A vote is before the Iraqi Parliament, such as it stands, or ducks, as the case may be. Between the bullets whizzing past legislator(s), and the hand grenades and passing suicide bombers that lawmakers have to deal with, another volley is stealthily pulled right under their noses: the Oil Law! It gives 70% of oil revenues not to the Iraqi People as the administration promised us, but to, you guessed it, Dick & Georgie's cause celebre, Big Oil Conglomerates! Once passed, and the dedicated al-Maliki has assured us that he will do everything in his power - within his specified 3/4 acre - to see that it passes - then "we", represented by Big Oil Conglomerates, posing as flag-draped "U.S. Interests", will have won! So every death, every disfiguration, every maimed young man and woman in the prime of their lives, every orphaned child, will have been worth it!
So already sinfully-rich and bloated Monoliths like Big Oil can rake in the black gold for their personal gain, and the people in Iraq can go back to the business of being hungry, having no infrastructure, having all their national treasures and antiquities destroyed and razed and burned, having no services, electricity, or potable water, and watching their children being blown apart in the education and commerce-free streets run by armed gunmen killing each other for centuries-old grudges that serve no purpose but self-destruction and the elimination of decent people. In other words, it's a victory for greed, a defeat for human beings. And we can use it all to run our cars and our economy. USA! USA! USA! But what would old Tom Jefferson say? Who the hell cares - we live for today!
And how could they convince Mr. al-Maliki to sign away his nation's resources like that? Simple:
Dear Mr. Al-Maliki:
We, the Superpower Oil Conglomerates, might actually deign to pursue the thought of actually investing in your lowlife, devastated, terror-ridden Economy, even though such Conglomerates are actually hardly interested in your lucrative worldclass oil fields, as we are actually extremely Busy doing Much More Important Things and driving Ferraris instead of armored vehicles, but well, if you agree to give us the mere pittance of 70% of your revenues so you can starve your people in a world class show of sincerity to the Masters of the Universe, then we, in a moment of rare largesse, may invest in your pariah economy, and even in those oilfields, and at the same time, maybe, just maybe, we will change our minds about blowing every last bit of infrastructure into a billion pieces.
Of course, if you ever get the idea that we actually NEED and WANT DESPERATELY to use those oilfields, we will use all the power at our disposal - care for a taste? oh, you already had some, did you? - to show you that we want it, but on OUR TERMS. And don't you DARE think to offer a stake to anyone else in this Universe, other than the Masters. You know who I mean. Bro.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
The Bridge
It started with bridging gaps. The gap between the world I grew up in, aka "the sixties", and the world we actually live in. The gap between my mind and the minds of others. The gap between men and women. The gap between my parents' world of Lutherans and the world of school, friends and workplace. The gap between the world of my friends and coworkers, and Islam, my religion of choice. The gap between the Islamic world, and the so-called Western world, and the Jews, from which group I had most of my closest friends.
The gap between what are generally portrayed as Muslims and Jews, atheists & Christians, Buddhists and people of other faiths, and what actually exists on the ground. The gap between old friends and new friends, between ethnic groups and the families within them. The gaps between sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, children and their parents. The gap between the Islam that lights my life, and this psychopathic thing that's tearing people apart, that's showcased to the public, that makes Muslims the public pariah of the West. The gap between suspicion and trust. The gap between democracy and totalitarianism. The gap between oppressors and the oppressed. The gap between those who believe in God in some way, and atheists. The gap between various faiths in God. The gap between rich and poor. The gap between the gluttonous and the starving. The gap between the political left and right. The gap between peace and war. The gap between hubris and self-doubt, between love and hate, between the living and the dying, between the powerful and the powerless.
And I found, at the end of this long journey, one thing in common, one bridge between all of these seemingly insurmountable chasms. Sometimes we can traverse this bridge, as in relationships between people such as husband and wife, or friends, and sometimes, such as with the gap between life and death, we cannot.
To take the first step, we must go back in time, to the place we were before we saw gaps at all, when we were children. We saw no racial, cultural, ethnic, age or even gender divides, and all people were transparent souls, and we could read their behavior like signs. To make sense of it all, we began to discern differences and categorize them. But even farther back, when we were yet unborn, when we were catapulted through eons of evolution in a mere nine months, and then thrust in an instant into an alient planet, light-years from the womb, suddenly intaking breath, then nearly shattering our ears with our own terrible cry, and we ache for the soothing heartbeat of our mother. Remember how we bridged the chasm from comforting, vegetative form to agonizing struggle, to dizzying, terrifying self-determination.
And carrying that horrible responsibility strengthens us, so we must begin the long journey of discovering chasms and building bridges, making connections. But really it is only one bridge that connects all these chasms. The same one that connected us when our umbilical cord was severed: The soul of the human heart. The light within. The part that was never cut off. The part that knows God. The part that never dies. And yet we cannot build anything, or connect, without tools - and the greatest tool is the mind. Use it - or descend ... with blinding speed ...
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
New Plans for the old Cash Cow
They don't milk 'em like they used to.Are we already in too deep to stop the inevitable surge? And who is to blame for our being in too deep? And who will pay? Ask the one who pays - our national Cash Cow. Today, a 20,000-man Band-aid for Baghdad. Tomorrow, a ___________-yen Band-aid for the economy?
Whose advice shall we take? Machiavelli? or that of a "Founding Father"?
