Thursday, August 31, 2006

...And so castles made of sand...melt in the sea...


Like a topping forest fire, Republican Congressmen and their aides pass the horror around, trying to shed it, unable to hide from the growing web of Truth that envelops them all. [see: http://www.jackinthehouse.org/How Jack Abramoff Bought Congress - a 4 year old site, but kept updated - explains the whole sordid thing...] Norm Ornstein said last night on Jim Lehrer that as many as SIXTY Republican Congressmen may be implicated. Are "Conservatism" - "Republicanism" - "Neoconism" headed for the junk heap of political history? It's hard to say, except that after the next 3 grueling, lawyer-infested, Nixonian-Gotterdammerung years, a Republican probably won't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected, hopefully for decades.

War profiteers, looters, and incompetent cronies have taken over our government, wrapping themselves in flags and bibles. Exploiting social differences and leveraging them into huge rifts, they have divided our country deliberately to get into power, then defrauded the us into a disasterously bungled war. Draft dodging bureaucrats have control of the United States Military. They have squandered military intelligence, strategic advantage in the world conflict with Jihad, and almost 9 Trillion Dollars. They have sold us out to the Chinese, so their Enron-Buddies can funnel everything out of here before the sh*t hits the fan.

The Bush Davidians and their Dittohead President do not have a monopoly on patriotism. This is not a country where only those who agree with him support the troops and care about defending our country, no matter how Limbaugh and Rove twist it.

Now, any Republican hoping to get re-elected has to distance himself from Bush - which splinters his base terribly. Ouch.

The Disgrace of Tom Delay

January 15, 2006

Yes, the debacle in the White House is bad for the Republicans, and bad for the Bush administration and the "Bush Davidians."

But think about how good it is for the United States, the public interest, and the rest of the world! The sooner we remove the pestilence from our government, the sooner we can begin to heal.

The question is, after all of Bush's crony-assistants have been indicted, why should any of his judicial and administrative appointments be trusted? Why should any of his opinions be trusted? Why is he still President? Shouldn't we impeach him, now? Should a proven incompetent be allowed to fly the plane? How much more damage will he do in the next 3 years?
Here are some well crafted sentences:

"Tom Delay didn't invent the hyperpartisan system that has seriously damaged our way of government, ignoring everyday voices and concerns in favor of special interests. But he has championed that system, often skating on the ethical, if not the legal, edge and assuring that money speaks the loudest in Washington, and only with a Republican tongue.
It is a legacy of which he actually seems proud, which may be a bigger indictment against him than the criminal charges brought in Austin."

By CLAY ROBISON, Houston Chronicle

Foundations of Neo-Republicanism

Paraphrasing Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure:

"Bush, proud Bush, dressed in his little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assured, his glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep; who with our spleens would all themselves laugh mortal."

Neocon bigots are truly the pot calling the kettle black when they accuse Democrats of not wanting to hand over the store because of "anti-Arab bigotry." The real racism is in the Neocons themselves, in their arrogant assumption that the Iraqi "savages" [as Ann Coulter calls them] would flock to Western Ways the second we got rid of Saddam. Neocon hubris and racism drove us into this disasterous situation.

Dubya started a war he couldn't finish, and when he tells the threadbare lie that "they attacked us on 9/11 so we're taking the war to them-" he's just mouthing Dittohead pap - and showing that "them," to his dimwitted bigotry, just means all those people running around in their pajamas over there. [The 9/11 Commission stated definitively that Hussein did not have WMD and was not working with Al Qaida. It's Bush-Limbaugh-bigotry to assume "they're all in cahoots with each other."]

Neoconservative 'thought' derives from among other things a childish idolization of Ronald Reagan, and for the pinheads, the novels of Ayn Rand, with their survival-of-the-richest economic Darwinism.

