Wednesday, July 19, 2006

So Much for "Adults In Charge"

It's amazing what motivates me to write. I'm listening to Franken, interviewing Eugene Linden, author of the new book on climate change, The Winds Of Change. And he says ..."we caused it, and we can change it...". Yet the Republicans continue to deny it is happening, as well as refuse to acknowledge that anything can be done.

This is one more example of the refusal by Republicans to be held accountable. For anything!! And that's what gets me to finally write on this thread I noticed that runs through the behavior of all Republicans. By now, we've all heard the quote from Cheney that "the adults are back in charge," from his first days in the White House. But Republicans NEVER want to be held responsible. And the litany of "nobody could have foreseen"s, for the use of planes as missles on 9-11(Rice), for the cost and length of the Iraq insurgency(Cheney), for the collapse of the levees(Bush), is just the beginning.

Let's start at the White House. Do not hold them responsible for imprisonment or torture. No one has jurisdiction to tell the President what to do. The same with wiretapping and all the other invasions of privacy, from library reading lists to outing undercover CIA agents. The 'unitary executive' theory is just a fancy name for 'king,' and kings only answer to God. The examples are unending, from increasing air pollution and child poverty to decreasing real incomes and food quality, best epitomized by Bush's inability to think of any mistakes he'd made after more than 4 years in office. He was angry anyone had the gall to ask him a question. he certainly doesn't think he has to explain anything, to anyone.

How about Congress? Nope, not here. By letting the president have everything he wants, from tax cuts to a shiny new war every couple of years, without ever investigating any of the financial losses or policy changes that have come out of the White House, they have said "We don't want to do anything. Let them do it!" And by refusing to change any policies on how Congress operates, they demonstrate their refusal to be held responsible for their own actions. From dismissing and repacking the Ethics Committee until it wouldn't indict Tom Delay, to attempting to have a dinner honoring former Congressman Randy Cunningham, who was unable to attend because he's doing 100 months in federal prison for bribery and ethics violations, Congress refuses to change at all, even as the Abramoff scandal continues to send Congressional staffers to prison and require ever-more members, ALL REPUBLICANS, to put criminal defense attorneys on retainer, using campaign funds to do it.

Of course, the judiciary is an exception. Oh, yea? Read the Supreme Court's first decision of the Bush era, the one that selected him for high office. A more unsavory bit of torture was not committed until Guantanamo, a year later. And the Court knew it. Why else would the decision also say, essentially, "You can't hold us responsible for this, so we refuse to allow this decision to be used as a precedent. This is a one-time deal!" That precedent of not being willing to be responsible for the reality of their decisions especially informs the knackered pencil shavings of Scalia and Thomas to this day.

And what of the heavily-moneyed group of industrialists and theocrats that fund this continuous error in judgement? The whole POINT for them is to never be held responsible. Corporatists like Olin, Scaife, Allen-Bradley and Coors all want nothing more than to go back to when their money began, back to the turn of the last century (all of these boys having inherited their wealth.) That was when nobody could tell them who they could hire, how much they should pay, how long they could work their employees, or in what kinds of conditions. No one could hold them responsible for the cyanide and mercury they dumped in the water or the lead they burned into the air, or for the lies that passed for lists of ingredients, if they put a list on the label at all.

Theocrats want the government's money, but don't want to have to tell how they spend it, or if it does any good. And that's why George W Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. In a later stage of government-based theocratic enforcement, it'll be the new FBI. It's already got the initials. For now, it's why they work so hard to undermine science. It requires review and accountability, both anathema to the religious right.

And finally, we come to the folks that elect these politicians, who worship these theocrats, who dream of being one of the 1/2 of 1% of America that runs the corporations. And they don't want to know. They don't want to see the disasters these policies have caused. They don't want to invesitgate the collusion, the money-laundering, the bribery, the sheer theft. They don't want to worry about the economics or the health of the world they're leaving their children. So sooner or later, you get one of two bottom lines from them. Either it's Clinton's fault, or it won't matter when the Rapture takes them.

