My Muse Busts Chops (mine)

Sometimes it takes a headline to jolt the senses enough for my muse to rise up and begin to move me to write.

I had her look at the headlines below and she smirked, rolled her eyes and said, "You've got to be kidding me? Those headlines aren't inspiring, they're, unbeknownst to their authors, friggin’ rhetorical!" I responded incredulously. Really? You think so? I ducked and she began to furiously break each of them down for me. The headline comes first, followed by her detailed analysis.

Tucker Carlson and Dana Perino Join Fox News as Contributors

No shit! Couldn't have seen that one coming...

Republican Insiders: Cheney Is Hurting the Party

No shit! You reap what you sow, I suppose.

Bair: Some Bank CEO’s Will be Fired

No shit! (As well they should be!)

911 Mastermind Questioned About Iraq/Al Qaeda Link During Waterboardings

No shit!

Media Shocked, Shocked, Shocked (I tell ya!) That Pelosi Criticizes CIA

No shit! Liberal media bias my ass! The MSM are a bunch of egomaniacal corporate friggin’ lapdogs!

Miss California on Cable News: Fox & Friends Gives Carrie Prejean Her Chance

Oh my goodness! Who’d have ever imagined that one, Wally!

43 Children Stun-Gunned at Prisons ‘Take Your Kid to Work’ Day

No sh-
Wait... You snuck a headline in on me!

This one’s got legs. Not too shoddy.
That one, my dear, is a headline that,
Although shocking, no pun intended,
Hasn’t a rhetorical bone in its body.

Now, if you’ll not bother me again,
Until you stop being a nitwit,
I might, sometime in the future,
take you seriously... No shit.

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

Reminiscing About the Future

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Watching McCain/Palin rallies it seems as if Republican Party jihadists are praying for a bullet, a bimbo or a bomb. They know only a catastrophic event will prevent Senator Obama from becoming president while the Republican Party is poised for disintegration from coast to coast. In my home state of New York, Democrats finally outnumber Republicans in Nassau and Suffolk Counties! Nassau County was home to the vaunted political machine of Al D'Amato and bastion of GOP money and patronage. No more and Democrats are poised to capture the New York State Senate for the first time since 1965 as a result. I realize most regard New York as the bluest of states but that's a big deal and symptomatic of the political terrain nationwide.

Memo to Republicans: Obama's ascendancy does not mean the "end of days." However, the combination of George W. Bush's two mismanaged military occupations, crony capitalism and the resulting economic calamity mean even Jesus Christ will not save the GOP's rotting corpse. Republican salvation will only come from repentance of their failed corporate theocratic ideology and cultural contempt for intelligent secular people.

Republicans eminently deserve the pasting they're about to receive. More importantly, Republicans have thoroughly demonstrated how incapable they are of competent governance; especially during times of crisis. For the moment, America and the world can't afford to have the GOP anywhere close to the reigns of power beyond a few state and municipal governments. Republicans also need this beating as an impetus to reform themselves.

Ultimately, I hope judicious Republicans rise above the mob that their party has pandered to. Democrats do not have a monopoly on wisdom and will not be above hubris with one party domination. Progressive Netroots activists like myself will do our best to keep Democrats honest but what's really needed is the competition of strong adversarial parties (note I didn't write party singular) engaged in the intellectual marketplace of ideas.

The years ahead will be challenging and tumultuous. Americans will be tasked with creating a new economic social/paradigm on the fly that works in the 21st century while too many of us are struggling to survive and avoid destitution. Our country will be further challenged because we can no longer effectively sustain an empire and that will require a major adjustment as the world is experiencing both shortages of oil and water. Indeed, a large dose of humility will be needed after the hyperpower post Cold War presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Culturally, we Americans have never done well with humility so that too represents a challenge.

Senator Obama is far from perfect but he appears to have the right stuff for the challenges ahead. Initially, however, should Obama become president Democrats will largely be debating with themselves as the GOP is poised for irrelevancy after November 4th. In the short term that is necessary and good. In the long run that will be a recipe for disaster. Even Franklin Roosevelt had Republicans he could reach out to during World War Two such as Indiana Senator Arthur Vandenberg. As of now though virtually the entire Republican Party establishment is discredited.

It takes more than one party to govern a country especially during times as challenging as these. Hopefully, a landslide down the ticket on November 4th will facilitate the emergence of a new generation of Republicans who are part of the "reality based community" and ready to vigorously compete in the marketplace of ideas. Otherwise we'll all go down together.

This Video Says It All

Can We Please Get On With the Capital Crimes Trial of George W. Bush? via The Existentialist Cowboy

...before Bush starts World War III! Word is Israel is planning to strike Iran. That takes the heat off Bush while giving him the war he wants in the Middle East. Scenario: Israel strikes Iran. Iran retaliates. The US joined Israel and Bush get his jollies watching mushroom clouds from afar! Gog Magog, my ass! Bush his psychotic.

