Friday, May 11, 2007

What is McCain smokin'and where can we get some?

An interesting item from The Nation: Hiasl, a 26-year old Austrian-based chimpanzee, is petitioning the courts for human status
If a chimpanzee can be declared a person, then there's nothing in the way of a person becoming an ape - and I'm not just talking about a retroactive status applied to ex-husbands. In fact, I predict a surge in trans-specied people, who will eagerly go over to the side of the chimps.

- Barbara Ehrenreich, The Huffington Post

There is no cause for alarm. This field was pioneered by George W. Bush, who became the first human-ape conversion and he has given chimps a bad name.

I see a simian pattern here. The GOP gets territorial and attacks whenever anyone dares tell the truth about them. So it is with John McCain. There was a time when John McCain had a reputation for straight talk and common sense. McCain was even vilified by the Religious Right and, therefore, must have been doing something right. Sadly, McCain hasn't made sense since drinking George W. Bush's kool-aid.

Back from his trip to neverland (Iraq) McCain was in need a left wing demon and, thus, he resurrects Michael Moore though he had not been dead.


Oh, I get it! The delusional McCain would have us believe that US has not (I suppose) created, where Saddam left off, a place of "...indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves, and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children inside their walls". Has McCain heard of Abu Ghraib? Is he unaware of US operated torture centers throughout eastern Europe? As far as I know, Saddam did not export torture. He left the "globalization" of war crimes to the Americans.

According to Seymour Hersh, the Bush administration did not close down Abu Ghraib; we took it over and upheld the traditions of heinous torture, murder, and criminal human rights violations. Saddam was hanged for his efforts. Bush has only a red neck but not from the rope that might await him for his commission of capital crimes probibited by US criminal codes. But, I suppose all my mentors were idiots. I was taught that there is no justice when justice is applied inequitably. For committing the same crimes, Saddam is reviled, Bush is praised. The GOP is a party of liars, hypocrites and idiots.

Republicans, especially the fascists seen in the clip, do not tolerate truth tellers. If Iraq had not been an "oasis of peace", it most certainly had not been a nation comming apart at the seams, without infrastructure, without lights, water, refuge, and, in many cases food, medicine, or care. No one pretends that Saddam was a good man, but, it is a measure of how quickly the US itself has descended into hell that Saddam was no worse than Bush, perhaps, sadly, better. Iraqis were better off under Saddam.

Like many another GOP cultist, McCain seems desperately seeking strawmen or, failing that, a subject that he can get away with changing. He has within the period of a week attacked both the "blogosphere" and film maker Michael Moore for daring to exercise free speech.
When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights…It’s a pity that there wasn’t a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium.

- John McCain [quoted in Think Progress]

What a pity that the millions of us who dare to write about failed, last gasp politicians are not quite stupid enough to have been GOP politicians! With a little less effort and merit, we, too, might have been praised daily for failing. At last, we are consigned to being vilified by liars -or worse: by traitors. It was Bill Maher, I believe, who said recently that "...traitors do not get to question my patriotism!"


Democrats never had that kind of luck. Clinton, for example, should never have become a Rhodes Scholar. The GOP never forgave him for it. Nor did Clinton get the memo that Ronald Reagan had set a new standard, i.e, hereinafter failure and incompetence would be celebrated and rewarded. Could "they" have gotten into office in any other way?


The "celebration of stupidity" must surely explain that dwindling 28% who still think Bush is doing a splendid job. But if he is not, then it is most surely the fault of the blogosphere for pointing it out. In the meantime, plans are being made for celebrations in Texas. When the missing idiot returns to his village, there will be a parade for him down main street.


Like other goppers, McCain had promised always to tell the truth, "straight-talk" he called it. Apparently, McCain learned that in a GOP "America", straight-talk will not get you into the White House.


It has taken long enough, but it is, nevertheless, encouraging to hear Sen. Joseph Biden challenge Bush's failed strategy in Iraq. As far as I know, it is the first time that any American politcian has dared speak the unspeakable, that is, Bush has taken sides in a civil war.

Alas, McCain is just a GOP damn liar and not even a good one. In GOP-land, that and a brother in Florida is enough to get any dumbass into the White House.

But the times are tragic when the best are offered up lightly and remorselessly for the vainglorious ambitions of the very worst.

Clancy Brothers - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda



Waltzing My Matilda - Artist Unknown








9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fuzzflash sez:

"What is McCain smokin'and where can we get some?"

Surge McCain is the kind of a guy who loves the smell of I.E.D. in the morning. He craves it like a junky craves junk. His bloodlust is aroused to frenzy when inhaling deeply from fresh “pink mist”. A vulture sniffs carrion. Johnny Mac inhales dead people. He is rejuvenated by sucking their essence deep into his lungs. This Baghdad Beowulf, this desert Lestert, this Beltway Boy to the bootstraps wants America's top job.

Word on the street is he's over-qualified.


Found this on my rounds.


"I likewise think the time has come to BOYCOTT CBS.

Indeed, boycott fox and the entire mainstream media. Big corporate media was complicit with Bush from the get go.

It is time to face the face that Bush and his minions DELIBERATELY defrauded the American people about Iraq and that is a felony. That US citizens have died because Bush lied is impeachable. If that is not a “high crime or misdemeanor” their isn’t one.

