Monthly Archive for January, 2006

State Of The Union

[image:65:l] God I hate this shite.

First off what kind of sick ass fantasy world do these media pundits live in? Even on the relatively mild CNN we get a day of mostly conservative talking heads prepping the country for what is surely going to be a rousing speech from a great leader who will rouse America from its malaise. Guys like Wolf Blitzer are on there trying to convince us that 5 years of lies, treason, corruption, and impeachable offences few can argue, are wiped clean on this night with a well prepared speech. A speech no less that they admit has been prepared by a team of professionals for days, maybe weeks. But if he reads it well, and an audience already mostly on his side if they are turning in to watch, like it, well we’re good to go, the horizon is clear, let’s steal some more oil and call it democracy.

This pompous twit Blitzer actaully was moved by how the animosity between the parties seemed to drop away for a moment when His Fraudulency was introduced and came down the tunnel high fiving the fans and ducking gatoraid. Is this propaganda hole of a human being actually that spoiled and close to their world that he actually believes that? Or is he that close that he actually wants to help build the fantasy like he did with the earlier comment? Yeah 5 years of blood oh his hands for nothing but ideology and it’s all better now if uses the right carefully prepared and focused group words. ARE YOU AN ABSOLUTE IDIOT? There’s a nasty symbiotic relationship the media has with the corrupt power brokers they cover. They eat at the same places, drink in the same bars, sleep with the same hookers, and take money that Jack Abramoff has stolen from Native Americans. They are mutually reliant. That’s how we get political-media whores like Judith Miller, drunk on her access to the corridors of the players, willing to let her integrity slip into a morass of administration planted lies of convenience for both parties.

And of course we get the now obligatory introductions of regular folk in the stands who love George W. And since you’re regular folk, and they lost loved ones in Iraq, or are from Iraq, well then by golly, you should love George W too! See how that works? not too complicated America. Just accept it and let me rock you to sleep. There there. That’s a good country. Jsut lay back and shut up and go to sleep.

I think it was less than a minute or two in he immediately plays the Iraq=9-11 note. Apparently like many of his advocates in the red states, Bush hasn’t read that all that was empirically disproven ages ago. But that’s right, he’s really only talking to them anyway. Giving them code words to pre for the battle against the forces of evil. That’s why he sent out props for Hillary this week people. For god’s sake he knows she’s no threat. But he knows, or I should say Karl Rove knows, that she’s the red state boogey man. Her looming presence will unite them and get them back behind their President in a forceful way. Next best thing to getting them all riled up to making them think one of their women is sleeping with a black man. Break out the ropes Jethro Hillary’s going to make abortion mandatory and eat the fetuses so that her secretions can be shipped to terrorists to manufacture an army of clones that will run around America blowing stuff up and pulling the plugs on vegatables in terminal wards. Yahoo!

And we get the proverbial shout out to women voting in Afghanistan. Now if only he could get them to stop here.

Then the spoiled little rich boy who could insinuates that debate and criticism is not part of the national agenda. We should stop with all the vitriol and ugly partisan poltics. So after 6 years of nothing but ugliness and divisiveness from guys who use racism to get votes in the south, who have called war heroes traitors, and who have risked a womans life and ended her career to punish a dissenter, it’s got to stop now that its aimed his way?

Fuck you war pig! To quote Dylan and Pearl Jam, even Jesus would not forgive what you’ve done!

He actually pretty much said we can’t criticize him! AND NO ONE ON MSM IS MENTIONING THIS?

He’s done this shit before, but he used the most public forum tonight to tell people not to criticize him. HOLY SHITE PEOPLE! And a blogger was arrested from the building for wearing a t shirt that had an Iraq body count on it. No details yet. But this has been pretty much confirmed to have ahppened to some extent or another. On edit it appears this might have been Cindy Sheehan. Ir eally respect her but sometimes I think she’s doing more harm that good. She’s reached the point of diminishing returns and moved on to the area where she’s losing sympathy and not gaining it. But you go Cindy, you have every right to go overboard since they wont let you sit next to the Stepford First Lady.

But I digress.

Then we got more of the same old tort reform hackery as Bush kneeled at the true shrine of his faith and he pushed for less liability for corporations and the medical industry. This featured the same old made up statistics about lack of Dr’s in certain areas, lies they’ve been putting out theere for years to aid the insurance and corporate world who keep D.C. politicians in upscale townhouses with elegant parties peopled by black people posing as statues.

It was of course nice to hear some alternative energy talk. But of course its just talk. Which everyone knows. Which is why Blitzer and the rest make me crazy and why watching this stuff makes me want to break stuff. How many proven lies does it take to make what he says in a speech less than credible or worthy of consideration?

And to really top it off the worst president ever wants firmer grounding in math and science which he says we’ve fallen behind in. WHO”S FAULT IS THAT? This is an administration that has declared as war on education. They’ve urged intelligent design to be incorporated into science classes, had epa memebers quit due to how they and science were compromised, battled against stem cell research, denied the universally accepted fact of global warning, cut science budgets, and even had one of its stalwarts, Bill Frist, say tears and sweat can transmit AIDS. And this is just the tip.

He even pushed nanotechnology. Uhhh that’s nice. You’re going to be all for computer technologies that could make corporations more trillions of dollars. Sweet of you. And well you don’t really have a choice do you monkey man. TO quote P.J. again, its evolution baby.

He actually gall to push No Child Left Behind, a proven failure that just encourages cheating. But maybe he’s looking for Congressional recruits.

And my god if people stand and applaud for another innocuous statement I’m going to start tossing people from the ship. Makes me want to find a bell tower and become a folk-rock song lyric.

Dont you think this stuff looks creepy and ostentatiously filled with pomp and empty ceremeny to most of the world? The falseness and insulated hubris of it all is mind boggling. It’s the kind of stuff you see in movies before the revolution. breaks out. Absolutely sickening.

oh and let me not forget small p telling us how violent crime rates have coninued falling, as he also says that abortion rates have as well, and not pointingt out that it’s most probable that A is due to B. Thats not what Billy Ray and his thrice pregnant wife Sally Sue want to hear. They’s just good god fearing folk for keeping all their chillin’ instead of killing em like the liberals who praise the killers that tough laws have kept in check. Ok so I’m engagning in stereotypes and painting broad strokes here. But you know I’m kidding. They are not.

Bush also said people are worried about the activist courts. Not according to polls. Most americans are liberal in their politics, they believe in abortion, and want big business to keep paying out when they do wrong. Again he lied. He does that alot.

When they all stood for Alito I wanted to spit on every traitorous Democrat in that room, including that skinny ass opportunist Hillary Clinton who I sent an e mail about fillabustering and who didnt listen. So much for the power of the internet. I’m so disillusioned.

The same old same old continued with anti cloning nonsense. Life is gift from creator he says. And science isn’t? Saving lives and easing pain isn’t? Get Luekemia you heartless fuck and then tell me that!

Fine if he and supporters dont want any part of the tax dollars going towards abortion or stem cell research, or want evolution taught in their schools. But you know what? Then they pay for all their illigitamte small town red state bastards, not us blue staters, they dont get med benefits of stem cell research, they just wither and die until that creator of theirs calls them home, and they dont get flu shots which are based on evoltion and mutating. Deal? Yeah I didn’t think so. Funny isn’t it.

He tried to say other administrations spied like NSA did under him. Lie! He was alluding to something his press guy Mclellen mentioned regarding Clinton which has been proven false and had to do with physical searches which were not covered by FISA. But again they count on most people being stupid and not looking for information and a complicit press that wont give it to them or call him on these things on national t.v.

Ansd watching Bill scumy pants Frist tailing him all over the building makes me want to smash both their faces together.

Does any of this have any reality outside the walls of that building? Of course not. It never has. And yet they go and on as if it can. As if it did. They are liars. They are traitors as well. They are as corrupt too.

To be fair some are criticizing him in its aftermath as I write this. None will go too far. None will say what they say off air fr the most part. I don’t want them throwing profanity around. if I were on tv I wouldn’t either. I’m blogging and in that medium can let some more emotion out. But for gods sake enumerate the lies and contradictions. Call attention the the past promises and lies. Metnion how the usual techniques like using the word freedom 17 times, trying to equate Iraq qith 9-11, wearing a purple tie, ignoring the abortion-crime link for his southern backers, how its all part and parcel of the usual time tested dishonest attemtps to send coded messages out to the brainwashed.