Ronald Reagan's Hollywood bravado impressed the Neocons, but their sentiment blinds them to the fact that Islamic Jihad, or "terror" as Bush so clumsily puts it, cannot be swept away as easily as were the cobwebs of failed Socialism that Ronnie brushed aside. Reagan was not the "Greatest President of All Time," as O'Reilly droned during the funeral, he was a B-movie actor portraying the Greatest President of all Time.

Ayn Rand, that girlish romantic, also captured the narrow eye of the Neocons, and their surface analysis of her message has them John Galt-ing the United States into oblivion. Her adolescent fantasies about a Republican Shangri-la don't hold water, and don't forget either, kids, that Galt's Valley was entirely powered by a generator the size of a suitcase. Ayn's superheroes had sense, and didn't take their "Virtue of Selfishness" to mean they were entitled to trash the world in an angry, ham-handed tantrum.

Bush has painted himself into a corner. He has driven the ship of state into the rocks. He has squandered the position of strategic advantage that he was entrusted with. He has betrayed the trust of the American People in a bewildering array of stunts, from Terry Shaivo and Mike Brown, to his degradation of our Military, his decimation of Medicare and to the ocean of Red Ink that surrounds us. Not only are WE not safer, the world is not safer, thanks to George Bush and the Neocon rabble that run him.

In the adored "business model" of Republicans, does a CEO that bankrupts the company, bungles his management duties, and "loses" hundreds of billions of dollars [see: Halliburton] get to keep his job? When the company's jugular vein is being handed over to its arch-enemy, and the President says: "I hadn't heard about it-" do we sit by and do nothing? [This one was written 2/26/06, just after the Dubai Ports scandal, when they were getting ready to hand our ports to a potentially hostile Arab country.]

The Neocon Strategy

When Bush says, for example: "some people say Iraq is in a Civil War," "some people" is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what his opponents advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position. He typically then says he 'strongly disagrees' -- conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

Below-the-belt strategies like this are what Neocon Republicans depend on. What the Republicans revealed during their muckraking frenzy in the 90's was that the gloves were off, honor was by the wayside, and now we're fighting like girls - anything goes. Power at any cost. Any lie was acceptable, as long as it was on the Drudge Report long enough to metastasize into the unwitting old-media, the ones who still played by the rules. Subsequent debunkings were always lost in the blizzard of new lies. The Fox Network provided a sheen of legitimacy while imparting torrents of lies, indistinguishable from real news to the credulous, advertising-dulled trained consumer-seals that make billions for McDonalds and who support Bush.

The monumental falsehood that Republicans stand for Morality, Ethical Behavior, and Fiscal Responsibility has been shown for what it is. Attacking the media, attacking the polls, and dividing the country with their "Culture War," Neocon Republicans are attacking the very fabric of our Constitutional system. What a lot of people still don't quite get is that these are madmen. They believe they are God-Empowered, and that the Apocalypse is nigh. Bush is flippant and cheerful because that worked for Ronnie, so they're using it again. They have driven the ship of state into the rocks, and are now passing the buck to the next Presidency.

The Republican mantra that "The Democrats have no ideas" is idiotic. Bumper Sticker slogans are the kind of ideas they're thinking of, the only kind of ideas they have. "Ideas," rather priorities for Democrats are the only priorities a patriot could possibly have - to wrest our country back from traitors before it's too late. Bush denies that Iraq is in a Civil War. Our own ambassador to Iraq flatly contradicts the President. Bush would probably deny that the United States is in a Constitutional Crisis - but reality itself contradicts him from the foundation stones of our Country.

We can take the Country back in November. Only then will we be able to demand accountability from the criminals currently in charge. Prosecuting Ken Lay is not "playing the blame game" or "vindictive partisan politics" - the parallel with Bush is obvious. Criminals, war profiteers, and traitors should be called to account. For prime examples of petty partisan politics, examine Republican behavior, it is their stock in trade. If we can take back the country, we can begin the process of restoring dignity to our military, by getting them out of an untenable, demoralizing situation. Iraq will descend into chaos, whether we stay or go, it makes no difference.