The worst thing about this attitude of non-responsibility is that it is based on a fear of failure. And fear always leads to anger, directed first at the thing that did the scaring. And the scariest thing to a person like this is someone else who knows this person failed. So Bush lashes out when asked about mistakes. Cheney belittles anyone who questions. Rush refuses to admit he committed a crime, while O'Reilly buys the silence (and the phone-sex tapes) of the staffer he sexually harrased.

Ultimately, the only resolution would be to have no one left that pointed out the failures. So, first, no Democrats are Americans, so their opinions don't count. Then, per Ann Coulter, Liberals, including all Democrats, should be killed. Only Republicans will be left, scared to death they'll be next. But since the failures will continue, someone must be to blame. And since it can't be those who actually failed, another group to blame will be found, and killed.

This will continue to one of two ends. Either some contingent finally wakes up to reality, and overthrows the failure-prone leadership AND its philosophy, or it ends with two people at each others' throats over who was responsible for that last failure. And no matter who wins that fight, they'll be wrong.

But the 'winner' will never admit it.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Two slogans and some math...

Well, the Muddled East continues to entertain...
1) "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" - someone far wiser than I.
2) "A Theocracy Is NOT A Democracy Is NOT A Theocracy Is NOT A Democracy..."ad infinitum - A major facet of the problem of Israel.

At the same time these two seemingly-neverending characteristics of the current situation play themselves out in a delightful new variant, Junior and his strange bedfellow, Condi, demonstrate how completely clueless they both are. Condoleezza literally spoke for 10 minutes without constructing a declarative sentence that had semantic content. Listen to her. Students of semantics are impressed, but none others.

And now, the math. Solve this series of simultaneous equations:

Is > P + S + L + J + In + Iq + SA
P > Is
S > Is
L > Is
J > Is
In > Is
Iq > Is
SA > Is

This is the military balance-of-power problem of the Middle East, defining the perceived military needs of each player, where Is = Israel, P = Palestine, S = Syria, L = Lebanon, J = Jordan, In = Iran, Iq = Iraq, SA = Saudi Arabia...

The situation is one of perception, leaving sheer religious and racial hatreds out of it (yea! right!)

Israel sees a pan-Arab enemy, and so must have more arms than all Arab countries combined. Meanwhile each internationally-recognized shiekdom (Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia) as well as each of the other nations, who all see themselves as sovereign, free-standing nations, contending with the others as well as with Israel, must have more arms than Israel.

The joke is that the non-governmental Islamic organizations, Hamas in Palestine (Sunni), Hezbollah in south Lebanon(Shi'ite), and the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt and Pakistan, ARE creating a pan-Arabic movement. Using the hatred of Israel, and its biggest supporter, US, to organize and motivate followers to overthrown their national governments, the rise of a pan-Islamic federation is happening before our eyes, and without a whimper from the Junior Administration. Hamas was elected in Palestine, Shi'ite mullahs run Iran, and we have not a civil war but a religious war happening in Iraq. Now Hezbollah has dragged the nation of Lebanon into supporting its fight against Israel.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Two last thoughts on Junior's press conference...

1) The story of the disbanding of the CIA unit that searches for Osama is "not true."
[from the NYTimes transcript today]
PRESIDENT BUSH: I -- you know, it's just an incorrect story. I mean, we got a -- we're -- we got a lot of assets looking for Osama bin Laden. So whatever you want to read in that story, it's just not true, period.

2) The transcript doesn't let you hear how Junior's exasperation at the 'hard work' of answering questions allows him to slowly work himself into a high dudgeon at the end of the press conference, so that he is literally gritting his teeth when he says "I've enjoyed it. Appreciate it."

Is this just his usual disgust with having his policies questioned, or if it's a sign that his anti-psychotic meds need adjusting?

Still Listening to Bozo

During this press conference, he has touted diplomacy, that it takes time, and that we have to do things with partners, not alone. Who says he can't learn new talking points?