Oh and by the way did anyone catch Lieberman and Bush making out even longer this year. They really hooked up at last years SOTU. Got even more into each otehr tonight. Real Bokeback Mountain moment. Wish I knew how to quit you George, the Democratic impostor might have said. Why does Lieberman pretend anymore? We all know he’s a Republican. Stop waffling and just go Annakin and let us go into exile until Obama is ready to use the force.

Anyway, it’s over now so let’s get back to heaping all the deserved imperialist checking negativity we as a nation can muster upon this administration. We’re better than the acolytes in the media, karma is real, you reap what you sow, what comes around goes around, and if any of that’s really true no speech will save these monsters now.

Perpetual Beginnings VI

A Dude Entry:

Murdoch slammed his foot on the brake as the first wave hit him. The car screeched to a halt in the steady downpour as he flung his head back against the seats support and felt cool liquid filling his mouth as his teeth bit down into his tongue. He managed to fling the door open and swing out of the car and onto his knees, He was screaming and holding his head, imploring the heaven’s who’s direction was unfathomable to his scrambled brain right now, to please make this pain stop.

He collapsed onto his side, rolling on the wet road as his body twitched and convulsed. The heels of his boots slammed against the cars front tires and his nails tried to grab at asphalt. Foam started spilling from his mouth and mixing with the rainwater in a frothy soup. One car drove by, slowed to confirm someone’s duress, and quickly moved on. You didn’t get to living near Easy Street by being a good samaritan. Murdock continued convulsing for another minute or two that seemed like forever, before he he finally got control of himself. By then a nasty stew of vomit made up of the half digested hamburger and cheesefries had banished his frothy foam to a more acceptable physical inconvenience and mess.

He hugged himself as he rolled towards his car, moaning pathetically, waiting for the nausea to subside anotehr couple of minutes before reaching a hand into his car and grabbing hold of the interior of his front seat to pull himself in and up behind the wheel.

“What the fuck was that,” he said out loud. He remembered the stories about the seizures of his youth. He remembered none of the experiences. Even doubted their existence. But her remembered this and was quite sure he’d never forget it. But why now he wondered as he put the car in drive and slowly slid back onto the road and towards a half remembered confrontation with Peter Thorn. It seemed a bit far fetched that this would happen minutes after finally eliminating Sarah from his life. If the stories were true he hadn’t had a seizure since the early to mid 70′s. He hadn’t known Sarah then. He met her…in…in 75.

“What the fuck,” he said again.

He was shivering from the shock and fear as well as the fact that he was sitting in rainsoaked clothes. He tore his shirt up over his head as he continued driving. The streets were emptier and emptier the closer he got to the outskirts of Port City and the tri-point luminary. He could see the flashing of red and blue lights bouncing off the low clouds, carried through obstacles by the driving rain. Squad cars and ambulances. In the confusion of his physical duress he had almost forgotten that he was a wanted man. The wanted man. He had to get off the road and get to Peter on foot. There had to be some explanation for this. Peter knew he didn’t do any of this.

He left the car in a mostly vacant lot and walked shirtless through the rain. His head hurt. There was something unnatural about the pain. He didn’t remember past seizures, but he felt intuitively that a pain like this was somehow abhorrent. He walked for fifteen minutes before coming to a familiar looking building. He didn’t remember how he knew it but felt like he had subconsciously been heading for it since he got out of the car. He felt even more confused when he rememberd that he didn’t own a car.

He went around the back of the building and noticed a basement entrance that jogged his memory. He had been here with Sarah. This is where he was introduced to the Path. He had followed her here a long time ago and later engineered a meeting with the meetings host who had been eagerly receptive to Murdoch’s clued in idea dropping. He borrowed from Sarahs lunatic ramblings and elaborated as only a prophet can until the man had practically wet himself to bring him as a new acolyte. Stan Livingston was the mealy little man’s name. He hadn’t heard of him in years. Murdoch outgrew his benefactor quickly. He had outgrown Sarah as well.

He went down the descending steps and snuck a peak through the front window. The room was dimly lit. He heard a low rumbling noise and the sound of soft music. It was the kind of calwing spiritual stuff guys with names like Yanni played. It was meant to pacify. To uplift the spirit and transcend. They listened to it alot in the Path. There were two sects and they could almost universally be divided along musical lines. The new age group that listened to music like this. The others were the fundamentalists. The old school. They listened to Murdoch’s type of music. Fusion classical stuff with electric guitars and techno rythmns. It was jazzy, it was loud, it had attitude, and it rocked. This was the sound that inspired the bible thumpers as they were in the Path. Men and women who had grown up on death metal, goth, and punk. They had attitude to burn and they joined the Firey Path crushed to burn them.

Stan wasn’t one of those kinds. And he was still leading the life judging from what he was hearing. But then again there were so many Pathers in the Luminary now it’s possible he’d hear sounds like this on a night like this coming from any given apartment. But somehow he knew it was Stan in there. The little weasel who first offered him a cup of immortality and a way to make Sarah love him. The first man who tried to molest our naive hero, and who offered him his first real chance to destroy Sarah. A man who thought John Tesh was talented and that the world could become a utopia if everyone followed a simple rule. Maybe the two characteristics went together. All Murdoch knew was that he and almost all the Pathers who listened to this spiritual stuff seemed to seriously lacking in that department.

But maybe he still enough in thrall and on the outskirts of the Paths many levels of indoctrination that he didn’t know all that had transpired in the many years since he’d last seen him. Maybe then he could get some help. A place to get warm. The soft candlelight was warm and inviting to a half naked man in the pouring rain who had just had a grand mal seizure. He knocked on the door and hoped Stan hadn’t seen the news in the last hour. And if he did, he hoped he had the stength to end him quickly and painlessly. It wasn’t physical power he worried about. He had never killed when it wasn’t for Sarah and somehow he wasn’t sure he could.

He rubbed the area of his head aching so ubnormally and waited as he heard a scurrying to the door. He heard a chain unlatch. This fool wasn’t even going to ask who was at the door. How had he survived this long?

The door opened. Stan stood there, balder, a little heavier, somehow incongruously happier.

“Charles,” he beamed. “I’ve been expecting you. Come in before you catch your death. We’ve got some planning to finish.”

Murdoch stood there in disbelief before letting himself be ushered inside. He smelled licorice in the air, Mixed with something musky. He looked at the incense burning in the middle of an altar and thought they smelled of Pouchilli. He felt a new wave of naseau. “Expecting me?”

“Of course silly man.” He guided Murdoch through the main living room and through a beaded archway that led into a room somehow out of place in an apartment due to its largeness. Murdoch quickly realized a segment of the basement and celler that had previously sat next to Stan’s apartment had been knocked out to extend the apartment into a vaulted sanctuary of some sort. He noticed the glyphs and inscriptions all along the walls, the candles forming a pathway throughout the cavernous room like that old Police video. He thought of the line from that song, “Trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis.” He knew exactly what it meant. Knew that Sarah had went from master to student in his version, but that she had still formed part of a Sympleglades that had enmeshed and entrapped him. Here was perhaps the other rockwall. Or maybe they were his Argonauts. Was the DSP the creature of lore?

Whatever or whoever they were they flipped back their hoods and rose. A group of about twenty of them. They turned to face him as he proceeded through the candle path of fire. He suddenly got the idea to search the faces for Constable and to run at him and snap his neck before anyone could think about it. But he wasn’t there. What was more alarming was that Peter Thorn was.

Glory Road (Movie Review).

[image:44:l] In another episode of accidental cinema, I saw Glory Road the other day, not entirely of my own volition. I had low expectations. I’ve seen many sports movies with the normal pattern of underdog rising beyond themselves. Heard all the inspiring speeches. Felt the adrenaline of all the big plays. And Basketball is my least favorite of the big 4 sports. It is partially due to this last reason that some drama was present in this true account of the Western Texas Miners 1966 season. I’m not as up on my hoops history as Baseball and Football. So i didn’t know how it all turned it out. What’s of greater importance is that I cared. And I cared because like the game at the end of the movie that everyone knows is more than a game due to its circumstances, the movie becomes more than a heroic underdog sports movie for the same reasons.