"America... well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force... She might become dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." - John Quincy Adams; Address, 4 July 1821
Sound familiar? Invade Iraq to bring Democracy by force? What reasoning is that?
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none." - Thomas Jefferson, 1801 inaugural address.
Tell that to the Pro-Israel Lobby.
Or better yet, remind them that sometimes one's worst enemy comes from within. Read this quote from someone we may not want to remember:
"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." - Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945.
Then remember Karl Rove... and the Republican propaganda machine... leading to the war in Iraq, among other things. Somehow, I remember Rove's love of Machiavelli, who sounds like the "gentleman" quoted above, that shared love of the Almighty Spin. Where is the Axis of Evil - or should we give it another name?
And by the way, what happened to the Cash Bull?
Monday, January 15, 2007
Taxin' & Spendin'... the Neocon Way
Ooooooh… the Evil Church of Liberalism…. Ooooooh….Dear Kaitlyn, Please check under your bed or an Evil Liberal may try to tax your Kool-Aid stand and put you out of business. And then spend all your hard-earned money on free-loaders who probably live in vermin-infested FEMA trailers on the Gulf Coast. The nerve! Oooooooh…!
Lions and tigers and liberal bears, oh my! Coulter 45, where are you?? The stock market will crash because big government spending will sit on it like a giant greenhouse gas bear, and investors will lose their matching funds for investing in the future of a Yellowstone Caldera Theme Park, “The Ultimate Extreme Disaster Thrill.”
Instead, we should all be thankful that we no longer have Liberals taxing and spending on Social Programs that Don’t Benefit Taxpayers unless they are so Out of the Loop that they engage in ancient Tribal Practices like having children, or not-yet-dead elderly parents who, unlike Model Grandpa G.H.W. Bush aka Senior, do not spend their time sky-diving or bungee jumping or other Cool Retirement Self-Sufficient Activities.
We don’t like the idea of government as a Big Brother who bails you out when you’re in trouble or helps children or the poor and vulnerable or provides programs to prevent crime in poor and inner-city areas. What a waste! Freeloaders! When we could be spending all that hard-earned money on surveillance, propaganda, wars, weapons, weapons delivery systems, search and arrest of civilians, interrogations, more surveillance, intimidation, propaganda, torture by proxy, more wars, fake “diplomatic” junkets to make it look like we “exhausted every avenue” so we can FIGHT MORE COOL WARS AND GET THOSE DAMN RATINGS UP.
We like a Big Bro who watches your every move, who suspects your trips to the library, who treats everyone with an Arab or foreign-sounding name (Jews exempted) as Potential Covert Operatives of a Terrorist Cell. Think of it as big Brother Protecting You. Keeping you informed. Terror level: Orange.
Now instead of educating the poor and so-called underprivileged whom we rightly and sanctimoniously call the Lazy No-Gooders, the freeloaders, we are putting them where they belong, in prisons, where instead of doing productive work and paying taxes and contributing to society, they are being fed, clothed, and locked up in tight expensive security and under surveillance - this is the keyword here, “under surveillance” - and thus NO LONGER POSE A THREAT.
Because ultimately, free people pose a threat to our security. Taxpayers could be terrorists, paying taxes to cover for their evil schemes. Today he contributes to society - tomorrow he wants a free lunch. The only ones you can trust these days are Established Names, names with Something Behind Them. Names like Exxon, Shell Oil, Lockheed Martin, Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical, Wal-Mart, Enron, Wait! - scratch that last one, I mean, Verizon, or was it Disney-Warner Brothers-NBC-Microsoft-Pixar-General Electric? Forgive me, it’s hard to keep up with the Monster Lovefest and Corporate Bonding. But in any case, THEY are our Real American Heroes. They are our titans, our benefactors, providers, our safety net, our icons. Big Business. It’s the American Way. They don’t blow up buildings. They build buildings. They don’t hold up convenience stores. They make the videos and franchise the stores to catch the thieves whom they pay taxes to build prisons and pay prison staff for at 100X the cost of whatever the criminals stole. Big Business is the solution, and they will take care of all our problems and the benefits will trickle down, and see?
See how big and healthy they all are? We want all Americans to get on the bandwagon of the American Dream, which means to make a killing, or at least a quick buck, and to hell with the environment and the so-called children of the “future”. “Future” - now there’s an evil concept from the Evil Church of Liberalism who wants to tax your Kool-Aid stand so they can give money to criminals to keep them from coming back to prison after they get out because of some fake vegetarian weenie tax-n-spend unpatriotic flag-burning thing they call “future.”
We want NOW. ONLY. PERIOD. Kill the terrorists - NOW! Define “terrorism” later. Arrest suspects - NOW! Come up with reasons later. Go to war to make democracy in all the world NOW! Figure out what the hell that means or what the hell to do LATER. Tap all phones and emails of everyone in the U.S. NOW! Stop all suspicious activity NOW! Decide what to do with the logjam of keywords and rounded up civilians LATER. Send Israel nukes and missiles and stand back while they decimate their neighbors NOW! Explain to the world LATER. Kill NOW! Talk to make lame excuses and argue like angry flies LATER. Annihilate all Muslims and Arabs NOW! Explain why LATER. Lock up the liberals NOW! Attack them NOW! Claim that you wanted a free discussion LATER. ACT NOW! But think? --- THINK… in your liberal keyword so-called FUTURE.
