Even though it was hopefully the last State of the Union speech George W. Bush will deliver, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. The only way I can watch Bush speak is to clear the living room of heavy objects, pad the walls, and place a protective metal grill over the TV screen. The instant words begin tumbling out of Bush’s mouth I feel a primal rage rising in my chest.
So, I didn’t catch the speech but from reports in the LA and NY Times I gather that Bush was his usual unapologetic and myopic self, confident that the tide has turned in Iraq, that the American economy is fundamentally sound, and that his tax cuts for the wealthy must be made permanent. This man, who with his sidekick Dick Cheney and a host of appointed sycophants, boot-lickers, cronies, and flacks, has done more to undermine the trust of the American public than U.S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon combined, had the balls to talk about Trust.
But that’s Bush. The man’s narrative is fixed in what remains of his brain, and nothing on earth can change it. Bush is known to believe in the justice and judgment of History, that time will prove that he was not an incompetent fool, but a president of strength and character. Sure, why not? Ronald Reagan believed that trees cause air pollution and that ketchup qualified as a vegetable. Though time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, it does tend to dim memories and push context out of shape. I can imagine a gathering, fifteen years or so from now, when W has built his Presidential library with millions in right-wing evangelical money, of Alberto Gonzalez, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Fred Barnes and Dick Cheney – the latter wheelchair bound, with drool dripping from a mouth fixed in a permanent snarl – all jabbering about the “good old days” and what a great leader Bush was. If Richard Nixon can be re-made into an “elder” statesman, it’s not unfathomable that George W. Bush can be made to appear like the American version of Winston Churchill.
The pre-9/11 Bush was easier to tolerate. Back then he was like a dumb frat boy with a new car, only mildly hazardous to himself and others. After 9/11, when Bush donned his Christian crusader armor and gleefully sent other people’s children off to fight and die, the horror of George Senior and Barbara’s reproductive mistake became clear. W’s hands are stained with the blood and suffering of thousands, and even Father Time can’t change that brutal fact.
The Spider Monkey has screamed for the last time. Americans can sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that the sands of time are finally running out on the worst president in U.S. history.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
WHAT PASSES FOR DEBATE
Covered with slime
They boast of their purity
Lay waste to the Truth
Slime puddles at their feet
Eddies and runs off
Contaminates everything and everyone it touches
Truth is easier found in a traveling circus
Among the lion tamers and fire-eaters
The toothless ex-con who minds the elephants
The bearded lady and the midget with two heads
They want us to believe that a savior can rise
From the swamp
But though pots of gold are spent to create and sustain the illusion
The guise falls away on close inspection
And every four years the people must choose
Between the lesser of two evils
They boast of their purity
Lay waste to the Truth
Slime puddles at their feet
Eddies and runs off
Contaminates everything and everyone it touches
Truth is easier found in a traveling circus
Among the lion tamers and fire-eaters
The toothless ex-con who minds the elephants
The bearded lady and the midget with two heads
They want us to believe that a savior can rise
From the swamp
But though pots of gold are spent to create and sustain the illusion
The guise falls away on close inspection
And every four years the people must choose
Between the lesser of two evils
Sunday, January 20, 2008
BORROWED MONEY, BLEEDING FINGERS
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
-Bob Dylan
When the clouds won’t rain and the sun won’t shine, Bob Dylan is as good a source of truth and light as a man can find.
Indeed. It’s a dim, cold day in America when the only way to get an accurate sense of your own country is by reading the foreign press. The Brits, French, Aussies and Japanese are a helluva lot more insightful and accurate about the shithole that America is wallowing in than any of our homegrown “journalists.” Sweet Jesus, three minutes of Diane Sawyer on any given morning is enough to make me wish I was the registered owner of a .357.
When was the last time the country was in a funk this deep? In the late 1970’s maybe, particularly after angry Iranians took fifty-odd Americans hostage in the US Embassy in Teheran, and refused to release them despite saber-rattling from Jimmy Carter and threats from the international community. The Japanese were whipping our asses in the economic arena; we couldn’t deter the Soviet Union from invading Afghanistan.
The world pushed back against American power and dominance, and America buckled, like a boxer caught with a straight right to the solar plexus.