What sets the Miners story apart is their social and cultural place and the implications of what they did and how they did it. The Miners were the first southern Division I team to incorporate black players into their team. This decision is made to the consternation of the school’s boosters, alumni, and to some extent administration. Coach Haskin was hired after coaching girls high school Basketball to just mind the shop, work cheaply, and keep the acceptably bad white team disciplined. But the man who is now in the Hall of Fame for his coaching accomplishments was there to win. The school was a complete unknown. Nowhere on the map as far as sports goes. No decent player had any interest in signing there out of high school so Haskin had to go hard after unknowns that slipped through the cracks of the normal establishment. This meant scouring the country to find unappreciated black kids whose talent he recognized and whose color he was blind to.

This obviously didn’t go over all that well at the school, in its community, or amongst some of the fans and teams they traveled to play. Much of the expected racial nastiness was hurled at these guys, though it seemed, at least from the films depiction, that their school itself was at least grudgingly accepting. Their Center was beaten up in a bathroom by some white guys, they had a hotel room on the road vandalized broken into and their possessions torn apart and walls covered with red racial epithets, and black and white players had various objects hurled at them from fans as they entered and exited the court. But perhaps the biggest and most important mark of derision was the national assumption that it wasn’t possible to win anything substantial with a team made up of mainly black players.

Hints are dropped in casual fashion about how black’s are just not smart enough, or possessed of enough of any of the character attributes it takes to accomplish anything or come through under pressure. As ridiculous as all this sounds now it was of course still widespread thinking in 1966. And 1966 is not that long ago. But the world was slowly changing thanks to many individual forces making up a much greater wave that carried the deserving along as it drowned those that stood in place. Martin Luther King and the shifting perspectives of the 60′s were a backdrop to a team that rode that wave to a place of greater attention as they won game after game, rising in the national rankings until what should have been the story of proverbial improbable out of nowhere Cinderella story, got all mixed up with the shifting consciousness and the inequality and prejudice that was defining what they were doing more than the overlooked fact of their greater talent and skill.

As they ride their amazing turnaround to the national championship game against the heavily favored all white Kentucky Wildcats coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp, and featuring later Laker, Knicks, and Miami coach Pat Riley, coach Haskins realizes that what they are about to play in has become more than a game. In this cultural atmosphere Haskins makes the decision to play only his black players. The national championship had become another crucible in race relations and the civil rights movement. It was a cusp moment as intertwined with the opening of American minds as so many others that had passed, were ongoing, and were still to come.

The white players on the team gracefully bowed out having long ago not only assimilated their new teammates, but having also assimilated themselves into their culture and become protective and defensive of them. Of course Haskins may have realized his best chance of winning was with his black players, but he was aware of the common thinking that without white players on the court to guide them they’d be lost. Rupp’s views are a little vague in the movie. He brushes Haskin off when the latter tries to introduce himself, and he makes a flippant comment at a press conference about the Miners best player Jo Jo Hill. In a society where we see so many people brushing off Haskin’s and the team both in attitude and with words, it’s hard not to get the idea that Rupp may have been of a like mind. There is a scene where his wife mitigates this impression as she comes to Haskin’s wife’s rescue at a pre game party where her husband is looked down upon for daring to field a team of black players. “Some people just weren’t raised right,” she tells her.

But in the latter stages of the game as we see reality dawning on Rupp, he does tell his players that they are playing a special team and need to rise to the occasion. Jon Voight plays Rupp and does a great job of showing the mans quiet revelation and sinking spirits as he watches the future unfold before him.

The movie had some truly stirring moments that had me pretty welled up. But they had little to do with any of the games the movie covers. Watching a group of people come together to accomplish something truly great and unpredictable as they battle entrenched societal forces and ignorance is inspiring stuff unless its manhandled by overzealous Directors. James Gartner doesn’t make that mistake. A movie like this is inherently filled with cliches but Glory Road does it with all the sincerity due its context. It doesn’t get bogged down in the Coach with the thankless and loyal wife, the bigotted acrimony, the resistant boosters who come around as the team wins, the stirring speeches, big injuries, or player who risks his life to win. These elements are all in there, but they go by fast enough without dwelling to make them forgivable, and are pointed enough to leave the impression due them for having been part of a real story.

It is the context of this movie and that reality which made it work for me. A nice touch was having the real players speaking during the credits, along with Pat Riley who called the game he lost the emancipation proclamation of 1966. Even in defeat he realized how important this was and came off as proud to have been a part of the game and the moment. That takes something for a professional athlete who was on the wrong end of any substantial upset. Something great had taken place beyond Riley or Hill, Cager, or Haskins. Bigger than any one player or coach.

I wasn’t in dire need of another formulaic underdog sports movie, but the saving grace of the formula is that it’s based on some real occasions of greatness. This was one of those moments. I could do without any more Rocky’s or Big League’s being made, but Glory Road is a movie that should have been made since its not only based on what is widely regarded as one of greates upsets in sports history, but almost unarguably the most important.

Dude Haiku’s For Today

Stewart hosts Oscar
Selling out or fitting in?
Skewer them all Jon.

Boss man lies with ease
Passive aggressive mangirl
evil in his heart.

Bob talks in code
bracketing his love inside
lack of comma kills

He tasks me with code
slashing and inverting me
wish i could quit him

Steelers and Seahawks
a susurrant super snore
Bus stops Seattle

News voice scream disease
airwaves filled with viral flu
sick of all their lies

Calorie free gift
One snack item should be free
M and M’s won’t count

Knot the noose in place
smart a-tie-er of success
choke the life away

Who Loves You Osama?

[image:42:l] Bin Laden made another tape. He’s got a camcorder and a dream. Some legitimate media debate ensued the premier of his latest production. But as usual much of the mainstream media descended to divisive agenda pushing and the kind of commentary that a more sane media age would have led to immediate firing of these miserable hacks and unprofessional shills.

While I did see a reasonable debate on CNN over whether Bin Laden’s calls for a truce constituted weakness or imminent danger, FOX “News,” and many of its souless shells of journalistic integrity made it a chance to divert attention from Bin Laden still being very much alive adn their President’s failures to get at anyone actually connected to 9-11, and instead trumpet Bush’s attempts to create a connection betwen liberal detractors and terrorists. Bush and Cheney have been speaking the language of teason for a while even as they have acutally committed it. Good tactic really. shouldn’t work in a sane democracy with impartial media watchdogs, but they know damn well that’s not where we live. We live in a free market capatilist democracy and they know there is a difference. It means truth is for sale. It means, as Noam Chomsky has stated, that propaganda serves the role that violence serves in a dictatorship.

So what did they say? Let’s take a look.

Chris Matthews on Hardball: “I mean he sounds like an over the top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore. You think that sells…”

John Gibson on Faux News:
“That’s the basis for bin Laden’s truce offer. He is talking to America’s far left and saying, “You know what. We’re on the same side. So why don’t you work on that hardhead George W. Bush?” Bin Laden told us Thursday that our far left has been working for him. It’s their poll results he quotes. Bin Laden told us that our secret wiretapping program is something we should keep up. He’s got people here already and he’s got more coming and they are planning to blow us up. In the War on Terror, a bin Laden tape is the far left’s worst nightmare because it reminds Americans the war is real.”

The Washington Post turned off their blog comments section after getting inundated with angry, often profane reactions to one of their blogs by Deborah Howell suggesting Democrats are as guilty as Republicans in the Abramoff affair. This is a partial truth at odds with the spirit of Abramoffs well known ties and has been established to be false. Commentors called too much attention to this and were shut down. They were not on the same page as the paper that was engaged in another attempt to divert attention from those ties now unsurprisingly finding their ways to W.

And we have this exchange from MSNBC’s (Fox lite), Scarbourough Country:

Conway: If you held a piece of tissue paper between some of the comments that Bin Laden today and some of the comments that the president’s detractor’s say-it would be very difficult to stick more than a piece of tissue paper between–there’s not much of a difference.

Scarborough: When you look at what Osama Bin Laden said it sounds an awful lot like what we hear the President’s political enemies domestically—not only like what a lot of democratic senators have been saying, but also what one or two movie makers have been saying over the past several years…

Last 2 nuggets at Crooks and Liars.com Great media watchdog site. Gives me hope.