But we will NEVER think. Because we don’t believe in a “future”. We believe in a “vision.” A “vision” where Republicans win and Big Business controls everything and all taxes are spent only on war and surveillance and barbed wire and walls and Big Bro watches everyone and we control elections so candidates we want will win and if the so-called people elect someone we don’t want in ANY OTHER COUNTRY, we, the Superpower, will send some thugs to track down the elected leaders and kidnap them and thus get rid of them.
Remember the keyword: security: they no longer pose a threat. Just like the cool macho Israelis did with the Palestinians.
Our vision is We’re Number One! Our vision is Victory at any spin. Our vision is war. Without war, how can you have Victory? Right, victory! The bigger, the better. Let’s go for Biggest! Apocalypse NOW! Our vision is Armageddon.
Our battle cry: Remember 911! Because of 911, we must start invading other countries NOW! Revenge, NOW! Deal with the real issues LATER… Why wait for a near earth object? Let the companies pollute the air and water so they can make money NOW. Think of ourselves as incendiary devices. The whole world is a THREAT. So let’s invade it - NOW. Compromise is vegan, hippie, Hilary, liberal, evil, and poses a threat. If you compromise, someone will get a free lunch. We’ll spend our hard-earned tax money on someone else’s infrastructure, so they can live a better life at our expense.
Spend that money for us on our guns and weapons systems, so we can show them who’s boss, who runs the show. We run the show and we don’t want some weenie environmentalist extremist animal-rights freaks telling us how to run foreign policy and threaten corporate profits.
We run the show, we pave the way, we support the fascists and kings and dictators as long as they do our bidding, but in the name of the red, white and blue. Unlike the evil liberals from the evil church of liberalism who do not wear flag tie tacks or patriotic bumper stickers and tax and spend on so-called “social programs” which are just socialism plain and simple.
We tax & spend trillions on weapons and war toys and trillions more on the oil to run them, so we can kill more people, pollute more skies & water, and destroy more infrastructure and resources than any nation in the history of the planet.
We are the true patriots, the party of everything big, bad and destructive, the great Goliath, the true Superpowers, the party of the bully, the party of the Elephant! Stop us if you can … weenies!
Lions and tigers and liberal bears, oh my! Coulter 45, where are you?? The stock market will crash because big government spending will sit on it like a giant greenhouse gas bear, and investors will lose their matching funds for investing in the future of a Yellowstone Caldera Theme Park, “The Ultimate Extreme Disaster Thrill.”
Instead, we should all be thankful that we no longer have Liberals taxing and spending on Social Programs that Don’t Benefit Taxpayers unless they are so Out of the Loop that they engage in ancient Tribal Practices like having children, or not-yet-dead elderly parents who, unlike Model Grandpa G.H.W. Bush aka Senior, do not spend their time sky-diving or bungee jumping or other Cool Retirement Self-Sufficient Activities.
We don’t like the idea of government as a Big Brother who bails you out when you’re in trouble or helps children or the poor and vulnerable or provides programs to prevent crime in poor and inner-city areas. What a waste! Freeloaders! When we could be spending all that hard-earned money on surveillance, propaganda, wars, weapons, weapons delivery systems, search and arrest of civilians, interrogations, more surveillance, intimidation, propaganda, torture by proxy, more wars, fake “diplomatic” junkets to make it look like we “exhausted every avenue” so we can FIGHT MORE COOL WARS AND GET THOSE DAMN RATINGS UP.
We like a Big Bro who watches your every move, who suspects your trips to the library, who treats everyone with an Arab or foreign-sounding name (Jews exempted) as Potential Covert Operatives of a Terrorist Cell. Think of it as big Brother Protecting You. Keeping you informed. Terror level: Orange.
Now instead of educating the poor and so-called underprivileged whom we rightly and sanctimoniously call the Lazy No-Gooders, the freeloaders, we are putting them where they belong, in prisons, where instead of doing productive work and paying taxes and contributing to society, they are being fed, clothed, and locked up in tight expensive security and under surveillance - this is the keyword here, “under surveillance” - and thus NO LONGER POSE A THREAT.
Because ultimately, free people pose a threat to our security. Taxpayers could be terrorists, paying taxes to cover for their evil schemes. Today he contributes to society - tomorrow he wants a free lunch. The only ones you can trust these days are Established Names, names with Something Behind Them. Names like Exxon, Shell Oil, Lockheed Martin, Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical, Wal-Mart, Enron, Wait! - scratch that last one, I mean, Verizon, or was it Disney-Warner Brothers-NBC-Microsoft-Pixar-General Electric? Forgive me, it’s hard to keep up with the Monster Lovefest and Corporate Bonding. But in any case, THEY are our Real American Heroes. They are our titans, our benefactors, providers, our safety net, our icons. Big Business. It’s the American Way. They don’t blow up buildings. They build buildings. They don’t hold up convenience stores. They make the videos and franchise the stores to catch the thieves whom they pay taxes to build prisons and pay prison staff for at 100X the cost of whatever the criminals stole. Big Business is the solution, and they will take care of all our problems and the benefits will trickle down, and see?
See how big and healthy they all are? We want all Americans to get on the bandwagon of the American Dream, which means to make a killing, or at least a quick buck, and to hell with the environment and the so-called children of the “future”. “Future” - now there’s an evil concept from the Evil Church of Liberalism who wants to tax your Kool-Aid stand so they can give money to criminals to keep them from coming back to prison after they get out because of some fake vegetarian weenie tax-n-spend unpatriotic flag-burning thing they call “future.”