That was then. Plenty of raw sewage has flowed over the dam since. Ronald Reagan rode in on his white stallion and declared that it was still morning in America, and that we had nothing to fear but faint-hearted liberals, feminists, queers, pot-smokers, atheists and Communists. For Ronald Reagan, America’s official uncle, the sun was always shining and glory lay just over the horizon.
It’s all different now. At the start of the Reagan era it was the world pushing back, this time we bleed from self-inflicted wounds, seven years of Bush-Cheney and the collective attention span of a three-year-old. Some examples:
Coinciding curiously with the Presidential election season, the failed Occupation of Iraq appears to have fallen off the media radar, as if life in Iraq has returned to normal along with millions of refugees, as if Sunnis and Shiites are holding hands and singing the Iraqi equivalent of Kumbaya, as if American soldiers are patrolling the streets and avenues without weapons and body armor.
As our economy heads south, the major Presidential candidates have begun to take notice, though when they talk about what can be done to steer the economy away from the cliff edge, they don’t talk about Iraq and the effect the massive cost of the Occupation has on the US economy. Dear Guys and Gals, in case you didn’t know, we’re paying for our wars with money borrowed from foreigners. That debt must be serviced year after year after year, meaning there will be fewer dollars available to do important things here at home.
Dennis Kucinich gets the linkage between guns and butter and the difficulty Empires have always had providing both. Kucinich is the only candidate who unequivocally calls for an immediate end to the Occupation, for scrapping the Patriot Act and impeaching Bush & Cheney for crimes against the Constitution. These ideas are too radical for NBC, which unilaterally decided recently that Kucinich didn’t meet its “criteria” to be invited to a Democratic debate. Excuse me, but is this a democracy or not, and who the fuck is NBC to decide which candidates should or should not be allowed to debate? Whether NBC approves or not, Kucinich is in the race; he may be a “fringe” candidate without a prayer of winning the Democratic nomination, but he has a point of view that voters should be allowed to hear. Frankly, I’d rather listen to Kucinich than status quo candidates like Clinton or Obama who think change will happen if they just keep repeating the word.
Americans are finally coming to grasp what the rest of the world has known for years: human behavior is altering the global climate in ways that carry frightening implications for the future of life on this planet. Of course, in our typical infantile way, we think we can “consume” our way out of trouble by buying “green” products and recycling more beer cans. We’re all for saving the environment – as long as we don’t have to give up our SUV’s or McMansions – and heaven forbid that American corporations forfeit a dime in profit.
More media attention is given to Brittney Spears’s mental confusion and child custody battles than to serious, thoughtful, logical and informed discussion of the Iraq Occupation, the plight of American workers, energy policy, and the role the Federal government must play in slowing down the real dangers of climate change.
Dylan was right, as usual: “It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
-Bob Dylan
When the clouds won’t rain and the sun won’t shine, Bob Dylan is as good a source of truth and light as a man can find.
Indeed. It’s a dim, cold day in America when the only way to get an accurate sense of your own country is by reading the foreign press. The Brits, French, Aussies and Japanese are a helluva lot more insightful and accurate about the shithole that America is wallowing in than any of our homegrown “journalists.” Sweet Jesus, three minutes of Diane Sawyer on any given morning is enough to make me wish I was the registered owner of a .357.
When was the last time the country was in a funk this deep? In the late 1970’s maybe, particularly after angry Iranians took fifty-odd Americans hostage in the US Embassy in Teheran, and refused to release them despite saber-rattling from Jimmy Carter and threats from the international community. The Japanese were whipping our asses in the economic arena; we couldn’t deter the Soviet Union from invading Afghanistan.
The world pushed back against American power and dominance, and America buckled, like a boxer caught with a straight right to the solar plexus.
That was then. Plenty of raw sewage has flowed over the dam since. Ronald Reagan rode in on his white stallion and declared that it was still morning in America, and that we had nothing to fear but faint-hearted liberals, feminists, queers, pot-smokers, atheists and Communists. For Ronald Reagan, America’s official uncle, the sun was always shining and glory lay just over the horizon.
It’s all different now. At the start of the Reagan era it was the world pushing back, this time we bleed from self-inflicted wounds, seven years of Bush-Cheney and the collective attention span of a three-year-old. Some examples:
Coinciding curiously with the Presidential election season, the failed Occupation of Iraq appears to have fallen off the media radar, as if life in Iraq has returned to normal along with millions of refugees, as if Sunnis and Shiites are holding hands and singing the Iraqi equivalent of Kumbaya, as if American soldiers are patrolling the streets and avenues without weapons and body armor.