Want to know what the ongoing reality defying defences of Team America by these type of disgusting urine soaked excused for journalists, is really all about. This info about the aforementioned Matthews and Abramoff give you a clue. And shame on you if you watch any of these guys knowing this stuff.

From Americablog.com.

Abramoff formed a couple of charities to ostensibly help athletic programs but there are,

Allegations that Abramoff used NCPPR and CAF to pay for overseas trips for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other Republican lawmakers and that he attempted to influence lawmakers with large donations from various American Indian tribes.

It was supposed to be about kids. But:

Tax and spending records of the Capital Athletic Foundation obtained by The Washington Post show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths.
Instead, the documents show that Jack Abramoff, one of Washington’s high-powered Republican lobbyists, has repeatedly channeled money from corporate clients into the foundation and spent the overwhelming portion of its money on pet projects having little to do with the advertised sportsmanship programs, including political causes, a short-lived religious school and an overseas golf trip.

Guess who was involved in promoting the fake charity and lending their support and good names to Abramoff in an effort to help this long well known Republican front for illegal funding. Fox’s Tony Snow and Brit Hume, as well as Michael Moore hater at little Fox, Chris Matthews.

Just the lack of ethics alone of hanging out at what was a very partisan event that these 3 attended for Abramoff along with predominantly Republican power brokers like Delay and Rick Santorum, is reprehensible. The fact that they did it for what everyone surely knew was another in a long line of fronts for right wing funding, makes it evil.

Bad shite has been going down in our media for a long time. It feels like were at a crucial stage where its going to get better or worse. If the latter all this will continue to get commonplace and accepted and only the internet fringe will know about it and blog for changes that most of America will never hear. But cyberspace is more and more pervasive and the youth are growing up with it as more and more of a ubiquitous presence in their lives. in this there is hope, though i fear it may take too long to enact change, or be shut down all together if these draconian forces that operate in support of a group of crooks and traitors they know as well as we do, are guilty of high crimes against this country. But personal profit, ideology, and the lure of being close to power brokers are not easy for guys like this to resist and not be corrupted by. They are weak and stupid and have an agenda. When you are weak and stupid you will find ways to make fit any horrible actions into your code.

Speaking of weak and stupid John Kerry blogged on Daily Kos in defence of of Moore, which almost gets him off my soon forthcoming Dead To Me list. Not quite though.

If anything these morally bankrupt news whores may be doing Bin Laden’s work. They divide us and try to shut off all debate. They call for mindless acceptance of political authority. i was never one who agreed with all the silly childish Bin Laden hates democracy and attacked us because were free, garbage. But they were hyping that convenient Bush-ism of the day. Now they continue Bush’s media aided turning away from those principles and try to do what Al_Qaeda never could, nor ever cared to do. But that is part of how they work.

All of this is a part of a pattern I’ve ranted about before on this site. There is a concerted strategy the Right has employed to discredit liberals and make that term perjorative by creating easy and mindless associations in people as weak and stupid as they are. Or at least as weak and stupid as the media who gravitate to them in order to lick their vomit from the pools of yellow urine odored journalistic trails that follow in their wakes. They create buzz words as shortcuts to circumventing true debate and entering into easily rewardable and divisive hate. Frame the debate in easily identifiable phrases that have been built up to play on people’s ignorance and stereotypes, and call your enemy all the lousy things that apply to you so that they appear to be acting chidish by calling you the same. In this manner they defang their opponents and dumb down a discourse they know they cannot win if kept on reasonable levels and factual supports.

They and their media are scum filled shells of humanity who ooze tainted information like a diseased dog oozes puss. They are more powerful than ever, but they have by no means won. They want to divide the country and get their barony or fiefdom out of it. They just don’t have any sense of history enough to know that even if they get that we’ll burn it all down on them because America is not going back there and they can not survive without the rest of us. Pay attention. demand facts. Keep the chains of information and knowledge alive. Apply public pressure to media outlets. And if you ever get the chance to encounter one of these dirtbags, hock one for me will you.

I just want to beat them up really. Descend to their level and just kick some chickenhawk ass. Like their political masters, how many of these war adherents in the media do you think have actually served in one? But they don’t care bout that kind of inconsistency or hypocricy. They are pussies. Excuse my language. It’s very non Queens English of me, but there’s a time and place. They are pussies. Matthews, Dobson, O”Reilly ad infinitum. Pussies. Gutless wonders with a bully pulpit they use to get what they want like scholyard bullies preying on those they think are weaker. They’ve taken our milk money and I want mine back. And we can kick these pussies asses if we want. It’s easy with pussies and bullies. Bullies and pussies. These guys still feel immortal. They won’t forever.

My Life As A Plebeian (Or My Name Is 51514 And I’m A Civil Servant).

Recently two friends advanced to managerial status in the field I work in. One for my old agency and the other for my current one. The old one had offered me similar opportunities a few years ago that I chose not to accept due to pay scale issues and union activities, which though they didn’t prevent me from being welcomed by management, i felt presented an inherent conflict of interests that I had to make a choice on. There was the inner circle of administration which beckoned and winked, telling me I was wanted there. And there was the rank and file where friends, dates, and union inspired purpose lay. I chose the latter. To quote Gob Bluth, I may have made a horrible mistake.

Even as I railed against management cabals, knowing full well how they looked down on us, suspecting their denigrations, shared secrets that went on in their meetings and closed ranks, a part of me has always identified and sympathized with some of their sentiments. It’s why despite my union activities I was liked my management, and its why I presented a balanced voice during contract negotiations. I’ve never been one for extremes. Sometimes I think I may have gone too easy on them and should not have fought for some executive priveleges that I and mainly two others fought for. Other times I think i should have joined their ranks.

Now two friends, including one of my best friends, walk among them. They have partially confirmed my suspicions about the exclusive meetings huddled around semi-circular tables laughing at those of us outside the circle too weak and stupid to enter. Though i may exaggerate and I have no real confirmation that they do all this in a smokey room as they are lit from underneath and cackle maliciously singing songs like the Stonemasons on the Simpsons relishing how they fix every Oscar race and Super Bowl, there was something to my suspicions. They make jokes I and friends in the field have ourselves made about the general state of the staff. I admit this. But in their generalized diminishment I am a target and not in on the joke.

All that is left to me is to build an army and destroy them.

I may not do that but the motivation for it comes from a similar place I think Lost’s Jack’s army building designs come from. Being dissed by a girl.

You see there is a girl I’ve crushed on and Haiku’d about on this very site. She is part of the inner circle one of those friends is part of. Together they plotted the Steelers amazing upset over the Colts on Sunday, Alito’s confirmation, and the escalation of relations with Iran. And all without me. So I ask myself if I’d be happier as Diabolical Dude, with potential new dating pool and job responsibilities, or as Aloof Dude, the truer and perhaps natural manifestation of my skill set?

There is little doubt that position, power, and responsibility, as well as education, provide access to a different gene pool when it comes to the dating game. Now it’s not coincidental that though I had some chances to date from within that agencies administrative set in past years, my dating over that time has come from women in my current position as rank and file lower case employee. That has not gone well. There is something to our professional and economic means being intertwined with the kinds of women we date and have access to. Ends and means are not quite coming together and its making for a very frustrated and meloncholy Dude at times.

Back to the woman. She now stands as a symbol of what could have been, and her seeming indifference mixed with professional appreciation of me as employee (I work at old agency part time to this day), haunts me as a good friend enters into the inner sactum that was once mine to enter if I so chose. At least through him I experience a vicarious nearness to a power of unimaginable levels, and through him I hope to find succor from the capricious and destructive decisions he and his brethren shall enact in the name of their untold and ancient agenda. But her indifference to me and my growing distance from anything novel or challenging is an open wound that oozes regret. I am one of the unwashed to her. An employee, perhaps a bit wittier and cuter than most of hers, to be sure. But still nothing more than an employee without ambition. A source of occasional amusement leaving funny messages on machines, dropping by for a moment or two of clever bon mot dropping before letting her and her partner return to their sinister machinations. A clown prince of the rank and file. The sad clown that might have moved her emotions and shook her world now set aside in a side ring to do no more than warm up the crowd for the acrobatic excitements of the Flying Darwinian Family, naturally selected to entertain you best and impregnate your sisters and daughters.