Here's a Democratic idea: Energy Independence. We went to the Moon, we went to Mars, we can figure out how to stop whoring ourselves to crooked Texans and Oil Sheiks. We've cured cancers - we can end our dependence on fossil fuels.

And then there's Public Financing of Political Campaigns - we have to control the pigs at the trough...

Climate Change vs. Rush Limbaugh


Republicans don't have to believe over 200 degreed and peer-reviewed scientists from around the world.

Republicans don't have to believe the people who live in the Arctic who say the permafrost is melting for the first time in human memory.

Republicans only need to believe Rush Limbaugh, a draft-dodging drug addict shill for the Oil Corporations that run the country.

Republicans are faith-based - faith in criminals. Faith in the cigarette corporation lawyers and "scientists" who say that cigarettes are harmless. Faith in Neocon war-profiteers who try to connect bin Laden with Iraq. Faith in market researched non-issues like Terry Schaivo's feeding tube.

Because Republicans abdicate their responsibility of being informed, and cling to their anti-social ideology at the expense of science, the public interest, and the truth, they are immoral, depraved traitors.

Their "gotcha" politics, their glib, flippant swagger, their jingoism, their contempt for the truth, is juvenile and a disgrace.

Republicanism is a cancer, destroying Western Civilization. It's defenders are beneath contempt and beyond redemption.

RAVE: Rainbows /// RANT: Miserable, Tormented Neocons

For all of you hate-drunk, bitter, cynical, constipated Republicans, who love to uglify everything in your own image, this is from a CBS 4 Denver article about the Gathering:

"The next phase includes re-seeding the area. The Rainbows said they don't even want it to look like there were trails and roads. They want it all to be re-vegetated. The Forest Service complimented them on their efforts to clean up. They said they have a very good record when it comes to that. But they also told me it may be a couple of years before the seeds fill in the bare areas out there. They want to use native vegetation as well. The Rainbows said in time, you won't even know that they were there, that it would look like it used to, and they said to check other gathering sites for proof of that. It may still be a week or so before all of the work is done."

Andrea Lopez

Questioning a Failed Policy does not equal Terrorism

Neocon spin doctors push the drivel that questioning Bush is treason.

Cheney, mouthing the latest lie, knows damn well that, far from making us safer, "an aggressive posture" on Iraq has had the exact opposite effect. In a survey of 100 top foreign-policy experts (both Republicans and Democrats), 84 believed that we're losing the war on terror and 87 thought Iraq has had a negative impact on our efforts to defeat terrorists.

This is a war that 60 percent of Americans are against. A war that is the defining foreign policy initiative of the Bush administration -- an initiative that has been an abject failure on every level. A war that has put the GOP's back against the electoral wall. So it's firing back with it's favorite weapon -- fear -- trying to make the case that being against the war somehow makes Ned Lamont soft on national security or, as RNC chair Ken Mehlman put it, "a leading proponent of the isolationist, defeatist, blame-America-first philosophy."

The 60% in question know that being against the war in Iraq doesn't mean you are against fighting the war on terror. It means you are against a failed policy that has created more terrorists than it has killed, that has cost America 2,591 lives and $305 billion dollars, that has thrown Iraq into a bloody sectarian civil war, and that has so lessened our standing abroad that we are unable to be a real power broker in an exploding Middle East.

John Kerry effectively counterattacked the Republican's scare tactics nonsense today [8/11/06] -- and every Democratic leader should do the same every day, without fail, until the message finally breaks through the static. The thwarted London attacks, said Kerry, "expose the misleading myth that we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here. In fact, the war in Iraq has become a dangerous distraction... Nearly five years after the attacks of 9/11, we are not as safe as we can and must be... The 9/11 Commission's recommendations to secure our most vulnerable infrastructure remain virtually ignored. And homeland security funding has been cut for cities like Boston and New York.

