Some Sunday Reading: Father Andrew Greeley, James Wolcott

Father Andrew Greeley pulls no punches. Check out "How Long Can Bush Get Away with Lies?" in the February 25 Sun Times and also "Big Lie on Iraq Comes Full Circle"published nearly eighteen months ago on his website. James Wolcott deals with Ann Coulter in "Lipstick Fascism." She's the "stringbean queen" of "trash punditry," and Jeff Gannon/James Guckert is the "commando call boy." It'll make you smile and sometimes that's a powerful thing.

Path to War on Iran?

If you read the Reuters story by Louis Charbonneau, you'll discover the administration's plan for attacking Iran. First, there will be the appearance of reasonableness:

Washington will not push the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran's case to the Security Council when it meets next week and no condemnation of the Islamic republic are expected, diplomats on the 35-nation board told Reuters.

Next a deadline will be set...

But the next quarterly meeting in mid-June will differ.

... and terms will be established, which will not be satisfied.

"Ultimately only the full cessation and dismantling of Iran's fissile material production efforts can give us any confidence that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions," the U.S. draft position paper said.

Then the United Nations will be maneuvered into giving cover. All evidence and testimony that countradicts assertions of the need for action are to be ignored or steamrolled, including throwing a tarp over any antiwar artwork in the UN building (Claudia Winkler disputes it, but had't the "TV guys" done that sort of filming before? Wouldn't they be pretty efficient at setting up? Who is this "British diplomat?")

The draft position paper, seen in full by Reuters, shows Washington is ready to give EU-Iran negotiations until that meeting to achieve their aim. If they fail, it will renew its campaign to have the IAEA refer Iran to the Security Council.

The process to war will be helped along with a determination to sabotage diplomatic efforts:

The United States has so far refused to participate in a plan it believes is doomed to failure.

Scott Ritter says June 2 is the date selected.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Don't Take My Word for It, Although Hypocrisy Does Seem to Fit

What do James Dobson, Rev. Donald Wildmon, Paul Weyrich, et. al., have to say about Gannon/Guckert when they're not screeching about Spongebob Squarepants (a true threat to freedom and democracy) or Janet Jackson's right breast (how could God let that happen?)? Well, not much, according to Bill Berkowitz, who, like a real journalist, tried to get to the bottom of the matter through actual investigative work.

It's a great read.

Right-Wing Memory Failure . . . (isn't this getting old?) AGAIN

There's no way I can riff on the Christian right-wing hypocrisy of the whole Gannon/Guckert thing when the Rude Pundit does it so intensely and articulately well, but I would like to bring up a little reminder for our reluctant minions of morality on the right.

You know, before 9/11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was planning a massive crackdown on pornography. In fact, he was so offended by a Depression-era sculpture in the Department of Justice that he had a blue curtain made to hang over the naked bronze breasts, lest he get a woody during a press conference, I guess--wishful thinking on his part. Anyway, with such uptight attitudes about even the tiniest hint of public sexuality, the fact that Gannon/Guckert was waving his dick and urinating in photographs (see Americablog) that he posted to the web as personal advertisements seems to me to be a true red-meat issue to enable the Christian right to show how strictly it adheres to its alleged moral principles.

Yes, indeed, you do hear the sound of me laughing so hard I nearly asphixiate myself.

Again, Bush and Knobhead fit into their worldview, thanks to the "Christ saved me" Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card that excuses anything in the past. Well, unless you cross them. Then they will fuck you over like Gannon/Guckert mainlining cocaine and Cialis combined.

Question: With Rush Limbaugh now failing in his third marriage, and never having declared that he's "Born Again," plus the OxyContin addiction, how is it they like this guy. I mean, he seems to be denying Jesus, doesn't he?

Oh yeah. I forgot. They're hypocrites.

King of the Lying Liars, Blah Blah Blah

As I said in the previous post, the poor bastard can't help it. From his press conference in Slovakia:

"I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open and people are able to call people to me to account, which many out here do on a regular basis. Our laws and the reasons why we have laws on the books are perfectly explained to people," he said.