Comment by The Existentialist Cowboy — May 11, 2007 @ 2:35 pm”


CBS was the MSM network that nurtured, then tolerated Ed Murrow. Ike’s MIC warning in 1961 was most prescient. So it’s now good night America, the good luck’s gone up in smoke……… like a Lucky Strike.

But all democracies are the same, aren’t they?

That’s the mistake a lot of countrys make.

Anonymous said...

Fuzz sez furthur:

Len, here's a couple of verses from Eric Bogle's "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda". (featured in the last You-tube link with the jungle soldier cover.)

"So they gathered the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve, and to mourn, and to pity

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away"

There's only one other Australian anti-war song that comes close im(extraordinarily)ho;
"I was only 19", about a perpetually traumatised returned soldier. As a clinician(now retired)I dealt with hunderds of Viet vets on a professional basis during a 20 year full-time career who were referred to me for somatic ailments. To a man, they were not scarred psychologically. They were chasmed.

"Chorus 3:
Then someone yelled out "Contact"', and the bloke behind me swore.
We hooked in there for hours, then a God almighty roar.
Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon.
God help me, he was going home in June.


1 can still see Frankie, drinking tinnies in the Grand Hotel
On a thirty-six hour rec. leave in Vung Tau.
And I can still hear Frankie, lying screaming in the jungle.
'Till the morphine came and killed the bloody row


Chorus 4:
And the Anzac legends didn't mention mud and blood and tears.
And stories that my father told me never seemed quite real
I caught some pieces In my back that I didn't even feel.
God help me, I was only nineteen.


Chorus 5:
And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep?
And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?
And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me, I was only nineteen.



Words and music by John Schuman of the group, Redgum. In 2001 Australian Federal Election, John ran against the incumbent, Poreign Minister Alexander Downer in the seat of Mayo. John Schuman came within a handful of votes of rolling the war-mongering schmuck. Dolly Downer still holds his ministry in John Howard's Bush Poodle govt.

Marc McDonald said...

In a way, McCain reminds me of Ross Perot. Both men started out as maverick figures with a rep for straight-talking. But as time went on, both became increasingly bizarre in their behavior.

Sincerely,
Marc McDonald
BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com

Unknown said...

Fuzzflash sez:

Word on the street is he's over-qualified.

Good one, Fuzz.

boycott fox and the entire mainstream media. Big corporate media was complicit with Bush from the get go.

I think that's possible now. At least until Big Bro seizes the entire internet infra-structure.

So it’s now good night America, the good luck’s gone up in smoke……… like a Lucky Strike.

Yep...Murrow eventually paid the price for having told the truth. I hope Olbermann fares better.

There's only one other Australian anti-war song that comes close im(extraordinarily)ho;
"I was only 19", about a perpetually traumatised returned soldier.


If I can find that one, I will post it. That's some of the most "realistic" and moving anti-war I've ever heard.

Marc McDonald said...

But as time went on, both became increasingly bizarre in their behavior.

I hadn't thought of that...thanks. You are most certainly correct.

daveawayfromhome said...

1) We realy need to find a way to get the national dialog to either stop talking about that 28%, or recognise (as a nation) that these people (who are also more-or-less the same ones who believe that Armageddon is just around the corner) a completely nuts. Only then can the GOP be weaned off of them, assuming they're willing to let go of the power for the good of the country...

oh, nevermind. I must be nuts, too.

2) I read a funny thing once that Dave Barry said about The Press. He talked about how newspapers, recognizing that young people dont read newspapers, keep trying out new and hip things (that arent actually news) to try and draw them in, which just pisses off those who currently read papers, causing them to quit reading. These things dont work though, because young people dont read papers. Net result: slipping circulation.
TV News reminds me of that scenario. They give us more of everything except good, hard, information, then wonder why people are turning to other sources. The people who are bored by hard news dont care anyway.

3) "I was taught that there is no justice when justice is applied inequitably."

As was I. Dubya, though, and his ilk, dont appear to believe in the concept of equality. Certainly the Authoritarian Religious Right-Wing crowd that is his base doesnt, and I seriously doubt that the wealthiest 1% (King George's true base) does either.

Manifesto Joe said...

I once had sort of modest hopes for McCain, as a neo-Goldwater (if we have to have one of those right-wing pendejos in the Oval Office, he seemed preferable to their general run of prospects). But, no -- I think the Hanoi Hilton got to him later; and, very early, just the stool-petrifying process of being a child raised by anal-retentive military Republican parents, with the serious intent of producing some sort of "good" Charles Whitman type who didn't come down with a brain tumor and waste a bunch of folks. I suspect that Charles' parents were similarly into raising up some straight-backed Marine-type like that, but it went infamously wrong.
No, as much as the very sight of Guiliani makes me sick, I would trust him more, to avoid a nuclear crisis with some country like Pakistan or Iran, than I would a headcase like J. McCain.

Anonymous said...

If the Pakistanis have ferrets, Guiliani will nuke 'em, make no mistake.

Anonymous said...

Fuzz sez;

CLINTON, Hillary 3.00
OBAMA, Barack 4.50
GIULIANI, Rudolph 5.25

The smart money at Centrebet reckons The Kid and Mrs.Clinton stand between Mad Rudi and the button.

Unknown said...

Fuzz sez;

The smart money at Centrebet reckons The Kid and Mrs.Clinton stand between Mad Rudi and the button.

We are screwed.