One of the main reasons this has happened is that Congressional Democrats have failed to hold the Bush administration accountable for taking its eye off the national security ball in order to pursue its imperial adventure in Iraq. It's worth noting that the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee is none other than Joe Lieberman, whose belief in bipartisan comity has kept him from holding the White House's feet to the fire. No wonder Karl Rove wanted to help him out, and Dick Cheney feels so concerned by his defeat.

It's hard not to hate traitors....

The Bushies tearfully call anyone questioning Bush a "Bush-Hater," thinking, in their myopic and confused way, that it's an insult. It's not.

Bush, the Neocons, and the dupes who support them are the biggest danger facing the civilized world.

The Neocons are fundamentally confused about the situation in the Middle East, and have botched and bungled a critical situation, changing the course of world history in an extremely negative and dangerous direction.

At home they have handed the government over to rapist corporations, and have attempted to gut the great Middle Class that is the backbone of the country.

War profiteering traitors occupy the White House. Anyone who loves this country cannot help but hate them. The yapping of their supporters is a disgrace.

Desperate Republicans

Their strategy of blaming the messenger, calling their critics terrorists, and fearmongering are getting more and more stale. Their broad-brush Limbaughisms are believable only to the stupidest of people. Dubya's empty platitudes and slogans are transparent lies, and an insult to anyone with a brain.

They lied us into a disasterous war for oil, which they then bungled miserably. "Terrorism" was their excuse - but as a response to Islamic Jihad, invading Iraq was perhaps the stupidest possible thing we could have done.

Afghanistan, which we were right to liberate, is now coming under Taliban rule again, because we're distracted in Iraq. The civil war in Iraq puts us in the position of alienating half of the country, no matter WHO we side with.

They ignore their responsibility to the public interest. They sneer at the Middle Class. They are incompetent liars, war-profiteers, and traitors. THROW THEM OUT!

To The Carbabies



[This was from about 2003 when http://changingtheclimate.org was more radical...]

To the Carbabies:

Wastefulness is as American as Apple Pie! Throw it away! There's ALWAYS More!

What better way to compensate for being shallow and empty than to drive around in a prosthetic body extension that multiplies your personal real estate by a factor of 40 or 50?

Wallow in your big shiny status symbol, seal yourself off from the inferior masses, and thumb your nose at contemptible pedestrians.

Eliminate nagging doubts about the worth of your existence by pressing the gas pedal, and leaving them in your dust.

Seal yourself off from everything around you; experience the world through glass, metal, and filtered air.

Dive into the seething rivers of steel and wait; enjoy your wait with your cell phone, your laptop, your cd player. Do not connect with all of the other individuals waiting in their cars; do not make eye contact.

Drug yourself with prozac, nicotine, and a million other things, so you can ignore the famed Black Forest in Germany that is dead from acid rain, or the air in Mexico City that is so filthy that you can catch hepatitis from breathing. Turn up the volume on your 6 disc cd player so you can forget the thousands of wells in India that are poisoned with cyanide, the Black Sea in Russia, which is dying, or Semipalitinsk, where radiation deformities plague locals 30 years after the experiments.

Adjust your electric seat to distract you from thinking about what it will be like here in 20, 40, or 100 years, when it is as crowded as China, when there is no intelligent government, and everything is as trashed out as it is in Mexico, Russia, or India.

Flash your foglights at the idiot in front of you to remind you that you will somehow be lucky or rich enough to escape to one of the enclaves of cleanliness and order that will remain in the sea of trash.

Look around and luxuriate in all of the space inside your vehicle that is distinctly YOURS, and remember that everyone is implicated; everyone who eats or uses a toothbrush is part of the transportation grid. If you sneeze you're a polluter. Why try to streamline? Burn it up! You Worked for it. You Deserve it.

The two largest corporations in the world are General Motors and Exxon. Carbabies should be sent to a planet entirely paved with John Elway parking lots jammed with idling Excursions, Tahoes, and Suburbans, to give them a glimpse of the world they are creating.

Put a sticker on Every One of 'em.