Three words that put the lie to government being "wide open": Energy Task Force.
Feel free to contribute your favorites.
Fucking liar, again and again and again and again . . .

This Proves It--Bush Is Completely Deluded

Is he in the terminal stage of syphilis or something?

Given what we've been doing in Iraq the last two years, and what we're going to do to Iran come summer, our record of torture, false imprisonment, and the brutal attacks on due process at every turn, here is yet another astonishing Bush emission, spoken with a straight face, reported dutifully by the kneepad press, and ignored for analysis by our gutless political observers. From the Associated Press on Bush's Slovakian pas de deux with Pootie-poot:

Another question from a Russian reporter prompted a broad defense from Bush on the way democracy is practiced in the United States. "I'm perfectly comfortable in telling you, our country is one that safeguards human rights and human dignity, and we resolve our disputes in a peaceful way," he said.

Let's see . . . "safeguards human rights"--we have the death penalty, imprisonment without charges, legal representation or judicial review, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and other camps, a movement to prevent committed couples from legal unions, two presidential elections in which millions of voters were disenfranchised, allies like Saudi Arabia . . . oh sure, he's really lined up with reality.

We "resolve our disputes in a peaceful way"--this works so long as we don't count tens of thousands of dead, maimed, or bereaved Afghan and Iraqi civilians, or the U.S. troops killed and wounded. And, of course, we'll need to ignore the expansion of the Pentagon budget while social programs stagnate, because, as we all know, you have to bloat the defense industry and enlarge the division between rich and poor if you want to pursue peace . . . at least in the history that Bush subscribes to, if any.

I certainly can't dispute that he's "perfectly comfortable telling" us all this, because like any pathological liar, you can usually expect that even when it is unnecessary to twist the truth, the liar's need to feel he can put one over on you will have him embellishing or wholesale fabricating. The poor bastard just can't help it.

Torture as National Policy

This would be funny, except that it reflects what is going on, what is legitimized, and how America is viewed by too many in the world today. This government is destroying our country.

Bush Sends Troops to Face Bombs and Bullets, But the Little Coward Can't Face an Unscripted Question

Der Spiegel tells us that the planned town hall meeting in Mainz was quietly dropped when the Germans insisted on a true open forum instead of the pre-screened and approved version that is the singular Bush style, gleefully adopted from their viewings of Triumph of the Will. Again, of course, the irony escapes the Bushits. And, again consistent with his particular pathology, they don't announce it, they just ignore that it ever existed.
Sniveling little coward--does he think this move is going to improve his image?

Now It's 4:20 All the Time! or Why Bob Marley Was a Visionary

This Spanish study explains a lot:
1. This is news? Hey man, I came up in the 60s, and we knew this, we knew this...what was the question?
2. El Presidente Dipshit is now going to wish he hadn't quit smoking dope. Wait, he'd still be a dipshit. Never mind.
3. Explains the entire right-wing subject position.
4. Oh, if only Ronald Reagan had run with the more degenerate crowd in Hollywood, he would still be with us.
5. Wonderful rhetorical trick now available: "The only reason you don't want it legalized is because you don't smoke it, and your brain is inflamed, thus resulting in your insane position on reefer."
6. No longer need to shy away from question, "Are you high?" Answer: "Hey, man, I'm just exercising my cannabinoid receptors."
7. Of course, the study "is far from an endorsement of marijuana use in preventing Alzheimer's." Whaaa? Oh, I didn't read it that far.
8. Dig this part of the methodology:

After two months, the researchers trained the rats over five days to find a platform hidden underwater.

Why use rats? A couple of phone calls and before you know it, millions would be jumping off piers worldwide.

One of the researchers on the project said,

"Certainly every one of these papers that gives us new possibilities to explore is welcome," he said.

What else can one say, but, Hey, man, no shit.