So I ride my tiny bicycle of civil service with an agency that ironically pays me more than she probably makes but where I dance and cavort less for a crowd that only wants to go home. Here I am appreciated by some, get on very well with a select few, disliked by a more select few, and indifferent to most. And this is how I feel towards them. Here too there may be opportunities of a non cost effective and minutely fulfilling nature to enter into the sanctum sanctorium. But I do not want to be part of their rank because of their corruption, the lack of youth or intelligence, charm or hope, in their circle. Maybe it’s because they are civil servants and part of N.Y. State. A monolithic entity that dehumanizes, assigns us all numbers (I am 51514), and has an administrative structure that is so vast and yet so decentralized. It’s the same dead end job and it pays better but here it’s a career that people retire from. There is security. There is safety in all the vastness as so many hide their shortcomings and get lost in the shuffle. This is not appealing…And she is not among them.
How little of human progress was accomplished without the motivation of impressing a girl?

I know better and yet I yearn for her attention, her acceptance, a reason to believe these latest decisions weren’t as bad as the ones I made so long ago. To know great love to a great woman can happen despite everything. To know that past choices can actually lead to something good, including the choice of letting things slip away with past girlfriend holding tenuously to the belief that someone better, someone like this one though I don’t know her enough to really say that, could want me as much as the other did but healthier, and completely on all levels.

But all questions hang in doubt now. Choices have been made and I have little time for school, just a bit more to write, little joy at work, home, or socially. I can not quit or move with a dependent priority in my Dad to consider. I laugh less for stretches, escape more, feel my mortality and its insignificance more, sleep less, sleep too much some days. I only absorb and remain unabsorbed myself.

So I have I made more bad decisions? Am I doomed to life as a subordinate? A plebeian nobody constituting a disposable cog in an uncaring machine? Am I an obsolete model? Despite caviar tastes will I always have cheese whiz means and ride a Ritz cracker into obsolescense?

All this was on my mind as I read and finished the novel Neverwhere and continues into my follow up post/review about that book.

Neverwhere. A Semi-Review And Follow Up To Plebehood.

[image:43:l] Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is not what constitutes what i would consider my kind of reading material anymore. Still, in the search for a little escapist fiction I came across the book and its cover picture of a foggy and dim London, and being the Anglophile in need of escape that I am, I picked it up and gave it a go between heavier books. It’s lack of both physical and literaryweight was both its downfall and saving grace. I like more meat in my books, but at least it didn’t pretend to be something it was not. But where the book really affected me was in a waking dream as it came like the god of the 3 a.m. watch to show me a world that can never be for me and yet, as begun to be related in my prior Life As Plebe post, is all too close.

Gaiman’s best noted for his aclaimed Sandman graphic comics and the more recent novel American Gods, though Neverwhere was apparently made into a mini series in Britain. The book is sort of a modern fantasy combining elements of Narnia, Alice In Wonderland, and various other fantasies. Here it takes place in a darker fantasy world where the rabbit hole leads to a literal underground of societies outcasts, and the wardrobe closet leads not to pristine snowscapes and talking cnimals, but to sewers, catacombs, and a world populated by murderers, thieves, angels and demons and a select few who can talk to rats. The last seem to be major power brokers in this world where Richard Mayhew enters when he tries to help a girl maned Door that he finds lying bloody and unconscious on a London Street. He gives up his obnoxious fiancee to help her and then starts to disappear, noticed only by those who have fallen through the cracks of society.

The rest is pretty typical unknown world fair, all of which borrows from standard mythological archetypes. I found the writing to be somewhat superficial making for a quick read and some passages that made me cringe and hate myself for reading them, and hate myself more for not being paid to write sentences that couldn’t be any more trite or clichéd.

But I was left with an impression when done. A not altogether bad one. It may have been because I read the last 100 pages on overnight end of a double shift, and due to the kinds of thoughts my lst post on plebiosity touched on. But there was something enigmatic about this simple and timeworn idea. Even though Mayhew is in no Oz, Narnia, or myriad other fantasy worlds so many real world contemps have been pulled into in voluminous sci-fi and fantasy books, there was something more appealing about being a part of a seedy “London Below,” with its scavengers, psychopaths, and beasts. Not to mention the proverbial woman in need with a paranormal ability to open doors that are not there. The overall metaphor of the unseen street people slipping though cracks of society and entering into what may or may not be a real subcivilization or inner madness, has its resonance to anyone like myself who sometimes feels the cracks forming beneath their feet.

As far as the question of what is real or whether Mayhew may just be in the process of becoming another loony street person goes, Gaiman handles it pretty well. One segment in particular acts as a test and crucible that he passes through with both renewed affirmation as well as the suggestion of insanity. It reminded me of a Buffy episode where the whole series is called into question as Buffy goes back and forth between her Sunnydale Slayer persona and an insane teenage Buffster in an instititution. This is handled differently, but is also done well and with subtly as it was on Buffy. Gaiman makes it a stop and think moment, not only about the character, but about those we’ve seen and ignored on the streets of N.Y. so many times.

Of course it is modern society and its effects on Mayhew that is a factor in the events that unfold and the need to escape. Likewise the personal ennui mentioned here and in the sister post, is a partial product of environment. The inconsequence of sheer numbers, of civil service, the technological dehumanizing, the cynicism of a former romantic who can’t be loved. All threaten oblivion. Some like a person alluded to in prior post, look for the underside, the seedy element of life to find succor and acceptance. Perhaps I would too without my responsibilities. Maybe its genetic. Maybe I’m just not there yet. But the danger of being swallowed up by those spreading cracks, from being sucked down from below and being invisible to most, is all too real.

How nice it was to drift into waking dream at 4 a.m. on that double shift after finishing the book and feel myself a possibility not for oblivion, but only for obsolescence in above world while a world of freaks, outcasts, and magic powered called to me with the hope of being a Prince among them as Mayhew becomes a warrior. Of course I still have hopes for the real world. Still like following its many convolutions and blogging about some of them. Still hope I can find balance and undo some of the mistakes and be rewarded for some of the good decisions. But if the fault lines open up and swallow, it’d be nice to have a door into another world even if its always dark and full of villains and treachery. I’ve always liked outcasts and felt comfortable with the abnormal. Most of us feel abnormal but not all of us live on the fringes of normalcy. As normal and seemingly stable as I can seem, I have a long history of freakdom. Those who society looks down on have been friends for much of my life. For many of us the term “weird,” is a compliment. It is for them this book was probablt written. I may have changed alot since those days, but I will probably always be one of those who is more at home in the dark anyway.

Impeachment.

[image:28:l] They impeached Clinton for a cum stain. Nixon tried to steal stuff from Democratic headquarters. Bush and his coconspirators defrauded a nation into a war costing us in lives, money, national safety and dignity. His actions, along with those of Cheney and the rest of Team America The World Police are treasonous, and death perhaps, too good for these immoral oil whores. But since that won’t happen lets concentrate on a charge that can and should be brought before Congress and start working together to put pressure on our representatives to oust some of the worst human beings ever from an elected office that was meant to serve us and not corporate benefactors.

I don’t have time to catalogue the list of evidence both anecdotal, common sense oriented, and documented, indicating how this administration recklessly and knowingly deceived the country into an immoral and greed inspired invasion of Iraq. But I do feel I have to go through just a few to wet the apetite and stir a frenzied froth that will hopefully get anyone reading this to check the links below for more and to act in ways I will outline later, including participation in a local Hudson Valley impeachment event in kingston.

It’s a fact that the neo-cons had a preexisting agenda to take control of Iraq’s oil economy as part of a greater plan to regional domination. Assistant Secretary of Defense Wolfiwitz authored a paper on the subject in the mid 90′s. Dick Cheney, Wolfie, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, and even our boy Scooter Libby, and all the usual suspects except Keyser fucking Soze, were part of a highly influential policy paper cooked up by the ultra Right think tank the Project For The New American Century called, “Rebuilding America’s Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, that has been compared to Mein Kampf, and goes on about how one part of the plan was to have regime change in Iraq to stabilize American interests. It also concedes that the American people did not have the stomach for it. So the work says what was needed was a, “Pearl Harbor-type event,” that would, “catalyze the nation.” Oilempire.

