm for governmental interference in the most private moral decisions of the citizenry.

The prioritizing of corporate rights over those of the citizen.

An eager willingness to pander to the most proudly ignorant, racist, xenophobic among us, and to exacerbate these tendencies among the citizenry.

As I was descending to the Underworld Expresss this morning I passed a soul rising on the blood-spattered (no idea what that was about) steps of my station and I noted his tie. It seemed to have some sort of Old School pattern on it and reflexively I scanned to see if it might possibly be a school of my acquaintance. But no, not the Ohio Boys Reformatory, not even a school -- the little gold and black repeating embelems, proved on close inspection, to be a pair of disembodied hands pressed togther in ostentatious prayer. The latent Satanist in me recoiled inwardly.

The other day, as I was running, I passed a couple of gals steaming up the Mass. Avenue sidewalk, past Joe Biden's place, in black chador. I was hot in just running shorts and shoes, these gals, though they weren't running, must've really been suffering in those getups. My heart did not go out to them however.

It strikes me that there is a whole lot of very public piety about these days, and more all the time. All at a time when warmongering, fuck-thy-neighbor materialism is fast becoming the semi-official creed of the land -- and the world that slavishly imitates it. I think it goes to show that this kind of ostentatious display, this sanctimonious exhibtionism, is precisely the opposite of what it purports and idiotically even considers itself to be. It is not merely Godless, but godless, soul-less. A backsliding, self-blind, moronic credulity is quickly replacing all that is noble and transcendent within humankind.

It may be anything by safe to say, but it is nonetheless true, that Rupert Murdoch has done more damage to Western Democracy than the Communist Party, Al Qaeda and the Medellin Cartel combined. He's been pouring poison in our ears for years.

It would be really nice if the hacking scandal led to his demise and to that of his underlings. But soon enough the New York Times will be running a story about how he weathered this crisis like a real pro and came out smelling like a rose. Because that's how degraded our discourse has become -- in no small part due to Rupert Murdoch.

The most salutary thing that could come of the Casey Anthony Case is would be Nancy Grace's committing seppuku but that ain't gonna happen. That would require some self-awareness, some sense of personal responsibility and the capacity for shame. Satan take the capacity for shame from people like Nancy in trade for the promise of fame -- or at least air time.

But the thing to really remember about the case is not the travesty of justice (we piss on justice in this country all day, every day), but its quintessence as values-porn. The case pushed all the right buttons as Amanda points out: a victim so innocent she's practically a snowflake baby; a defendant who's demonstrably slutty, has tattoos, and has Hispanic paramours. This case is just right to inflame the resentment and bigotry of rubes coast to coast.

Never mind that tots die every day in this country due to the stupidity and/or depravity of their waste-case parents. Little is done about this and no power in heaven or on earth can make the media take an interest if, say, the moron in the dock is fat and black. It's just not good TV. But get a pouty-hot redneckette in handcuffs before the cameras, and not only can she focus the lady of the house's maternal outrage, but Dad can think in the shower about how he would punish and punish the little slut.

The fundamental truth is that this was a Show Trial. It had nothing to do with getting justice for anyone. If we were at all interested in justice the entire Bush administration would be awaiting their dates with the firing squad. The Show Trial is about distracting us from facts like that. It's also about scapegoating, about making a human sacrifice to the "principle" of justice, rather than, say, trying to bring about justice in a rational, workaday, painstaking manner.

Casey Anthony did it, some form of "it", I dare say. But Dick Cheney had people tortured to death. Casey probably won't be bragging about it the way Dick does. So there are travesties and travesties.

I can't really see the slightest cause for optimism on the nation's nominal birthday. The ship of state lists ever more to the right aided by the vileness of our talking heads and the complicit cowardice of the Democrats.

Soon enough the thieving mad fools of the Reich Wing will precipitate real economic disruption, the kind that causes incalculable widespread suffering, which, in turn, inspires rage against the putative authors of the catastrophe. The Foxagandists will exploit this into a Tall Trees Moment wherein the aggrieved masses will turn on the very people who decried the from the start the folly and predations of the Kleptocracy. Perhaps the Capitol will burn so Rick Perry (or similar) can blame it on the liberals.

This said, here's cool subjective-P.OV. video of a firework's one mortal orgasm.