As our economy heads south, the major Presidential candidates have begun to take notice, though when they talk about what can be done to steer the economy away from the cliff edge, they don’t talk about Iraq and the effect the massive cost of the Occupation has on the US economy. Dear Guys and Gals, in case you didn’t know, we’re paying for our wars with money borrowed from foreigners. That debt must be serviced year after year after year, meaning there will be fewer dollars available to do important things here at home.
Dennis Kucinich gets the linkage between guns and butter and the difficulty Empires have always had providing both. Kucinich is the only candidate who unequivocally calls for an immediate end to the Occupation, for scrapping the Patriot Act and impeaching Bush & Cheney for crimes against the Constitution. These ideas are too radical for NBC, which unilaterally decided recently that Kucinich didn’t meet its “criteria” to be invited to a Democratic debate. Excuse me, but is this a democracy or not, and who the fuck is NBC to decide which candidates should or should not be allowed to debate? Whether NBC approves or not, Kucinich is in the race; he may be a “fringe” candidate without a prayer of winning the Democratic nomination, but he has a point of view that voters should be allowed to hear. Frankly, I’d rather listen to Kucinich than status quo candidates like Clinton or Obama who think change will happen if they just keep repeating the word.
Americans are finally coming to grasp what the rest of the world has known for years: human behavior is altering the global climate in ways that carry frightening implications for the future of life on this planet. Of course, in our typical infantile way, we think we can “consume” our way out of trouble by buying “green” products and recycling more beer cans. We’re all for saving the environment – as long as we don’t have to give up our SUV’s or McMansions – and heaven forbid that American corporations forfeit a dime in profit.
More media attention is given to Brittney Spears’s mental confusion and child custody battles than to serious, thoughtful, logical and informed discussion of the Iraq Occupation, the plight of American workers, energy policy, and the role the Federal government must play in slowing down the real dangers of climate change.
Dylan was right, as usual: “It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”
Monday, January 14, 2008
HANG IT ON DUTCH
Governor Schwarzenegger made it official earlier this week: the Golden State is going bust, with a gaping budget hole in the lofty neighborhood of $14 billion. That’s not chump change. About the only place you can find that kind of dough is in the casino safe of your local Indian reservation. There’s historical justice to that, but it’s a story for another day.
The sub-prime mortgage scandal is partly to blame for dragging the Golden State down like a 20-ton anchor. The mainstream press doesn’t describe it in those terms, but in my mind, the real estate bubble that was stimulated by Federal monetary policy, and exploited by creative, greedy and under-regulated lenders, along with buyers eager to get in on the boom, even if they couldn’t afford it, amounts to a first-rate scandal and as the effects sweep across the state, bleed into practically every economic sector, scandal seems the only appropriate word to describe it.
When the pain becomes widespread enough, maybe drags down some of the New Rich who up to now have tapped their sudden paper wealth to spend lavishly on luxury vehicles, jewelry, designer clothing, $100 hamburgers, and first-class hotel suites in Fiji, Las Vegas, Athens and Monte Carlo, people will look for someone or something to blame.
I’ve already found my target: the seed of the mortgage meltdown was planted when Dutch Reagan occupied the White House.
Remember your history? It was Reagan who declared that “Big Government” was our problem, the root of all evil -- an impediment to entrepreneurial zeal, an obstacle to innovation, freedom, clear skin and lustrous hair. Shove Big Government out of the way, Reagan crooned, and the genius of America would be released for the benefit of every man, woman and child, black, brown or white, urban or rural.
Under Dutch Reagan, the regulatory framework that was designed to balance the interests of business and the public began to tilt decidedly in favor of the former. Trust the wisdom of the free market, the Reagan line went, and government oversight is unnecessary. If we just believed, markets would regulate themselves with wisdom as true as Solomon’s.
And moss would grow in the Sahara, armadillos would sprout wings and soar over the Texas Panhandle, the Chicago Cubs would capture five World Series titles in a row, and, of course, social ills such as racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, child abuse, and illiteracy would vanish from the American landscape forever. The Market Myth as related by Dutch Reagan in his dulcet voice elevated business tycoons and Wall Street gamblers to sainthood. Greed bowled over fairness and became our prevailing ethos. All we had to do was make it rain for the rich, the daring, and the strong, and the water would flow for everyone.