The debate about whether "waterboarding" is or is not "torture" is another GOP red herring. Anyone who denies waterboarding is torture should prove it's not by public submitting themselves to it! That just might end another stupid obfuscation by the GOP. Then again, it doesn't really matter what it's called --especially by the liars of Bush's illegiimate regime. By any defintion, it is a violation of Due Process of Law and the various international conventions to which the US is bound.

I have yet to find anything in the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the various treaties to which the US is bound by law and convention that gives anyone in the US --including persons who call themselves "President" --a right to violate Due Process of anyone. There are numerous laws, however, which bind the US to the Geneva Convention despite unconstitutional attempts by both Bush and Congress to exempt Bush from Geneva but only after he had already violated it! The statute, in effect at the time Bush committed the crime, makes Bush a war criminal, subject to prosecution for capital crimes. Congress may change the law but the Constitution forbids they "back date it".

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

--Article 1, US Constitution

Now --can we please get on with the capital crimes trial of George W. Bush?

Bush is a Bigger Threat Than "Terrorists"!!

The charges against Rumsfeld are a good first step! My goal is to see the lot of them in the dock ---Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Ashcroft!!! Americans: let me put this bluntly. The Bush administration is not a legitimate administration. It is a crime syndicate, in office because the GOP helped them steal two elections. Being illegitimate, nothing done by this gang is legal or has the force of law. Let me put this yet another way: a criminal occupies the White House and presumes to rule by decree. In the words of Che, the peace must be considered "already broken".

The World Wide Campaign to

Bring Bush's War Criminals to Trial

Bush's arrest for his a seemingly endless list of crimes and outrages is long overdue.

The right not to have one's person violated arbitrarily in the absence of probable cause or evidence, is a crime against humanity. There is, moreover, no evidence, that anyone tortured by George "Torguemada" Bush or his minions in crime, has ever been connected with terror at any time, in any way. Show me some evidence! Show me a single "terrorist" that Bushco has ever brought to justice! Show me something other than bullshit!

And --today --we learned that the cowardly Democrats have confirmed yet another "torturer" as Atty General. Democrats, this is not good enough. How about the American people boycott this election and hold an alternative election? How about the people form a legitimate government under the law. At present, a lawless gang occupies Washington. What do the Democrats in Washington proposed to do about it. I learned early in my broadcasting career that one was either a part of a solution or part of the problem. The cowardly Demos are quickly becomming a part of the problem, if not co-conspirators!

Now from the department of "Big Frickin' Deal"!!!

Democrats To Tie War Funding, Pullout

The AP reports, "Under pressure to support the troops but end the war, House Democrats said Thursday they would send President Bush $50 billion for combat operations on the condition that he begin withdrawing troops from Iraq." The proposal, "similar to one Bush vetoed earlier this year, would identify a goal of ending combat entirely by December 2008.

"The Politico notes Speaker Pelosi "told reporters yesterday that the new proposal "would leave a small force in the country to pursue Al Qaeda, protect US interests and train Iraqi security forces." The New York Times says the plan "is certain to be opposed in the House by many Republicans as well as some strongly antiwar Democrats who want tougher restrictions on the president." The Hill notes Republicans "attacked Democrats for going to the well once again with votes calling for a withdrawal of troops." The measure "also caught many Democrats off guard. In the early afternoon, most legislators interviewed said they hadn't seen the legislation, even some who were actively trying to obtain a copy."

...I am unimpressed! Democrats could have ended this war but haven't. The attitude is typified by Hilary who obviously believes that "Anti-war nut jobs" have no place to go.

In the meantime, it's time for Bush's criminal regime to put up or shut up! It's time Democrats grew a spine! It's time that the people of the US overthrew this government and replaced it with a lawful one under the Constitution.

In the meantime, Democrats have helped Bush get another torturer appointed to Attorney General. Bush will not have improved his horrible, criminal record with his appointment of 66 year old Michael Mukasy can be expected to follow the the example set by John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, two liars remembered for their contempt for the laws they swore to enforce and uphold. Congress has failed to find redemption.

Mukasey, 66, a former federal judge from New York, told senators he considers waterboarding "repugnant," but he could not categorically say whether the technique amounts to torture, which U.S. and international law bans.

(CBS) Waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning, dates back to at least the Spanish Inquisition, and has been used some of the world's cruelest dictatorships, according to Human Rights Watch.Forms of waterboarding vary but generally consist of immobilizing an individual on his or her back - head inclined downward - and pouring water over the face to induce the sensation of drowning.

Other techniques include dunking prisoners head-first into water, as was used by Chadian military forces in the mid 1980s. The Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths of approximately 1.5 million Cambodians during the 1970s, strapped victims on inclined boards, with feet raised and head lowered, and covered their faces with cloth or cellophane. Water then was poured over their mouths to stimulate drowning.

Waterboarding, long considered a form of torture by the United States, produces a gag reflex and makes the victim believe death is imminent. The technique leaves no visible physical damage.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, considers waterboarding a form of torture. McCain has been quoted as saying that waterboarding is "no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank."

--CBS News, Waterboarding: Interrogation Or Torture?