We want NOW. ONLY. PERIOD. Kill the terrorists - NOW! Define “terrorism” later. Arrest suspects - NOW! Come up with reasons later. Go to war to make democracy in all the world NOW! Figure out what the hell that means or what the hell to do LATER. Tap all phones and emails of everyone in the U.S. NOW! Stop all suspicious activity NOW! Decide what to do with the logjam of keywords and rounded up civilians LATER. Send Israel nukes and missiles and stand back while they decimate their neighbors NOW! Explain to the world LATER. Kill NOW! Talk to make lame excuses and argue like angry flies LATER. Annihilate all Muslims and Arabs NOW! Explain why LATER. Lock up the liberals NOW! Attack them NOW! Claim that you wanted a free discussion LATER. ACT NOW! But think? --- THINK… in your liberal keyword so-called FUTURE.
But we will NEVER think. Because we don’t believe in a “future”. We believe in a “vision.” A “vision” where Republicans win and Big Business controls everything and all taxes are spent only on war and surveillance and barbed wire and walls and Big Bro watches everyone and we control elections so candidates we want will win and if the so-called people elect someone we don’t want in ANY OTHER COUNTRY, we, the Superpower, will send some thugs to track down the elected leaders and kidnap them and thus get rid of them.
Remember the keyword: security: they no longer pose a threat. Just like the cool macho Israelis did with the Palestinians.
Our vision is We’re Number One! Our vision is Victory at any spin. Our vision is war. Without war, how can you have Victory? Right, victory! The bigger, the better. Let’s go for Biggest! Apocalypse NOW! Our vision is Armageddon.
Our battle cry: Remember 911! Because of 911, we must start invading other countries NOW! Revenge, NOW! Deal with the real issues LATER… Why wait for a near earth object? Let the companies pollute the air and water so they can make money NOW. Think of ourselves as incendiary devices. The whole world is a THREAT. So let’s invade it - NOW. Compromise is vegan, hippie, Hilary, liberal, evil, and poses a threat. If you compromise, someone will get a free lunch. We’ll spend our hard-earned tax money on someone else’s infrastructure, so they can live a better life at our expense.
Spend that money for us on our guns and weapons systems, so we can show them who’s boss, who runs the show. We run the show and we don’t want some weenie environmentalist extremist animal-rights freaks telling us how to run foreign policy and threaten corporate profits.
We run the show, we pave the way, we support the fascists and kings and dictators as long as they do our bidding, but in the name of the red, white and blue. Unlike the evil liberals from the evil church of liberalism who do not wear flag tie tacks or patriotic bumper stickers and tax and spend on so-called “social programs” which are just socialism plain and simple.
We tax & spend trillions on weapons and war toys and trillions more on the oil to run them, so we can kill more people, pollute more skies & water, and destroy more infrastructure and resources than any nation in the history of the planet.
We are the true patriots, the party of everything big, bad and destructive, the great Goliath, the true Superpowers, the party of the bully, the party of the Elephant! Stop us if you can … weenies!
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The Meddler on the Roof
"Hey, Chicken Little, I'm the guy with the fiddle! Hey, Cow, jump over the moon!" 
O Great Oracle, what next? O Great Wizard, tell me, tell me do, over what line must I step?"Lo, every border of every nation is a line. And the sensibilities of every people form a line. You must step over every line and every crack. Remember: step on a line, break your mother's spine; step on a crack, break your mother's back. You can't step back - so you must step over."
Thus spake the artificial voice of Henrathustra.
Deep within that eminent throat, somewhere between the brooding or quizzical eyes, lies the answer to Our Quagmire. Dr. K, author of the brilliant Theory of Vietnamic Victory, now spews more visionary dementia.
"It's not rotten - it's just overripe!" and "Iraq by any other name would pull as hard" and "When the going goes quicksand, the tough stay the course." Or sink the course, as the case may be.
From the annals of oil-soaked governmental underestimation to the hard-nosed rule of One Grim Hombre (aka Don "The Reaper"), to the plan-a-victory-party-first, fight-the-war-later-whatever Illusionist Lovefest, to the bloody streets of the Red Zone, to the hearts and minds of uninformed, backward, out-of-the-loop folks who inexplicably believe that an invasion is an invasion - what's up with that? - yes, the Bush Administration is ready for some good Mood Music!
And what better music-meister than the Grandmeister of 'em all, Henrathustra. Always the Meddle-man, getting his Wise Old Fingers on every fiddle, every Republican Club Sandwich, every Let's Defy Doomsday Pie. Bush II is all ears when it comes to the Meddle of the Road.
"Hands on!" He says. "Victory Is Near!" He says. "Death to Fascists!" He says.
And when the world reels in horror at the brazen insanity of it all, the K-Meister soothes those tense nerves and that shaken conscience with a time-tested refrain, "God is on your side. If you change your mind, everything you've done will be destroyed, and you will be shamed as a liar! You know we're right! They are the evil ones! We live a purpose-driven life, and our purpose is to meddle! When the going gets dead-end, the tough cross lines..."
Thus spake Henrathustra. "And if you're not up with that, I've got three words for ya .. Kiss my thustra!"
Well, frankly, who can argue with that? So the Grandmeister got Bush II's ears and the country's hemmorhaging red and green in a whoop-de-doo hot wing BBQ beer-keggin' Bash for Freedom where a visionary screen shows would-be terrorists NOT using the invasion of Iraq as the Mother of All Recruiting Tools (with even a real life battleground auto-start to use), but instead predicts they will suddenly be overcome with the smell of ol' BBQ pork ribs and convert to the religion of Playboy, beer and Big Screen TV. Instead of hearing Qur'an recitation, you'll find Kenny Chesney singing "She thinks my tank's sexy".