Right. In fact, the good, clear water flowed overwhelmingly to those who were not thirsty, creating a huge disparity of wealth in a country that once prided itself on the width and depth of its middle-class. Dutch and Co. let the mad dogs of Capital and Finance off the leash and the rest is history: unions neutered, wages for working folks flat or regressing, jobs shipped to China, employee benefits slashed or eliminated altogether, simultaneous foreign wars and tax cuts, and mortgage lending practices that abandoned every sound business principle known to the civilized world.
Ideology did us in. Reagan’s cheery patter and easy platitudes became religion, and any politician who spoke against the Reagan line was branded a heretic. Big Corporate money flowed to the Republicans who used it to buy the media, fund think tanks, keep the Democrats cowed and, more importantly, out of power. The political class learned to toe that Reagan line, even when it became clear that “trickle-down” economics really was nothing more than voodoo.
Don’t believe it? It’s the reason you hear the Republican GOP candidates trying to ignore reality and wrap themselves in Reagan’s cloak; it’s the reason Democrats cut deals with health insurance companies instead of proposing true universal health care for all Americans.
And it’s the reason Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger swears he can balance the California budget without a tax increase. If that sounds like something you might hear Hillary Clinton say, well, there you have it.
The sub-prime mortgage scandal is partly to blame for dragging the Golden State down like a 20-ton anchor. The mainstream press doesn’t describe it in those terms, but in my mind, the real estate bubble that was stimulated by Federal monetary policy, and exploited by creative, greedy and under-regulated lenders, along with buyers eager to get in on the boom, even if they couldn’t afford it, amounts to a first-rate scandal and as the effects sweep across the state, bleed into practically every economic sector, scandal seems the only appropriate word to describe it.
When the pain becomes widespread enough, maybe drags down some of the New Rich who up to now have tapped their sudden paper wealth to spend lavishly on luxury vehicles, jewelry, designer clothing, $100 hamburgers, and first-class hotel suites in Fiji, Las Vegas, Athens and Monte Carlo, people will look for someone or something to blame.
I’ve already found my target: the seed of the mortgage meltdown was planted when Dutch Reagan occupied the White House.
Remember your history? It was Reagan who declared that “Big Government” was our problem, the root of all evil -- an impediment to entrepreneurial zeal, an obstacle to innovation, freedom, clear skin and lustrous hair. Shove Big Government out of the way, Reagan crooned, and the genius of America would be released for the benefit of every man, woman and child, black, brown or white, urban or rural.
Under Dutch Reagan, the regulatory framework that was designed to balance the interests of business and the public began to tilt decidedly in favor of the former. Trust the wisdom of the free market, the Reagan line went, and government oversight is unnecessary. If we just believed, markets would regulate themselves with wisdom as true as Solomon’s.
And moss would grow in the Sahara, armadillos would sprout wings and soar over the Texas Panhandle, the Chicago Cubs would capture five World Series titles in a row, and, of course, social ills such as racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, child abuse, and illiteracy would vanish from the American landscape forever. The Market Myth as related by Dutch Reagan in his dulcet voice elevated business tycoons and Wall Street gamblers to sainthood. Greed bowled over fairness and became our prevailing ethos. All we had to do was make it rain for the rich, the daring, and the strong, and the water would flow for everyone.
Right. In fact, the good, clear water flowed overwhelmingly to those who were not thirsty, creating a huge disparity of wealth in a country that once prided itself on the width and depth of its middle-class. Dutch and Co. let the mad dogs of Capital and Finance off the leash and the rest is history: unions neutered, wages for working folks flat or regressing, jobs shipped to China, employee benefits slashed or eliminated altogether, simultaneous foreign wars and tax cuts, and mortgage lending practices that abandoned every sound business principle known to the civilized world.
Ideology did us in. Reagan’s cheery patter and easy platitudes became religion, and any politician who spoke against the Reagan line was branded a heretic. Big Corporate money flowed to the Republicans who used it to buy the media, fund think tanks, keep the Democrats cowed and, more importantly, out of power. The political class learned to toe that Reagan line, even when it became clear that “trickle-down” economics really was nothing more than voodoo.