Ann Coulter and the Shame of Wretched Rhetoric

I thought that rhetoric was something that was taught in law schools, but perhaps Ann was too busy having a smoke those days. (I'm really looking forward to hearing what her voice is like in ten more years.) Trying to do an analysis of one of her pieces is exhausting, like being confronted with a cesspool and asked to disassemble the structure of its contents. Because I'm a low energy type, I'll just tackle a small fragment. Writing about the Gannon/Guckert business, she attacks Chris Matthews (no favorite of mine) in her usual manner:

With all the subtlety of a gay-bashing skinhead, Matthews spent the rest of the segment seeing how many times he could smear Gannon by mentioning "HotMilitaryStuds.com" and laughing.

First of all, I'd like to know how it's a "smear" to report a fact--the existence of a site that belonged to Gannon/Guckert--and then laugh. It's damned funny. I mean, just the idea of someone characterizing himself as a "hot military stud" is comical. For instance, take your standard steamy romance dialogue, and have someone say to a lover, "Oh, you are my hot military stud!" That's humorously bad. But if someone says it like this--"I'm a hot military stud," it's fall-down-on-the-floor funny-bad. It's the language of parody. Even Chris "My Head Is Exploding" Matthews deserves a license to chuckle at that.

Of course, what is as deft as a meataxe is Coulter's "gay-bashing skinhead" comparison, which is woefully limp but, like all right-wing nutcase rhetoric (Limbaugh, Hannity, et. al.), is applied because merely linking sounds together is what they consider good argumentation. Think of Bush's constant "9/11...Iraq" sound bites (see the previous entry--he did it again in Germany today). Thanks to short attention spans, I guess, that stuff works more than it should.

Of course, Ann is calling the wrong guy a "gay-bashing skinhead." Consider: Jeff Gannon/James Guckert's coiffure is quite "skinhead," and given his insistence that he is a "top" in his escort service, technically, he's is a literal gay basher. Am I wrong here?

But I feel sort of bad for Ann, you see, because, well, she ought to be ashamed to write this dreadful dreck, at least as it reflects on her alma mater. At our local little third-tier university, freshmen receive F's for such argumentation in basic English composition courses. Alas, she makes big bucks peddling this crap in the mainstream press and on Fox "we wish it were news, but our fascist leaders demand obedience to right-wing ideology" TV.

Of course, if we thought that whoring for cash was worth it, even against our professional training and common decency, we'd be right-wing nutcases ourselves.

But I can't imagine a payoff big enough to entice me to become that.

Cognitive Dissonance Redux (It Never Ends, Because the Kneepad American Media is Bush's Little Bitch)

Bush does it again, and I'll bet the mainstream media will not make a peep. Out of the Associated Press comes this quote from El Presidente Dipshit:

"One of the key lessons of Sept. 11th is that we must confront threats before they fully materialize," Bush said. "In Iraq we found a threat to the entire world."

Once again, he implies linkage between 9/11 and the Iraq debacle, despite even his own admission that there was no connection. And then he says Iraq threatened the entire world. With what? Saddam's bad breath? Again, Dipshit admitted that no WMD were found. He contradicts himself with a straight face in front of people who nod and applaud and a press that remains on its knees before him, looking up only long enough to say, "Whatever you say, Sir! May we continue to be your slaves, Sir?"
And the cowardly little shrub said this in front of the 1st Armored and 1st Infantry Divisions, many members of which lost buddies in Iraq.

However, be assured that coverage and analysis of the Michael Jackson trial will remain the main story on your cable news outlets.

I'm going to go bang my head against the wall for a while.

Hillybilly Heroin Homeboy to Afghanistan, Part Deux

According to Newsmax, the right-wing Internet news outlet, the Hillbilly Heroin Homeboy, Rush Limbaugh, is going to Afghanistan next week, "saying that seeing the troops are his 'main reason for going.'"