The single shread of good news:

U.S. Hawks Dive For Cover

Dennis Kucinich didn't vote for the 2002 resolution to invade Iraq. Several Democratic senators who voted for that resolution and who are currently presidential contenders for the 2008 election have expressed regrets; the only candidate who has not done so is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, amazingly the current Democratic front-runner. ...

This move by Kucinich puts more heat on Democrats than on the GOP. We know the GOP to be crooked war whores but we expected more from Democrats. Perhaps we should not have. We were taken for granted by a party that drinks from a poisoned well, a party that thinks we have no place to go.


Thank you,
thepoetryman

How the Democrats paid dearly for doing what was right while the GOP profited from evil

Richard Nixon is as well known for his Southern Strategy as he is
for Watergate, the secret bombing of Cambodia, and the burglary of
Democratic Headquarters at Watergate. Nixon's Southern Strategy turned
a solid Democratic South into GOP occupied territory. It was not,
however, a simple appeal to bigotry that did it. It required the
Democrats do what was right while Nixon strategists plotted what was
wrong. They succeeded. GOP appeals to hatred and prejudice are
well-practiced by now.

Nevertheless, I am less appalled than surprised to find in the US a level of hatefulness that we dared hope had been laid to rest in the battlefields of the Civil War. In Monroe,
LA, for example, I found in the only large bookstore in town, a huge
section devoted to various Civil War books, most of which dealt with
how the South had been betrayed. Across town, just a stone's throw by
big city standards is the Civil War Cemetary, a more sobering reminder
of tragedy. Farther afield, down the road is Vicksburg, MS

where the forces of U. S. Grant had approached from the Mississippi River from Memphis only to learn that Vicksburg could never be taken by a direct assault. Grant's Vickburg seige came to symbolize the
ideological stand-off as well. Having grown up in the far reaches of Commanche country, I was not prepared to learn that, in the South, to this day, there is still found a lingering resentment that can only be felt by those who are occupied by a foreign power.

It was among the disaffected descendants of the Civil War south that the GOP found
manna, a strategy often falsely attributed to Kevin Phillips who was nevetheless its most articulate voice.

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of
the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats. --Kevin Phillips

It must be remembered that this "Negro vote" had been the GOP's to lose. They were, after all, the party of Lincoln. To be fair to the South, it was the "Radical Republicans" --not Lincoln --who had imposed the harsh reconstruction that turned the South into occupied territory faring
little better than Iraq. The era of "reconstruction" is best known for the terrorist organization it spawned: the Ku Klux Klan.

It would be a mistake to ascribe to the North some mythical moral superiority although it is true that the economies of 11 states making up the Confederacy were dependent upon slavery to produce and harvest the crops, most famously, cotton. Slavery, to be sure, was illegal in the north but only a handful actively opposed it. Martin Scorsese probably got it right; Lincoln was probably as despised in New York as he had been in the deep south.

Not every division in America is traced directly to the civil war, though you will find, to this day,
many who will defend the institution of slavery. Others still resent
the harsh reconstruction. It was Nixon's evil genius that his campaign was able to overcome the natural resentment of his party's role in "reconstructing" the South. That the Democrats would pay dearly for having done the right thing may explain the party's timidity today.
Democrats have historically paid high prices for being or doing right. LBJ famously said that he was, in fact, forever ceding the South to the GOP.

A long story is, of necessity made short. The legacy of Nixon is that the GOP was able to benefit from George Wallace's politics of hate as well as from LBJ's signature on the Voting Rights
Act. How Nixon perfected the cynical, cold-blooded politics of division and prejudice is the story of how the the GOP would find votes wherever there was resentment or prejudice. The GOP would foment distrust when our various peoples might have put the Civil War behind them and moved forward. The GOP would wage war on labor as well as "the nattering
nabobs of negativity", Spiro Agnew's code word for academics and free thinkers.

The Civil War looms like a ghost upon the body politic. It was only a few years ago that, in Jaspar, Texas bigots dragged a black man at high speeds over back country roads until very
nearly nothing was left of his body. A bit longer ago, the lynchings and public burnings of black people was not merely tolerated, they were celebrated like county fairs. Photographs of the events were mailed as post cards. It made of civic murder a macabre celebration, literally, a
barbecue.

American History is of two chapters --pre Civil War and post Civil war. American History cannot be understood without understanding the economics of the Antebellum South and the institution of slavery upon which it depended. The "rise of the South" cannot be understood without understanding how the south that hated Lincoln became Nixon's "Solid South". It is one of the great ironies of convoluted history that as the GOP represents a threat to our freedom, our future as a nation cannot be ensured unless we, at last, effect the words of a Republican.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

I fell in love with Ashokan Farewell during Ken Burns' famous "Civil War" series on PBS. Hearing Jay Unger's story of its creation helps me appreciate it the more. I like his description of it as a "Scottish Lament".

Ken Burns was wise to allow this piece to set the mood for what has been --until now --America's most profound tragedy --the loss, perhaps forever, of our freedoms. And, again, as then, that tragic loss has come not from abroad but from the cancer within.

Via the Existentialist Cowboy