Don’t believe it? It’s the reason you hear the Republican GOP candidates trying to ignore reality and wrap themselves in Reagan’s cloak; it’s the reason Democrats cut deals with health insurance companies instead of proposing true universal health care for all Americans.
And it’s the reason Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger swears he can balance the California budget without a tax increase. If that sounds like something you might hear Hillary Clinton say, well, there you have it.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Sound of Glass Shattering
School board member Robert Noel was up to his old tricks in last Sunday’s Santa Barbara News-Press, cataloging the many failures of the Santa Barbara School District – from faulty budgeting to lagging test scores, and practically everything in between.
Who is Dr. Bob referring to when he maligns the “District?” Is he talking about Superintendent Sarvis, one of the Assistant Superintendents, the Director of Special Education, the receptionist or the night custodian?
Dr. Bob made one or two references to moral leadership, but if Noel is so big on the concept, why doesn’t he exercise one of the most conspicuous traits of exceptional leaders – honesty – and come right out and name names?
Because here’s the thing, I work at the District office and have a vested interest in knowing who’s responsible for our woes and shortcomings. (I have a few notions of my own, but if Dr. Noel has the definitive answer I wish he’d share, because I for one do not enjoy working my tail off for a losing team.) Like many of my colleagues, I take my role as a public school employee seriously, and remind myself every day that taxpayers pay my salary and that fact confers on me a special responsibility. I may not always succeed, but giving the taxpayers value for their money is my lodestar.
But according to Dr. Bob, the “District,” and I guess that includes me, is a seething hive of incompetents, liars, spin-meisters and failures. To put it more colloquially, we suck.
Ironically, I happen to like Dr. Bob and think his contrarian views serve an important purpose on the school board. Dissent is as American as the Federalist papers Dr. Bob frequently quotes and -- more often than not -- Dr. Bob’s is the lone dissenting voice in an otherwise unanimous chorus. I enjoy informed debate and believe that the sound of ideas bouncing and ricocheting off one another stirs the blood, energizes the mind and makes progress possible.
Much of Dr. Bob’s editorial is, unfortunately, true: last year’s budget process was a joke and an embarrassment. For months we were dirt poor, scraping for pennies; then we were inexplicably awash in money; then the money started bleeding away; now it appears that the District is again headed for lean days, with a rising tide of crimson ink. Dr. Bob is right to be contemptuous – the public deserves better from us, but let’s not forget that it was Dr. Bob and his fellow board members who signed off on hiring decisions that put a couple of fiscal knuckleheads in key positions. It was also Dr. Bob and his board colleagues who extended Superintendent Sarvis’s contract before it was due to expire, giving the man lifetime medical benefits and a pay hike at a time when the District was imploding and the aforementioned test scores were plummeting.
Which begs the question: if the District is so fouled up, why isn’t the Superintendent’s job on the line?
What say ye about that, Dr. Bob? You can’t sit on the dais and cast votes for policies and programs and personnel, and then act like you had nothing to do with it when the decisions you green-lighted go south. That’s hypocrisy, and moral leaders don’t become moral leaders by acting hypocritically.
One problem with Institutions in general -- and the school District in particular -- is a lack of accountability and a perverse tolerance for mediocrity. When flies get in the ointment and gum up the works, nobody is called to task; nobody gets their asshole reamed in a way that sends a distinct message that allowing flies to get in the ointment again will not be tolerated. Instead of dragging the culprit out to the courtyard for a very public flogging, excuses are made, fingers are pointed, shoulders are shrugged. Consequently, the idea that mediocrity is acceptable gets reinforced.
And that’s no way to run a railroad -- or a school district.
On the other hand, when Dr. Bob gets an urge to load up his slingshot and fire stones at our glass house, I wish he’d take aim at specific windows rather than scattershot the entire building.
Who is Dr. Bob referring to when he maligns the “District?” Is he talking about Superintendent Sarvis, one of the Assistant Superintendents, the Director of Special Education, the receptionist or the night custodian?
Dr. Bob made one or two references to moral leadership, but if Noel is so big on the concept, why doesn’t he exercise one of the most conspicuous traits of exceptional leaders – honesty – and come right out and name names?
Because here’s the thing, I work at the District office and have a vested interest in knowing who’s responsible for our woes and shortcomings. (I have a few notions of my own, but if Dr. Noel has the definitive answer I wish he’d share, because I for one do not enjoy working my tail off for a losing team.) Like many of my colleagues, I take my role as a public school employee seriously, and remind myself every day that taxpayers pay my salary and that fact confers on me a special responsibility. I may not always succeed, but giving the taxpayers value for their money is my lodestar.