Guess that anal cyst finally cleared up, eh Rush? They could have used your fat ass in Vietnam. Well, maybe you can take a bullet for one of our true warriors and heroes this time, you sack of hyperbolic, lying shit. Hell, why not throw your cyst-free anus over a roadside bomb for our boys, eh?

The Contradiction That is Bush: Could He Be a Zen Master and Not Know It?

Bush has perfected the use of "negative capability" in his personality--that is, the ability to hold two completely contradictory ideas simultaneously in his mind and experience no discomfort. According to the Los Angeles Times, the tapes recorded by ex-pal Doug Wead reveal Bush as a man who can, in the same paragraph, even the same sentence, completely contradict himself.

Bush tells Wead, "The Bible is pretty good about keeping your ego in check" and says he stays humble by reading it every day. Yet he casts himself in grandiose terms, boasting that his popularity will "change Texas politics forever" by catapulting coattail Republicans to success when he wins his second term as governor.

I note this because it explains Bush's contradictory statements about Iran during his European enduro (see posting from yesterday immediately below).

I once had an in-law who Bush reminds me of in a striking way. Let's call him Knobhead (the in-law, I mean). Knobhead was born-again, regular churchgoer, Bible scholar, the whole bit. However, he had some interesting conflicts with Christian ideals in his business practices, which included the exploitation of elder citizens by selling them useless insurance policies, often convincing them to cash in other, better investments to purchase his products. Of course, he felt he was providing a "service," as he called it, even as he screwed these folks over, and he considered his growing income as a sign from God that he was blessed in his practices. When he got sick of his wife, he kicked her to the curb without a dime, even though they were by now wealthy, telling her that if she protested in the least he would "destroy her." Being the good little Christian wife, and thoroughly intimidated by his extended family, which in some ways resembled the Bush clan with its collection of sons of varying and questionable accomplishments, she restarted her life after 40 in an efficiency apartment, with no college education, no marketable skills, learning the ropes of her new class, the working poor. Knobhead soon remarried, and refused to discuss the past, or even acknowledge that it had existed.

I think the means by which Knobhead and Bush are able to pull this off with no conscience or reflection--in spite of their frequent praying, which I always thought was meant to be reflective--is that they each have mastered the Zen art of "living in the moment." Think about it. If your attention is only to what is in front of you, and you have no interest in even the most recent history, then you can act from day to day, hour to hour, even second to second, as if nothing you say or do can be used to illustrate the complete contradiction that you have become to your own self, up to and including accusing others of being "flip-floppers," the ultimate irony of all.

Of course, having no sense of irony is valuable for someone like Bush, and this is where he parts from being a true Zen master, because without irony there is no self-awareness, and without self-awareness, well, you get the disaster for the country, and the world, that the Bush administration has become.

Such are the things that monsters are made of.

Another Phony and Well-Scripted Kabuki Dance

According to Reuters' headline, you'd think everything was hunky-dory all over again with Europe. But reading further reveals that any bones the Europeans threw Bush were quite devoid of meat or marrow.

But U.S.-European differences over China and Iran surfaced, with Bush voicing concern at European Union plans to end an arms embargo on Beijing and France pressing Washington to offer Tehran incentives to curb its nuclear program.

The "differences" over Iran are what you want to watch, because Bush is really speaking out of both sides of his mouth on this one. On the one side he says that talk of attacking Iran over its nukes is "ridiculous,"and he encouraged European diplomacy on that front, but out of the other side, "he quickly added that all options remained open." Translation: "You Eurofucks can talk all you want, but we'll sabotage and pervert any outcome to justify bombing Teheran and any other damn place we like."

I can't tell if the French, Germans and Belgians are really buying this crap or not, because it could be that the reporting is skewed toward comity and warm handshakes. Of course, even Reuters noted that NATO contributions to Iraq were "token," so I'll bet that the smiles are more good manners than anything else. The balance of power has shifted dramatically in Europe's favor thanks to the Bush administration's combination of incompetence, arrogance, and just damned stupidity. It's really quite amazing that a single administration in the span of less than 5 years could reduce the U.S. to essentially a second-tier power.