Yes, and what a realistic vision! At a cost equivalent to what it costs to run a Whirlpool dishwasher per day, we'll save Iraq from its citizens who are Dangerous Arabs that Probably Pray to Mecca and, most importantly, they Don't Love Israel as Israel Should be Loved. Ach! Well, OK, so the dishwasher is supposed to run in the Kuiper belt and we have to finance three missions to "Xena", that cute planetette next to Pluto. So the cost is astronomical. So shoot me.
But no! Behold! The whole world knows the K-Meister is a genius.
O, K-Oracle, tell us how to swim the backstroke in quicksand.
"Do it while being pulled out by a giant crane."
And where or what, pray tell, is this giant crane?
"Behold! The might of the American military is more powerful than a crane. Lo, it shall come to pass that we shall be victorious and our armies shall conquer their armies, and..."
But they don't even have an army! This is just a bunch of insurgents and terrorists and factions killing each other and we're caught in the middle!
"Did you say meddle?"
No, I said MIDDLE.
"Lo, my brethren, they are one and the same. Let's meddle in the Middle East and call it the middle of the meddling road, where victory is ..."
A muddle?
"No! We know what we're doing, and it's crystal ball clear that if you don't send more bodies now, we will look weak, and WE are a SUPERPOWER and THEY are not - therefore they must be shown to lose at all costs."
But what if we can't afford it? What if the American people don't want to send more bodies into a quagmire?
"Lo, I ask you, who is the Commander-in-Chief? The American people? And who is the Cash Cow? The Commander-in-Chief? Enough talk! Biased liberal media! We need action now! Stop thinking, dammit!"
Thus spake Henrathustra. And if you don't agree, you can kiss his thustra. And if you wonder why he's on the roof of the white house, well, you know how oracles hate drowning in mud. He's clean, pristine, and fairly mean - but Bush is up to his neck in muck...
"If I were a bitch, man... ta da dadadadadadadadadadadadadahhh....if I were a stealthy man!..."
Yes, and you can hear this mood music in the RNC's lobby - but please wear boots! And carry a big life jacket...
The Most Trusted Name in Politics
Who can you trust these days? The whole GOP is getting caught in the credibility undertow for the war in Iraq, the lies that got us there, and other shovelfuls of crap that lined foreign policy bins, election campaigns, and stooge diplomacy. The Dems are getting dumped on too - Hillary is accused of being "liberal" (see "evil" and "church"), and Obama is accused of being "outside the loop," as in "beltloop" and no one is in the mood for being, shall we say, belt-free. Tom Jefferson or Jesus would seem to be fairly trustworthy, even by today’s rigorous standards (sic), but the trick is to find someone who is actually alive.
What we need is a bipartisan consensus, an examination of who people actually trust and believe, someone who commands trust from both sides of the fence.
Prez Bush himself told us who that someone could be last September 7, 2006, in an interview on ABC News with Charles Gibson, who asked Bush three times what was the connection between the Iraq War and the War on Terror, and in response, Bush was forced to rely on the sole indisputable source on this issue: who else? "Bush’s best answer was that Iraq is part of the ‘war on terror’ because Osama bin Laden says it is."
Bush stated in support of the invasion of Iraq that although he admits Saddam Hussein "didn’t order the attacks", his crowning argument is that "Osama bin Laden has called Iraq central to the war on terror."
Gibson goes further, asking, "But the point that I make and that many of the critics make is that Iraq wasn’t a part of the war on terror until we went in there. ..."
To which Bush replied, forthrightly, "I ... I ... listen, I understand it’s dangerous and troublesome, but I think it’s very important for the American people to ask, ‘Why, why is it that Osama bin Laden wants to drive us out of Iraq before this democracy can sustain itself?’"
So there you have it, UBL is the new "it" man, and has held that title for quite a spell. Other Republicans in W’s chorus of yes-men also chant this tune: "Iraq is critical to the war on terror... even Osama bin Laden says so!" Don’t take the President’s word on it, or the Secretary of Defense’s, heaven forbid, or the word of the Secretary of State, or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the word of any high-ranking official. You don’t have to take the word of these known liars. The Most Trusted Name in Politics says so. Al-Qaeda says so. UBL says so, for God’s sake! Nuff said.
Of course, you can’t trust liberals. They probably don’t even believe in an Axis of Evil. But UBL believes1 He’s on-board with the program. He’s up with this evil-good thing. He’s just got it in reverse, but at least he’s got it. So you can trust him.
Now think about it a moment. With all that righteous Republican trust in his pocket, why doesn’t UBL cash in: "If Al-Qaeda says it is, you KNOW it is." Imagine the spike in sales of Coca-Cola, for example, if UBL would show up in a video with one.
"After three hours on donkey-back, one hour under gunfire, seven miles up winding mountain trails, carried in an insulated duffel bag by a courier known only to three people, two of whom blew themselves up, finally delivered to and carefully extricated by none other than UBL himself (taking a swig of Coke, then saying), ‘When I say it’s good - (shots fired in the air) - it’s DAMN GOOD!!!’"