There is also the Defense Judgement Policy authored mainly by then Secretary of Defense Cheney in 92 in which he called for a post Cold War escalation of our defense budget in order to insure America’s preeminence and to discourage potential competitors. Bush Sr got to him get rid of some of the harsher language that received press criticism. W.W. Bush was himself more of a foreign policy realist as opposed to Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the new-cons who relished in the idea of American empire. Cheney’s views were reitierated in the post 9-11 National Security Strategy statement, in which he reaffirmed his original pre edited 92 outlook, that apologists had tried to pawn off on Wolfowitz.

In a previous post, A Dickless Conspiracy? the Illimunati talked more extensively about the pre 9-11 secret energy task force that used blueprints and maps of Iraqi oilfields and charts of all the foreign suitors that threatened our interests in the area dealing with Hussein. While none of this proves they were complicit in 9-11 it does indicate motive for ignoring the evidence, including the PDB from a month before titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S.” Bush probably never even read it though Kindasleezy Rice kept saying it was ignored because it was hisorical in nature. Well it certainly is now thanks to these idiots, but as Al Franken points out, if Bush had even read it how could he claim that the reason he went on reading to those Kindegarten kids after the first plane hit was because he couldn’t have known it was terrorists despite CIA Director Tenet admitting he pretty much knew Bin Laden did it right after tower one was hit. I’d add that the reason might be that he just really wanted to see how the story turned out after finally coming across some reading material he could wrap his head around. That and the fact that he was scared shitless and can’t think on his feet. It also makes you wonder about the sluggishness of the response. But none of these allegations need be part of impeachment proceedings. Just keep it in mind in case you ever see any of these guys somewhere and have a little extra saliva you can spare.

Now right after 9-11 Bush pressured those around him to make a case against Hussein and for a connection between him and Al Quada. Former Counter Terrorism Expert with Clinton and Bush, Richard Clarke, confirmed this. He said that on 9-1201, Rumsfeld spent strategy meetings ignoring Clarke and others on the trail of Bin-Laden, and instead kept lobbying for targets in Iraq because they were better than those in Afghanistan. Many months before, Ex Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill later admitted, in the first National Security Council meeting of the administration, Bush, instead of talking about Isreal-Palestine as most thought would be the subject of the Middle East focus, wanted a reason for a preemptive strike at Iraq. Bush told Rumsfeld to “examine our military options,” for putting troops into Iraq.

There is also the Downing St Memo in which British intelligence officials admitted that, “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” of regime change and inevitable military action. This was from a meeting taking place about a year before Bush claimed he had no choice and that weapons inspectors had not done a good enough job so we had no choice but to bomb the holy shit out of thousands of people. See Afterdowningstreet.org for more on this and much more of the evidence against this administration and for impeachment. In fact this is one of the sites I’d like people to go to for instructions in concerted efforts to mobilize people and pressure their representatives to aid in some of the efforts I will get into later in this post.

On a side note regarding that bombing in Iraq. There is also overwhelming evidence that now has been added to with yet another Downing St memo that Bush targeted journalists for death. A recent memo leak reports that Bush met with Tony Blair to talk to him about bombing Al-Jazeera’s headquarters. This is in addition to many preexisting indications that our military systematically targeted journalists unsympathetic to our cause. On one day in April 03 an Al-Jazeera building was hit, killing one reporter involved in anti U.S. reports, followed later that day by a hotel housing Reuters and Spanish news network media also part of reports and film footage that cast a darker light on our activities there. We claimed these to be accidents, but 2 in one day in addition to 2 other known cases including the bombing of a house Al Jazeera officials had fled to after refusing U.s. orders to get out of Fallujah where they were showing just what our military was doing during the onslaught, defies credibility. The reporters went from place to place as they were being bombed and shot at by U.S. troops until the man who housed them on one night was killed as his home after it was bombed just hours after the reporters had gotten out and moved to a new location ahead of military intelligence on their whereabouts. Again this need not be part of the impeachment charges, nor will it, but it just gives a bit more juice to that loogie that’s hopefully forming in your mouth.

There is much more evidence than even the above that this administration knowingly set about endangering, and indeed ending U.S. lives and the lives of uncountable Iraqi’s. Now let’s get to some reasonable impeachable charges that will be easier to prove if not as satisfying, including the recent illegal spying we can now add to Iraq.

The Supreme Court has defined the phrase “conspiracy to defraud the United States” as “to interfere with, impede or obstruct a lawful government function by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest…”…Conspiracies to defraud usually begin with a goal that is not in and of itself illegal. In this instance the goal was to invade Iraq.

The Nation- The White House Criminal Conspiracy. Unless noted otherwise all following quotes are from this 5 page article.

It is now known that hundreds of false assertions were made to U.S. citizens and maybe most importantly here, to Congress to rationalize their goal and perpetuate fraud. Two of the big pieces of proof they went to Congress and the american people with for Iraq’s WMD possession were the centrifuges and the uranium deal with Niger. Both have been disproven. What’s bigger is that evidence exists that the administration knew they were dealing with false information when they fiendishly gave the stupid amomgst us a reason to believe and the evil a justification. On the tubes:

And the Energy Department’s clear opinion was that the tubes were not suited for use in centrifuges; they were probably intended for military rockets. Given the lengthy debate and the importance of the tubes, it’s impossible to believe that the Bush team was unaware of the nuclear experts’ position. So when Bush officials said that the tubes were “only really suited” for centrifuge programs, they were committing fraud, either by lying outright or by making recklessly false statements.

The Niger claims were debunked by then Ambassador Joseph Wilson who recieved retribution for his honesty by having his CIA agent wife exposed and endangered by Rove, Cheney, and Libby in the scandal by now hopefully most are familiar with. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), also reported at the time Bush was making the Uranium allegations in his State Of The Union Address of 03, that the documents involved were clear forgeries and not true.

Internal reports. most notable the National Intelligence Estimate, made clear that the centrifuge threat was bogus, as well as the general threat from Hussein. The NIE is a bi annual report that is a compilation from all intelligence agencies put together comprehensively over a 6 month period. The extant version at the time Bush was pushing for invasion contradicted everything he was saying. It made clear there was no threat from Iraq, no ties to Bin Laden, and no WMD. So he made intelligence agencies throw together a new one in about 2 weeks. This was then given to Congress to review the night before Senate hearings were to begin, with strict orders not to take copies out of the building. Instead they had to review 90 pages on sight, and could only keep a page on administration talking points that failed to discuss much of the internal debate, and contradictory evidence. This included much intel that the centrifuges were not linked to WMD production. This was of course left out of the NIE, along with all other contradictory evidence and voices of dissent that were involved in the hasty patching together of the document that would play a major role in getting Congress to sanction war.

In fact, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in effect as of December 2001 said that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons; was not trying to get them; and did not appear to have reconstituted its nuclear weapons program since the UN and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors departed in December 1998. This assessment had been unchanged for three years.

As has been widely reported, the NIE is a classified assessment prepared under the CIA’s direction, but only after input from the entire intelligence community, or IC. If there is disagreement, the dissenting views are also included. The December 2001 NIE contained no dissents about Iraq. In other words, the assessment privately available to Bush Administration officials from the time they began their tattoo for war until October 2002, when a new NIE was produced, was unanimous: Iraq did not have nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons programs. But publicly, the Bush team presented a starkly different picture.

Above Nation Article

It was widely known that Iraq’s weapons program had been destroyed by the Gulf War and our economic sanctions. Dick Cheney has been proven to be a liar about his public statements regarding Mohammed atta’s meeting with Iraq military officials. He was then caught lying about lying. All on tape, like much of the blatant lies and frauds perpetrated by men who are pathological in their dishonesty. Much more has been illustrated throughout the past few years and is widely available elsewhere. THis is all tip of the iceberg stuff. Right now I want to get to the movement for a measure of justice.