But according to Dr. Bob, the “District,” and I guess that includes me, is a seething hive of incompetents, liars, spin-meisters and failures. To put it more colloquially, we suck.
Ironically, I happen to like Dr. Bob and think his contrarian views serve an important purpose on the school board. Dissent is as American as the Federalist papers Dr. Bob frequently quotes and -- more often than not -- Dr. Bob’s is the lone dissenting voice in an otherwise unanimous chorus. I enjoy informed debate and believe that the sound of ideas bouncing and ricocheting off one another stirs the blood, energizes the mind and makes progress possible.
Much of Dr. Bob’s editorial is, unfortunately, true: last year’s budget process was a joke and an embarrassment. For months we were dirt poor, scraping for pennies; then we were inexplicably awash in money; then the money started bleeding away; now it appears that the District is again headed for lean days, with a rising tide of crimson ink. Dr. Bob is right to be contemptuous – the public deserves better from us, but let’s not forget that it was Dr. Bob and his fellow board members who signed off on hiring decisions that put a couple of fiscal knuckleheads in key positions. It was also Dr. Bob and his board colleagues who extended Superintendent Sarvis’s contract before it was due to expire, giving the man lifetime medical benefits and a pay hike at a time when the District was imploding and the aforementioned test scores were plummeting.
Which begs the question: if the District is so fouled up, why isn’t the Superintendent’s job on the line?
What say ye about that, Dr. Bob? You can’t sit on the dais and cast votes for policies and programs and personnel, and then act like you had nothing to do with it when the decisions you green-lighted go south. That’s hypocrisy, and moral leaders don’t become moral leaders by acting hypocritically.
One problem with Institutions in general -- and the school District in particular -- is a lack of accountability and a perverse tolerance for mediocrity. When flies get in the ointment and gum up the works, nobody is called to task; nobody gets their asshole reamed in a way that sends a distinct message that allowing flies to get in the ointment again will not be tolerated. Instead of dragging the culprit out to the courtyard for a very public flogging, excuses are made, fingers are pointed, shoulders are shrugged. Consequently, the idea that mediocrity is acceptable gets reinforced.
And that’s no way to run a railroad -- or a school district.
On the other hand, when Dr. Bob gets an urge to load up his slingshot and fire stones at our glass house, I wish he’d take aim at specific windows rather than scattershot the entire building.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
SUNDAY MORNING BLUES
Sunday morning and the Tube is all magic weight loss programs, slick Bible thumpers, and presidential aspirants. I don’t know which is more sickening.
The weight loss programs all promise miracles without a drop of sweat.
The new breed of TV preachers are multimedia-savvy and boast frosted hair, tanning bed tans, and startling white teeth. They’ve got the words of the Bible on their lips and naked greed in their hearts, and when they look out on their congregations, they don’t see a flock in need of spiritual ministering, they see customers for books and DVD’s, they see donors, and they see fools.
And maybe it’s the same with the ho-hum crop of women and men with the arrogance to think that they have the answers to America’s many woes. Clinton, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, et al. They argue among themselves, split hairs and mince words, hold moistened fingers to the political breeze, boast of their intimate relationship with the Almighty, their steely nerve, their willingness to drop heavy ordnance in remote places. They talk about “change,” as if the word alone means anything at all. Change from what, change to what? From bad to worse, from terrible to tolerable, from water-boarding to pulling out fingernails with needle-nose pliers?
They dash from the snow and ice of Iowa to the snow and ice of New Hampshire, knock on doors, walk sidewalks, make speeches. It’s all scripted and rehearsed and devoid of soul, designed only for fifteen seconds on CNN; it’s the status quo on parade, a circus freak show, fodder for the great corporate media machine, that ravenous, salivating 24-hour beast. Obama inspires hope the talking heads say, but hope in what? In an America that never was? Huckabee plays his bass guitar and says he alone stands for Change, but even a dead ling cod wrapped in newspaper and deposited on the steps of the White House would represent a change from the twisted Bush years.