He could have made enough on that one spot to finance the overthrow of two key unnamed Middle Eastern countries, or scare the hell out of two unspecified Western countries, or upset the balance of six key economic bases. It’s his choice, man, and hey, it might be a better investment for Coke than financing the War in Iraq. Most Middle East countries could use a good overthrow, and a good scare never hurt anyone, and economic bases are mostly fronts for rich egomaniacal moguls, anyway. And who drinks Coke? The people, that’s who. It’s a win-win.
Of course, this scenario never happened and never will happen. If it did, UBL would ultimately be just another money-groveling cog in the great wheel of Fortune, instead of a North Star for the Compass of Trust. No, UBL would never show up in a 30-second spot for Coke. He commands the world around him, and when he says he’s going to do something, he does it. He says "I’m going to attack America" and he attacks America. He stops saying "I’m going to attack America" and he stops attacking America.
He listened to his fellow Al-Qaedians when they told him this 9-11 style thing is backfiring and it’s got to stop, or that oops! You forgot to invite Americans to Islam first and bomb them afterwards. So no more 9-11’s and no more attacks until a full Invitation to Islam is issued.
Problem was, when he issued his Invitation to Islam, he issued it in Arabic with no explanation of what "Islam" is, relying on outsiders to translate. So he came up with an American who is now a fellow Al-Qaedian, to issue a Revised English Version of that Invitation, complete with an American-language synopsis of Islam, or Islam-in-an-Al-Qaedian-nutshell.
After all, UBL and the Bush Administration have the same agenda: interfere in every country you can get your hands on to convert them to your belief-system/culture. They just happen to have, well, different belief-systems. But both are international "activists," shall we say, with a penchant for war as a means of solving problems and pushing one’s agenda. Both seem immune to the notion that interference in other countries causes the people of those countries untold misery, and both seem to work in tandem: where goes Bush, so goes UBL; where goes UBL, so goes Bush. Bush went to Iraq, so UBL sent some fellow Al-Qaedians over thataway. Both are caught up in this bloody, immoral Morality Play that is as much in tune with reality as Donald Duck riding Silver to Armageddon.
Let’s see, wasn’t the moon in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars, and it was the dawning of ... just a minute, it’s not the Age of Reason or the Age of Aquarius, so it must be - the Age of Holy War! Is the Bush Administration even cognizant of the fact that they started this latest Holy War? "Let’s spread democracy over all the world." What’s the deal?
Bush says he wants to spread democracy by the sword - or in more updated terms, by the bomb, or whatever weapons system seems right at the time. Now, now, tsk, tsk, the world sees it as an invasion. Well, if it looks, smells, tastes, bleeds and destroys like an invasion, it is an invasion. The world sees the purpose of that invasion as the obvious purpose of any invasion - to take over and control.
The idea of "We are coming here to benevolently free you from your long-held traditions, culture and religion to OUR way of life on OUR terms and you will answer to OUR dictates and give us YOUR oil..." - well, it’s a hard sell, this "freedom." If it doesn’t look, taste, act or smell like freedom, then what the hell is it? Since when does freedom mean no infrastructure, death of your children, neighbors, no commerce, no roads, not a single inch of security anywhere, no schools, no reason to live?
Gee! Wonder why they don’t love us? And where did we get our ideas on cultural foreplay? Slasher flicks?
Or could it be overkill?
Tell me, where would you rather live, in Iraq or New York City? Where would you rather live, in Afghanistan or next to Ground Zero in the nearest habitable habitation? Does next door to the Pentagon sound better than a flat in the Green Zone? Note, the Green Zone is the Park Avenue of Baghdad. Yes, 9-11 was a tragedy, and all the world recognized that. But it was not an invasion. It was not a takeover. UBL promised to attack, but not to take over. He never even promised to destabilize. He never even declared war. The attack is bad, very bad. Those whom he attacked in 9-11 were innocent victims. Most of them probably know nothing about any of the causes dear to UBL’s agenda, much less have anything to do with them. They were, at worst, cogs in the wheel of Fortune.
And as a North Star of Trust, he should have attacked the people he was really mad at, like the Saudi royal family. Or some of the other despots throwing their well-heeled "my whim is your fate, chump" weight around in the Islamic world. Maybe he could have liberated, instead of further destroying the lives of, some of those people on the Muslim street he is an ironic icon for. They are also victims of 9-11. And many still don’t get it.
Bush, likewise, remains an icon for many a poor soul from the Heartland and the South, people for whom patriotism means obedience, parades, and sending their children to die. They idolize the man who sent their children to die for the great rhetoric, for the military campaign, for "standing up for freedom", for waving the flag, for eating potluck casseroles and having Bar-B-Q’s on Memorial Day. When I asked my redneck neighbors why they are voting for Bush, they replied simply, "It’s the right thing to do." They feel the Bush agenda in their gut, like many in the Muslim world feel the UBL agenda in their gut. They feel someone is finally standing up for What’s Right. Problem is, it’s all Wrong.
Bush wanted, and the American people wanted, to avenge 9-11, to take revenge on someone, anyone, for this horrible attack. And they preferred to get as close to the source as possible. OK. So did UBL. He wants to avenge Muslim oppression by non-Muslims, as seen graphically in many venues, starting with Israel enacting their "final solution" on Palestinians by a slow denial of basic human rights, such as food and shelter and the right to remain un-bombed, and ending with Western support for despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and anywhere else they can do it. But he can’t really realistically attack Israel or the Saudi Regime, although he has tried the latter. So he chose their supporters, the Next Best Thing: the good ol’ U.S. of A.