Title 18 under the U.S. legal code, Codelaw, makes it illegal to defraud any part of the government and interfere with its functioning. Bush’s lies to Congress impaired their ability to function and make credible and sound decisions regarding national safety and domestic finances:

The evidence shows, then, that from early 2002 to at least March 2003, the President and his aides conspired to defraud the United States by intentionally misrepresenting intelligence about Iraq to persuade Congress to authorize force, thereby interfering with Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and making appropriations, all of which violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

Former White House Counsel under Nixon, John Dean wrote a book called Worse Than Watergate, in which he makes the case many have made, that the lies and tactics barely touched on above constitute crimes and an impeachable offense. But that was written before Bush admnitted to violating the 4th Amendment in illegally and without warrant, spying on and wiretapping Americans. As Dean says at FindLaw.com, “There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons.” . He goes on to cite security experts who deny that these tactics would be particularly effective in stopping terrorists anyway. This is in addition to many experts who have said the same thing about various other aspects of Bush’s war on terrorism. That includes the 9-11 Commission, which Bush likes to claim found nothing wrong with his pre or post 9-11 actions. This one of many blatant lies he tells in the faith that his core supporters, and to some extent the average American, are easily fooled.

The list of crimes is growing as our reputation for being a beacon of democracy and equality is shrinking. America has never been all it’s been hyped to be, but it has been closer to an ideal than most, and due to that proximity truly in position to take greater steps to creating a true nation of justice, kindness, equality, ethics, and progress, that can lead the way towards an ever increasing actualization of the Enlightenment values which helped give birth to those ideals in a way that was freeed from the previous contraints of monarchy and religion. Our constitution, our very government was founded on humanist principles, that though short of it’s living reality at the time, has moved more or less in the direction of greater and greater realization of those principles.

And so much of it has been threatened to be undone by ideologues who live by free market doctrine, believe that money signals competence and superiority, use morality as a code language to dupe those they simultaneously spit upon, and believe America must dominate the Earth for it to be saved. We are hated and feared internationally and rancourously divided at home.

But it is not too late to turn the tide. We are not so far along the path that history has proven leads to downfall and collapse that all is inextricably lost. At this moment much of the world still believes in the goodness of Americans as opposed to the evil of the Bush administration. We can still make that seperation clearer and heal the wounds which have not grown so fetid despite its roots in decades of hypocrisy before Bush. One of the ways we can do this is to stand united against the real “evildoers” amongst us and show the world, and ourselves that we will not accept lies and selfishness. We must make it clear to not only the international community, but to present and future politicians that they do not have a free pass and that they will be held accountable. The bar must be raised so that we may hold our heads up again and feel as if we are part of the cooperative effort to further the causes of humanity and its humanist principles. If we continue to look away while madmen and crooks lead us, we are as guilty and we will suffer their fate more wickedly in the long run because they will have the retreats created by the legacy of power and money to cushion the blow when the Empire falls.

By damning these murderous liars a statement is made to the world and a buoy given to our own institutions of government and democracy. A MSNBC poll indicated 85% of respondents want impeachment proceedings. A Zogby poll done before the newest spying scandal had 53% of Americans favoring impeachment proceedings if it is established that Bush lied regarding Iraq. He did. It has been.

Talk of a national resistance to a second straight such proceeding is spurious at best, and malicious media manipulation at worst. As related in the Bush Lies When He Spies, post, it’s acceptance is feeding face down at the trough of bullshit laid out by a Right wing agenda fully conceived of even by that point in the 90′s when Clinton helped make the world we are now in possible with his own stupidity and selfishness. The groundswell is growing and even some Democrats are making noise in this direction. There is a strong possibility Democrats are waiting for 2006 midterms to regain some seats in House and Senate so they can more easily have the votes to go for impeachment. i doubt their courage or foresight. I also doubt whether they will be as successful in the midterms as many think they will now. Hopefully it will happen, but they need to be made aware that there is strong public support for justice and that they will be held accountable if there is none.

Michigan Democrat John Conyers, a player in Watergate and Iran Contra hearings is pushing forward a package to censure Bush and Cheney, and eventually proceed with impeachment proceedings. He must be encouraged and ennobled by Americans. Now there is even a “safe” impeachable charge due to the ever increasing arrogance of the power mad neo -cons. They have violated the 4th Amendment in the domestic spying case. Numerous legal scholars have made it clear this is a clear cut case of an impeachable offense and on this charge alone, he is more guilty that Nixon ever was. High crimes and misdemeanors have been committed. I expect even with that theoretical Democrat Senate and House (still a long way from reality), there will be fear of charges relating to Iraq if for no other reason than it could set America up for numerous war crimes accusations. This is still debatable, though we are certainly guilty of them and deserve punishment.

But to truly affirm who we are as a nation and where we are going I think it important to stand for a no holds barred expectancy of full disclosure and truth from our appointed leaders, and a statement made that we are demanding more of those we elect to represent the will of the American people. It is in fact time that the will of us all is enforced, and not the pay to play politics that threatens to destroy us and all we hold dear. This is why I’d prefer to see any impeachemnt charges take Iraq as its main focus rather than spying or any of the other numerous charges this administration is legally impeachable on.

For more on all these charges and what we can do to rally around this cause, and pressure our representatives (call your local congressmen and phone Senate and House are amongst those things) check out AfterDowningStreet.org , ImpeachBush.org, and Impeachpac.org. Downing St and Impeachpac in particular are great places to get regular impeachment news as well as advice on actions as they come up. There are also links galore that take you to much more info on this administrations high crimes against you, your family, friends, and neighbors.

To check out your Congressmens contact information go to Contacting The Congress. This will get you among other things, Hillary Clinton’s D.C. phone number at 202-224-4451, her fax and her webpage/e mail HERE. You can find everyone from her, to our own Maurice Hinchey’s info at the contact site, along with other ways to make your voices heard if you follow the links.

Senate.Gov and Congress.org are other places to get similar info if you dont find who you want at above link.

And for local Hudson Valley neighbors there is a A new coalition of seven Hudson Valley activist groups will hold a rally calling for impeachment on Tuesday Jan. 31 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Kingston. This will coincide with the State of the Union speech that night. It will be take place in front of the Ulster County Office Building at 240 Fair St. For some contact numbers let me know and I will get them to you or post them here if I get permission later.

Don’t forget for now the totalitarian crimes of purposefully having dissenting journalists killed, of illegally spying on U.S. citizens and admitting it, or of summoning N.Y. Times personnel to the White House to make them kill the story on the said spying, or doing the same thing to a Washington Post writer who broke the story on the secret internment and black detention camps located throughout Eastern Europe. Let these stroke the fire but we need focus on creating a viable movement for impeaching these nasty traitors. I for one am making Title 18 a rallying cry. Start printing t shirts. Make bumper stickers. Send out E Mails. Paint grafitti. Title 18 should be the new Kilroy was here on walls and bridges, the new smiley face plastered on your chest, the almost as clever ‘My other car is a Porche,’ bumper sticker. Yell it at whoever picks up the phone at Hillary’s office, or Hinchey’s or anyone else you call or e mail. To paraphrase Dylan by way of Andy Dufrane, America needs to get busy living or get busy dying. If we don’t make a statement about who we are collectively and where we want to go, we may be presiding over a nations death and be the generation most at fault and most hated and pittied by future generations. Brokaw made America’s Greatest Generation famous, and Bush, with our cowriting byline, may be in the process of presiding over America’s worst.

Scalito Haiku’s (Non Dude Created)

Here are some Haiku’s created to capture the essence of todays Scalito hearings. I was going to write a longer narrative about them and him, but I haven’t had a chance to watch any of it, and well, these are a nice way to open the dialogue.

You can find these here at hotlineblog, where they were created. I reprint them here to save on your clickage rates.

Alito Opening Hearings In Haiku
Judge Sam Alito
Lawyers seek outcomes
But a judge can’t think that way
Now, facts drive results

Judge Sam Alito
Wife is a lawyer
Mother went to college, a first;
I’m a feminist

Cameras
Click! 28 for John
click, click, click, click, click, click, click
Sam’s got 41

Sen. Tom Coburn
Crossword senator
Demands pro-life justices
Sooner, not later

Sen. Dick Durbin
Fox News Adds Scare Quotes
So: What do you think about
a privacy “right?”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Religious freedom
Rather than pornography
Cherish the former.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
You’re Extreme. You’re mean.
And you were selected to
Placate the right wing

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
About Abortion:
You filibuster for Roe?
Wade into the muck.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein
On Rybar And Roe
So Much For You To Explain
Sigh. Filibuster.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Before I’d Vote “Yay”
You Gotta Tell Me How You’d Deal
With The NSA

Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH)
Your Modest Approach
To Judging Seems To Bode Well
For Democracy

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Will You Show Mercy?
Antag’nize Minorities?
Justice Blind? Not Deaf!