We set the bar so low that any fool can leap over it. Hillary tries to convince us that she’s not a controlling, ball-busting shrew, but all her furious fund-raising and corporate pandering can’t win her Iowa. Huckabee’s got the Big Mo, Obama might be unstoppable, but what has that got to do with the price of gasoline in San Francisco? Or the price of bread in Mobile? Or whether or not a grandmother in Grand Rapids will be able to afford her heart medication?
Sunday morning with fat-busting miracles, the word of God from sugary lips, and the brain-dead patter of would be rulers. It’s enough to make a man hang his head over the toilet and puke.
The weight loss programs all promise miracles without a drop of sweat.
The new breed of TV preachers are multimedia-savvy and boast frosted hair, tanning bed tans, and startling white teeth. They’ve got the words of the Bible on their lips and naked greed in their hearts, and when they look out on their congregations, they don’t see a flock in need of spiritual ministering, they see customers for books and DVD’s, they see donors, and they see fools.
And maybe it’s the same with the ho-hum crop of women and men with the arrogance to think that they have the answers to America’s many woes. Clinton, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, et al. They argue among themselves, split hairs and mince words, hold moistened fingers to the political breeze, boast of their intimate relationship with the Almighty, their steely nerve, their willingness to drop heavy ordnance in remote places. They talk about “change,” as if the word alone means anything at all. Change from what, change to what? From bad to worse, from terrible to tolerable, from water-boarding to pulling out fingernails with needle-nose pliers?
They dash from the snow and ice of Iowa to the snow and ice of New Hampshire, knock on doors, walk sidewalks, make speeches. It’s all scripted and rehearsed and devoid of soul, designed only for fifteen seconds on CNN; it’s the status quo on parade, a circus freak show, fodder for the great corporate media machine, that ravenous, salivating 24-hour beast. Obama inspires hope the talking heads say, but hope in what? In an America that never was? Huckabee plays his bass guitar and says he alone stands for Change, but even a dead ling cod wrapped in newspaper and deposited on the steps of the White House would represent a change from the twisted Bush years.
We set the bar so low that any fool can leap over it. Hillary tries to convince us that she’s not a controlling, ball-busting shrew, but all her furious fund-raising and corporate pandering can’t win her Iowa. Huckabee’s got the Big Mo, Obama might be unstoppable, but what has that got to do with the price of gasoline in San Francisco? Or the price of bread in Mobile? Or whether or not a grandmother in Grand Rapids will be able to afford her heart medication?
Sunday morning with fat-busting miracles, the word of God from sugary lips, and the brain-dead patter of would be rulers. It’s enough to make a man hang his head over the toilet and puke.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Poem - The Worst Scandal Ever
Remember the most famous BJ in U.S. history?
Monica working on Bill in the Oval Office
That simpler time, way back when
Before Bush, before 9/11
The press fulminated
Blathered
Salivated like a famished dog over a slab of raw liver
Hillary called it a “vast right-wing conspiracy”
Kenneth Starr snooped in the Arkansas woods
And White House trash cans
Monica, 24-7
Monica, where are you tonight?
Monica, where is that dress?
Isn’t it nice that we’ve grown up
Moved on
Evolved
Turned the page on a new day:
Water-boarding
Guantanamo
Abu Ghraib
Extraordinary rendition
Invasion and Occupation
Domestic spying
Rumsfeld
Cheney
Scooter
Rove
Alberto G
Members of the Bush syndicate
The gang
The junta of disregard
McGwire
Sosa
Lewinsky!
Remember?
Remember the BJ and the vanishing cigar?
It was the worst scandal ever
Monica working on Bill in the Oval Office
That simpler time, way back when
Before Bush, before 9/11
The press fulminated
Blathered
Salivated like a famished dog over a slab of raw liver
Hillary called it a “vast right-wing conspiracy”
Kenneth Starr snooped in the Arkansas woods
And White House trash cans
Monica, 24-7
Monica, where are you tonight?
Monica, where is that dress?
Isn’t it nice that we’ve grown up
Moved on
Evolved
Turned the page on a new day:
Water-boarding
Guantanamo
Abu Ghraib
Extraordinary rendition
Invasion and Occupation
Domestic spying
Rumsfeld
Cheney
Scooter
Rove
Alberto G
Members of the Bush syndicate
The gang
The junta of disregard
McGwire
Sosa
Lewinsky!
Remember?
Remember the BJ and the vanishing cigar?
It was the worst scandal ever
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