Bush, too, should have attacked the people he is really mad at - UBL himself, supposedly, and those who created him. Oops! The Americans "created him," just like they empowered and "created" Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War. UBL was one day one of our "freedom fighters" in the Afghan war against the USSR, our old nemesis. He wanted to be a freedom fighter again in the Kuwait-Iraq situation that led to Gulf War I. We screwed him then, but presumably secret pleas of his Bush Family Friends family, the rich and powerful Bin Ladens, kept him off-target for revenge.
Be that as it may, we chose the Next Best Thing, those who support UBL. That meant Afghanistan. But Iraq? That obviously had nothing to do with 9-11 any more than Israeli-style fascism has to do with the Holocaust (it’s not a fitting memorial, to say the least).
And their lies are so transparent it speaks very poorly of the American people that they actually believe this stuff. I mean, really. "Bombs for Democracy!"
So we can go into debt until we join the Third World in poverty, lack of education and crime. Put your money into guns! Now there’s a strategy for the future.
But alas, it’s just a lie.
Iraq was an invasion for oil and strategic power, no chaser. And that’s what makes UBL ultimately more trustworthy than the Bush Administration. At least he tells you what he’s doing. The Bush Administration, however, tells you the diametrical opposite. (Thanks, Machiavelli.) They obviously have no use for trust. They’ll leave that to Al-Qaeda and UBL. Someone you can count on. A good reference in tough times. The most trusted name in politics.
What we need is a bipartisan consensus, an examination of who people actually trust and believe, someone who commands trust from both sides of the fence.
Prez Bush himself told us who that someone could be last September 7, 2006, in an interview on ABC News with Charles Gibson, who asked Bush three times what was the connection between the Iraq War and the War on Terror, and in response, Bush was forced to rely on the sole indisputable source on this issue: who else? "Bush’s best answer was that Iraq is part of the ‘war on terror’ because Osama bin Laden says it is."
Bush stated in support of the invasion of Iraq that although he admits Saddam Hussein "didn’t order the attacks", his crowning argument is that "Osama bin Laden has called Iraq central to the war on terror."
Gibson goes further, asking, "But the point that I make and that many of the critics make is that Iraq wasn’t a part of the war on terror until we went in there. ..."
To which Bush replied, forthrightly, "I ... I ... listen, I understand it’s dangerous and troublesome, but I think it’s very important for the American people to ask, ‘Why, why is it that Osama bin Laden wants to drive us out of Iraq before this democracy can sustain itself?’"
So there you have it, UBL is the new "it" man, and has held that title for quite a spell. Other Republicans in W’s chorus of yes-men also chant this tune: "Iraq is critical to the war on terror... even Osama bin Laden says so!" Don’t take the President’s word on it, or the Secretary of Defense’s, heaven forbid, or the word of the Secretary of State, or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the word of any high-ranking official. You don’t have to take the word of these known liars. The Most Trusted Name in Politics says so. Al-Qaeda says so. UBL says so, for God’s sake! Nuff said.
Of course, you can’t trust liberals. They probably don’t even believe in an Axis of Evil. But UBL believes1 He’s on-board with the program. He’s up with this evil-good thing. He’s just got it in reverse, but at least he’s got it. So you can trust him.
Now think about it a moment. With all that righteous Republican trust in his pocket, why doesn’t UBL cash in: "If Al-Qaeda says it is, you KNOW it is." Imagine the spike in sales of Coca-Cola, for example, if UBL would show up in a video with one.
"After three hours on donkey-back, one hour under gunfire, seven miles up winding mountain trails, carried in an insulated duffel bag by a courier known only to three people, two of whom blew themselves up, finally delivered to and carefully extricated by none other than UBL himself (taking a swig of Coke, then saying), ‘When I say it’s good - (shots fired in the air) - it’s DAMN GOOD!!!’"
He could have made enough on that one spot to finance the overthrow of two key unnamed Middle Eastern countries, or scare the hell out of two unspecified Western countries, or upset the balance of six key economic bases. It’s his choice, man, and hey, it might be a better investment for Coke than financing the War in Iraq. Most Middle East countries could use a good overthrow, and a good scare never hurt anyone, and economic bases are mostly fronts for rich egomaniacal moguls, anyway. And who drinks Coke? The people, that’s who. It’s a win-win.
Of course, this scenario never happened and never will happen. If it did, UBL would ultimately be just another money-groveling cog in the great wheel of Fortune, instead of a North Star for the Compass of Trust. No, UBL would never show up in a 30-second spot for Coke. He commands the world around him, and when he says he’s going to do something, he does it. He says "I’m going to attack America" and he attacks America. He stops saying "I’m going to attack America" and he stops attacking America.
He listened to his fellow Al-Qaedians when they told him this 9-11 style thing is backfiring and it’s got to stop, or that oops! You forgot to invite Americans to Islam first and bomb them afterwards. So no more 9-11’s and no more attacks until a full Invitation to Islam is issued.
Problem was, when he issued his Invitation to Islam, he issued it in Arabic with no explanation of what "Islam" is, relying on outsiders to translate. So he came up with an American who is now a fellow Al-Qaedian, to issue a Revised English Version of that Invitation, complete with an American-language synopsis of Islam, or Islam-in-an-Al-Qaedian-nutshell.