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Presumption? Yay
Please Don’t Tell ‘Em How You’ll Vote
Mimic John Roberts

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
You’re Conservative
“We Can Pretend That’s Not True”
But, Judge, Bro, it is.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
He’s “May-sured”. “Brilliant.”
“Conservative but honest.”
“Prove Your Critics Wrong”

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA
Miers: Grilled By The Right
Ideology: Fair Game
Alito: You’re Warned

Wouldn’t it be cool if they actually talked in haiku? IF we all did? What then possible?
I begin to imagine
Living life in peace?

Perpetual Beginnings IV

Tag Team Fiction: A Dude Entry.

Murdoch grabbed the clicker and put on the cable news. It was an automatic action. The rote habit of a man who has lived his life alone. Sarah kicked her shoes off into a corner and laughed spitefully. For her this was the oft repeated routine of a woman who hadn’t. Murdoch sat down and gave her a ‘what the fuck’ look and turned up the volume.

“You’re going to watch T.V. now? You’re such a goddamned loser Charlie. A real loser.” She disappeared into a bathroom as Charles watched intently until a knock on the door announced the arrival of Cool with two plates full of greasy hamburgers and cheese fries. “Thought you could use these. There’s some soda in the fridge.”

“Soda?”

“Yeah soda. The spiritual kind.” Murdoch smiled and took the plates, setting them down on a battered wooden table with the dried stains of various careworn effluents.

“Don’t get used to none of this black on white serving arrangement. I’m not here to serve the man.”

Charles smiled and took a bite of the burger. Grease slid down the corner of his mouth with sweet grittiness. It flowed quickly, warmly, like Mercury. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. With mouth still half full, he said, “Don’t get all self-righteous while standing there wearing a Yankees apron.”

“I’m traditional in that way.”

“So’s slavery.”

Cool pulled a shotgun out from under the side of the Apron and handed it to Charles. “Batter up.”

“You baseball hooligans.” He checked to make sure it was loaded and took the cell phone Charles then pulled out of a pocket hidden by the apron. “I got to find Marcus.” He dialed and got nothing. No voice mail, no ring tone, just black noise. He sat down looking up with weariness as he ran his hand over his close cropped brown hair. “I don’t like the sound of this Cool.”

Cool heard the shower start, looked closely at Murdoch’s expression and the way he squeezed the cell phone with one hand while caressing the rifle with the other, and said, “You going to be done here soon?”

“Yeah Cool. I just want to send them a decoy. I need them to think we’re headed where we’re not.” He smiled nervously. He saw Cool was uneasy. “Did they really rattle you that much when they were here?” He laughed falsely, trying to convey the absurdity of such a notion. They didn’t call him Cool for nothing.

“Not to sound like the cinematic cliched cop on the edge of retirement, but I’m getting too old for this shit Murdoch. Too much death. Gracy hated it all. She hated you for bringing so much of it around. And all for her.” He gestured with his chin towards the shower.

“I’m sorry Coolie. But I think it can be different this time.”

“Man it ain’t never been different. Not since Ackerman.”

“Oh shit! He’s fuckin’ alive Cool.” He almost choked on his burger remembering this as he peered a bit too intently at the T.V. He saw Cool’s expression which read an analytical combanation of skeptical and concerned. “I wasn’t sure at first. Back at her apartment. I mean I thought it was him but I only saw a shadow. Got a feeling from a silhouette like from a faded old photograph. But she confirmed it before we got here. I made out like it was nothing. Common knowledge. But she knew!”

Cool shook his head imperceptably. Unknowingly. He looked dissapointed. “Charlie…” He trailed off in a hush of sad resolve.

“What Cool? I know it’s unlikely and all. What Cool?”

“You called Marcus,” he said matter of factly. “You said you had to call Peter downstairs.” He started backing away towards the door.

“Well i can’t just yet now can I?” He nodded towards the T.V. and took the rifle in both hands. “Got to finish here first.”

“O.k. Charlie,” Cool said quietly. “Ok. I’ll just leave you to that.” He took a larger step towards the door before Murdoch said, “hold it,” and took the rifle in his left hand and pointed at Cool.

“You son of a bitch.” Cool’s head tilted with just a slight gesture of appeal. His lip curled as he readied to let loose something less imploring and more final when Murdoch smiled and pointed the rifle at the T.V. Will you look at this you asshole and stop being some dimestore novel easy mark.” Cool looked slowly from Murdoch to the television. Seeing what was on it for the first time. Still not listening, but at last seeing.

It was Peter Thorn.

He was standing at a makeshift podium at the scene of some kind of event. Cool could make out sirens and flashing red lights. The lights were still, but the sirens were headed away from the scene. Whatever had happened was in cleanup stage. He saw Thorn’s name on the screen with his title of Director DSP and a location subtitle which said, Port City. He listened for the first time and heard Thorn say this:

“This order comes from the President and will be strictly enforced. Until further notice Port City is under Marshal Law. We have no choice left in this matter. All violators will be treated as operants of the enemy.”

“What the…?” Cool trailed off and looked for clarification from Murdoch.

“I’m not sure. I knew he was headed out in that direction. What the hell is in Port City right now?” He heard the shower shut off and swallowed 3 cheese fries. “When I put it on he said something about responsibility and survivors statements.”

“Responsibility for what?”

“For civilian deaths apparently. Something about poison I think.”

“Oh shit. Terrorists finally hitting us with chemicals like they always said. Jesus what the hell is going on tonight. Between you seeing dead people, the messengers, terrorists. Damn you’re bad luck kid.”

Murdoch looked at him painfully. He squinted back at the image of Thorn. He was wearing a light blue jacket over a white collar shirt. He looked grave. Peter was always good at looking grave. Murdoch suspected he practiced. Then again it was no easy life having so much gravity on your plate. It wears a man. Brings his features low. His oulook even lower. Not only did he have to deal with Murdoch and the Path tonight, now he had some kind of attack and maybe even anarchy. A lesser man would drop one of the balls he had in play. The Path Of Fire was a small potato he juggled along with national security and technological espionage. He couldn’t be blamed for forgetting Murdoch or handing off this part of the operation to someone else. But he had no doubt that Thorn had not forgotten him and would be immediately accesible once his press conference was over.

Murdoch held the cell phone in his hand waiting to dial the number as soon as Thorn stepped away from the reporters.

Sarah walked into the room with a towel on. She gave Cool a dismissive look and took a bottle out of the small refrigerator. She came over with two glasses, pouring one for her and for Murdoch. She noticed Thorn and calmly said, “Oh did it begin already.”

Murdoch threw a cheese fry down on the plate and asked Cool to leave. “We’ll be out of here within half hour. I promise.” He saw Cool hesitating, looking back from the T.V. to Sarah, to him, and back. “I’ll fill you in on the way out. If I can figure it out.”

Cool left and Murdoch said, “What’s started?,” he demanded before the door closed all the way.

“The Legacy, my hero.”

“What does any of this have to do with us?

“When you altered things at my apartment you decided the rest Charlie. You tell me?”

He looked at the screen as Thorn’s look become more severe. This was quite an achivement. He looked directly into the mass of cameras. Murdoch felt like he was looking directly at him. He felt a momentary chill. A picture came up on the screen and Murdoch felt awash in vertigo for a moment. He wondered for a second if he was about to have his first seizure as an adult.

The picture was of him.

Image went back to Thorn peering harshly at him. The picture was minimilized so that it took up the lower corner of the screen. Thorn continued. “The suspects name is Charles Murdoch and he is to be considered not only armed and dangerous, but hostile to the interests of the United States. If anyone sees him and cannot contact law enforcement officials they have, from this moment onward, legal permission as granted by President Brewster and ratified by Congress, to do whatever is necessary to apprehend and or stop this man.”

Reporters shouted out, wanting to know if this included killing. “Once again, Charles Murdoch is responsible for the deaths of over 20,000 people in just the last 24 hours. He is in possession of a very valuable and dangerous device. Due process is no longer a factor in such a case. All Americans must unite to stop this man now! This means doing whatever it takes!