About 45 minutes into it, a gal busts him on the failures of his North Korea policy, and asks why stick with a policy that's failed. And he literally repeats all his talking points on North Korea, the same ones he'd used in his speech and in answering a previous question. Literally verbatim.

It's awe-inspiring to see someone so uninterested in participating in doing the work his job demands. (As I type, he has just stormed off angrily, saying 'I've enjoyed it!' through actually-clenched teeth.) This guy has been coached to the nth degree, and sticks to his talking points.

There's 'on message' and then there's 'automaton.' This man isn't just a white-knuckle drunk, he's a white-knuckle speaker, gripping his talking points and agenda and never letting go, no matter what the facts, no matter what the question...

Dear Lord, how much longer must we suffer in this desert that is the Junior Bush intelligence vacuum?

It's "hard work" listening to this clown's press conference

Junior is still interrupting all the summer school trips to the Museum Of Science and Industry in Chicago. He just made his "You look like you're over 65" joke to the first member of the press corps. As always, an inslt treated as a joke. Typical 3rd-tier frat boy humor...

And he has reminded us, at least a dozen times, that "it's hard work", whether in reconciling the House and Senate Immigration bills, or fighting the "war on terror," or creating jobs...

First, I don't think I ever heard Clinton talk about how hard the job was, which may have been one of the reasons why he made it look so easy.

Second, whenever Junior says it, it comes out as a whine. "Y'know, I mean, it's haaaarrd wooorrk!" I can't stand having this whiner as our leader. No wonder we get no respect.

And third, WE all know being president is a tough job, WTF did he expect? Oh, yea! This is the first job he's ever had where he actually had to show up every day, where Daddy's money and his connections couldn't bail Junior out. Where he at least had to look like he was paying attention. No wonder he's so incredibly bad at the job. Even the "Governor Of Texas" gig was easy, because that governor's job is to be a figurehead (read their state constitution), and his legislature only met for 90 days every other year! No wonder the family ran him for that job.

Man, it'll be hard work digging America out of the pile of shit this guy has dropped on us...Post-Republican America will be a turdblossom, or just a turd. Either way, it'll be hard work...

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Happy Birthday, Mr. Pres-i-dent...

Marilyn sang for Jack Kennedy's birthday in a sheer, skin-tight dress that she had to be sewn into. The only thing that kept it legal was the splash of sequins across the front...

Dick Cheney may have worried, in some fever-dream, that Kenny-Boy would sing for Junior, in some orange jumpsuit that he was shackled into....

But Kenny-Boy gave Junior a MUCH better gift for his birthday.

Boy, Dick might think about giving something similar to America on its birthday next year. I'm sure America would appreciate it even more than Junior appreciated his gift...

Happy Birthday, Junior!

Give me your poor, your tired...

Tuesday I celebrated America's Independence doing the same thing as many American men: yard work.

Differently from most, as I worked, I listened to 'The World' on NPR, as they played two articles that explored the naturalization of immigrants, many of whom became citizens yesterday across America.

The first story interviewed several long-time immigrant workers, one a mechanic of 22 years, one a housekeeper for eight years. Both still live in the deep south of the Southwest, both were originally illegal, both still speaking in their native Spanish. Both are now determined to become citizens, to protect themselves from the animosity towards illegals in the current debate.

The second story was of a woman, now 22 and graduating from college, who came to the US five
years ago from the Sudan as a sanctioned refugee. She settled with a host family, was given legal status from the US and funding the refugee agency, and was prepping for her naturalization ceremony yesterday. Her entire interview was in perfect, lightly accented American English.

From two stories, a choice of lessons: If even a refugee girl can learn English and join
American culture, then those illegal immigrants that haven't learned English must not really want to be Americans, and don't really even want to try.

Or: Keeping people illegal keeps them out of the mainstream of America, keeps them segregated, huddled with others in their situation, and prevents them from ever reaching their economic potential here, even while they exceed their economic potential in the country they came from.

It seems like a choice between America's hopes and its fears.
Pick one.