After all, UBL and the Bush Administration have the same agenda: interfere in every country you can get your hands on to convert them to your belief-system/culture. They just happen to have, well, different belief-systems. But both are international "activists," shall we say, with a penchant for war as a means of solving problems and pushing one’s agenda. Both seem immune to the notion that interference in other countries causes the people of those countries untold misery, and both seem to work in tandem: where goes Bush, so goes UBL; where goes UBL, so goes Bush. Bush went to Iraq, so UBL sent some fellow Al-Qaedians over thataway. Both are caught up in this bloody, immoral Morality Play that is as much in tune with reality as Donald Duck riding Silver to Armageddon.
Let’s see, wasn’t the moon in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars, and it was the dawning of ... just a minute, it’s not the Age of Reason or the Age of Aquarius, so it must be - the Age of Holy War! Is the Bush Administration even cognizant of the fact that they started this latest Holy War? "Let’s spread democracy over all the world." What’s the deal?
Bush says he wants to spread democracy by the sword - or in more updated terms, by the bomb, or whatever weapons system seems right at the time. Now, now, tsk, tsk, the world sees it as an invasion. Well, if it looks, smells, tastes, bleeds and destroys like an invasion, it is an invasion. The world sees the purpose of that invasion as the obvious purpose of any invasion - to take over and control.
The idea of "We are coming here to benevolently free you from your long-held traditions, culture and religion to OUR way of life on OUR terms and you will answer to OUR dictates and give us YOUR oil..." - well, it’s a hard sell, this "freedom." If it doesn’t look, taste, act or smell like freedom, then what the hell is it? Since when does freedom mean no infrastructure, death of your children, neighbors, no commerce, no roads, not a single inch of security anywhere, no schools, no reason to live?
Gee! Wonder why they don’t love us? And where did we get our ideas on cultural foreplay? Slasher flicks?
Or could it be overkill?
Tell me, where would you rather live, in Iraq or New York City? Where would you rather live, in Afghanistan or next to Ground Zero in the nearest habitable habitation? Does next door to the Pentagon sound better than a flat in the Green Zone? Note, the Green Zone is the Park Avenue of Baghdad. Yes, 9-11 was a tragedy, and all the world recognized that. But it was not an invasion. It was not a takeover. UBL promised to attack, but not to take over. He never even promised to destabilize. He never even declared war. The attack is bad, very bad. Those whom he attacked in 9-11 were innocent victims. Most of them probably know nothing about any of the causes dear to UBL’s agenda, much less have anything to do with them. They were, at worst, cogs in the wheel of Fortune.
And as a North Star of Trust, he should have attacked the people he was really mad at, like the Saudi royal family. Or some of the other despots throwing their well-heeled "my whim is your fate, chump" weight around in the Islamic world. Maybe he could have liberated, instead of further destroying the lives of, some of those people on the Muslim street he is an ironic icon for. They are also victims of 9-11. And many still don’t get it.
Bush, likewise, remains an icon for many a poor soul from the Heartland and the South, people for whom patriotism means obedience, parades, and sending their children to die. They idolize the man who sent their children to die for the great rhetoric, for the military campaign, for "standing up for freedom", for waving the flag, for eating potluck casseroles and having Bar-B-Q’s on Memorial Day. When I asked my redneck neighbors why they are voting for Bush, they replied simply, "It’s the right thing to do." They feel the Bush agenda in their gut, like many in the Muslim world feel the UBL agenda in their gut. They feel someone is finally standing up for What’s Right. Problem is, it’s all Wrong.
Bush wanted, and the American people wanted, to avenge 9-11, to take revenge on someone, anyone, for this horrible attack. And they preferred to get as close to the source as possible. OK. So did UBL. He wants to avenge Muslim oppression by non-Muslims, as seen graphically in many venues, starting with Israel enacting their "final solution" on Palestinians by a slow denial of basic human rights, such as food and shelter and the right to remain un-bombed, and ending with Western support for despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and anywhere else they can do it. But he can’t really realistically attack Israel or the Saudi Regime, although he has tried the latter. So he chose their supporters, the Next Best Thing: the good ol’ U.S. of A.
Bush, too, should have attacked the people he is really mad at - UBL himself, supposedly, and those who created him. Oops! The Americans "created him," just like they empowered and "created" Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War. UBL was one day one of our "freedom fighters" in the Afghan war against the USSR, our old nemesis. He wanted to be a freedom fighter again in the Kuwait-Iraq situation that led to Gulf War I. We screwed him then, but presumably secret pleas of his Bush Family Friends family, the rich and powerful Bin Ladens, kept him off-target for revenge.
Be that as it may, we chose the Next Best Thing, those who support UBL. That meant Afghanistan. But Iraq? That obviously had nothing to do with 9-11 any more than Israeli-style fascism has to do with the Holocaust (it’s not a fitting memorial, to say the least).
And their lies are so transparent it speaks very poorly of the American people that they actually believe this stuff. I mean, really. "Bombs for Democracy!"
So we can go into debt until we join the Third World in poverty, lack of education and crime. Put your money into guns! Now there’s a strategy for the future.
But alas, it’s just a lie.
Iraq was an invasion for oil and strategic power, no chaser. And that’s what makes UBL ultimately more trustworthy than the Bush Administration. At least he tells you what he’s doing. The Bush Administration, however, tells you the diametrical opposite. (Thanks, Machiavelli.) They obviously have no use for trust. They’ll leave that to Al-Qaeda and UBL. Someone you can count on. A good reference in tough times. The most trusted name in politics.
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