This Man Deserves to Be Read

This posting by Joe Bageant to The Smirking Chimp is right on. Please take the time to read it and let him know what you think. Here's an excerpt:

One of the problems we working class Southerners have is that educated progressive Americans see us as a bunch of obese, heavily-armed nose pickers. This problem is compounded by the fact that so many of us are pretty much that. Call it the "Dumb-crackers-lordee-I-reckon" syndrome. But liberals err in thinking this armed and drunken laboring species is an exclusively Southern breed. No matter where you live in this nation you will find us. We are the folks in front of you at the Wal-Mart checkout lugging a case of motor oil while having a nicotine fit. But even in such democratic venues as shopping, our encounters are limited because we do not buy designer beer and you do not buy ammo or motor oil by the case.

These folks are not the enemy--they are us.

Bush Looking for a "Good Cowboy"

According to this New York Times article,

But when a French reporter asked Mr. Bush if relations had improved enough for him to ask Mr. Chirac to his ranch, the president did not offer an invitation, and instead joked, "I'm looking for a good cowboy."

In light of the whole Jeff Gannon/James Gucker thing, and with the fact that El Presidente is scared of horses, doesn't this seem just a little, um, creepy?

Why Should They Care?

So Bush is in Europe, trying to "mend fences," which seems to me to be understating the problem in a way that he must have learned from British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Imagine if I set fire to your neighbor's house--a neighbor who was a real bastard, by the way, beating his wife and kids--against your advice to call the police. If I visited you while the house was still smoldering, would that be "fence mending"? Just asking.

Anyway, it seems rather odd to me that Bush is asking NATO for help in Iraq while we have our troops in something like 130 other countries around the world (and I'm not talking about Marines guarding embassies). Why in the hell would they pitch in to help us maintain our profligacy, our (dare I say it) imperial overstretch to protect our alleged vital interests?

At the same time, some of my friends, most of whom have no health insurance, are suffering from flu and when trying to simply get the most basic of care must fork over $150 at a walk-in clinic or be turned away. The only option then is the emergency room, which really seems dumb when we are told over and over again that our health care system is the envy of the world.

Yeah, we've really got our priorities straight.

Why Gannon/Guckert? Why Not Someone Unassailable?

I've really wanted to avoid this whole issue, mainly since the bloggers out there are doing a great job even as the mainstream media shoves its collective head even further up its own singularly dark and fetid ass. Imagine the conversation:

"Jeez, those damn bloggers are making me confront the people who invite me to all those swell parties."

"Yeah, how am I going to get laid by any staffers if I start having to write about real issues?"

"You know, I do get tired of going down on my knees all the time for this administration. Maybe..."

"Shut up! Do you hear yourself? Whoring for these guys is the best time we've ever had! More money, less work--hell, we just type what they tell us--lots of cool functions to go to, lots of TV air time. People ask for my autograph, for God's sake! You want to give that up for some stupid integrity? Don't be a dope."

"You know, though, it is dark and funny smelling in here. Wouldn't it be nice to get some air and look around?"

"That's it! You're out of the club! Traitor! Liberal! You're no journalist! You'll be blacklisted from Bethesda to Arlington. Turn in your kneepads! Yes, the ones with the presidential seal."

Anyway, what astounds me about this whole Gannon/Guckert thing is this. It is alleged by some that the White House is indeed a longtime client of Mr. Gannon/Guckert, so to speak, beginning with the campaign against Tom Daschle for his senate seat. Additionally, he may have been picked by or with Karl Rove's approval. Here's my question: Why would they not make sure Gannon/Guckert could not be a liability in some way? Either they knew about his "escort" business, which is technically illegal and thus damaging, or they didn't know, which is also damaging as it reflects on competence generally and national security issues specifically. Now, if they did know, is Gannon/Guckert the only person they could use? Are they so desperate for operatives? I would suspect not. So what is it that compelled them to engage Gannon/Guckert in any capacity (beyond his "professional," non-journalistic services) to the point of granting him access to the White House press pool? Is it blackmail of some sort? Of whom? For what?

Bush Selectively Praises German Law

Bush, in his speech in Belgium today, said, "German authorities recently arrested two terrorists plotting to attack American interests in Iraq. Both will be prosecuted under new German laws enacted after September 11."

No mention of Germany's Code of Crimes Against International Law, in effect since July, 2002, under which Donald Rumsfeld could be prosecuted as a war criminal, however. It could also be applied to Bush, something which, while inconceivable to him now, may someday soon come to weigh very heavily upon his mind. Given the drumbeats toward war with Iran, one wonders just how much unjustified aggression against sovereign nations is required under the German code.

I wonder if the hacks and whores of the American press who aided and abetted are subject to the code as well.

The Hillbilly Heroin Homeboy Is Going to Afghanistan?

Rush Limbaugh is headed for Afghanistan! I'm slow, I guess, since this story was on Reuters on February 18, 2005, but the fact that I had not heard it makes me wonder if this was not something the administration wanted publicized at its onset. I wonder what the reasons might be? Is he going to score some dope?

The Reuters story also mentions that Mary Matalin will be on the same sortie in order to see with her own eyes how the situation for women has improved in Afghanistan. May I suggest sending her alone, in a burka, to some remote village in the hinterland for a few weeks? As impartial an observer as I am sure she is, she won't want her experience to be tainted by handlers or photo-op situations, right?

Wait! This just in--Afghan officials are protesting Limbaugh's presence as a potential threat to the year's poppy production. Spokesman Khan Karmad Aboussi said, "Have you seen the size of that guy? He's a dope dealer's dream! But I don't want him loose around here!"

Bush's European Vacation

I have less and less respect for politicians as I watch them smile and shake hands when what I suspect is truly in their hearts is murder. Are the European leaders going to pretend to be the good little wives that Bush would like them to be in public, even as he had humiliated them, lied to them, and slapped them around? Or will they have at last found their support group in the European Union and decided to tell Bush that his fantasies are no longer going to be tolerated, that he is no longer the bully boy he hopes to be, and that Europe is going to be respected as the power that it is. If, on the other hand, the Europeans play nicey-nice and kissyface with Bush on this trip as they did with Condi Rice, then my question is, how far must they be pushed until, instead of quiet assertion, they ultimately resort to their heart's desire, and drive a dagger into the U.S. through economic policy that will suddenly and radically polarize us against them.

Don't think it's possible? Start comparing the relative power between the U.S. and Europe in any terms but military and we come up short. And having the military we do sure isn't the advantage we need if we get toe-to-toe with Europe in economic battles, like some sort of new colonialism for the Middle East. Hell, it isn't even proving to be the power Bush thought it would be in Iraq. Having evaded any serious service during the Vietnam era and proving that he is only capable of learning those things that come from prophesy or edict rather than research and reason, Bush is enjoying his own private 'Nam, which seems to be about at the point where the equivalent of an Iraqi Diem comes in. And we know how that chapter ended.

The Recreation of Consciousness

In my last few years working in software engineering, before I turned to writing and editing and generally doing little to make money for anyone else, I frequently voiced my amazement at how our collective consciousness has been successfully shattered into hostile fragments, turning us against our own best interests. Nobody thinks of himself or herself as a working person anymore. Thanks to a Wall Street media juggernaut that convinced too many of us that we were now "owners" because we had our little IRA or 401K accounts or had a few shares of stock in the companies we worked for, we completely shed our awareness as basic wage earners.

Look--if you can't live off your investments, if you have to go to work every day to get a paycheck, then you are a worker. Middle class, technoclass, bloggers, small business owners, professional class, whatever the hell term you want to use for yourself only masks the brutal yet honorable reality. You are a worker.

Simply making that admission is a huge first step.