Category: Uncategorized (Page 27 of 53)

One way the ridiculous cartoon villains running the Libertoonian wing of the Republican Party could gain some credibility might be to oppose blatant attacks by the current administration on the civil liberties of American citizens.

It has been said that when one scratches the surface of a Libertarian, one finds an Authoritarian. The Tea Bag response to the recently revealed extra-Constitutional activities of agencies that seem more and more Orwellian in nature seems to prove this true.

When the Bush Jr. Administration began its domestic espionage program, I assumed that the support of right wing loons (RWLs) was dependent upon having a Republican in the White House. Now we see that those who defecate in their collective pants at the approach of a swarthy person are equally willing to submit to a dehumanizing authoritarian state apparatus run by a Democratic Administration.

I suppose I had assumed that Teabaggers considered their paranoid racist imperatives more important than their Orwellian authoritarian imperatives. Now I know better.

I just heard about the worst thing I think I can remember. A Battle of the Bulge veteran described an encounter with a German boy soldier. On his approach with bayonet raised, he heard the boy shouting “Mommy! Mommy!” When he asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied that he wanted his Mommy, because he didn’t want to die. He said he told the boy to pretend he was dead, and pretended to bayonet the boy. He pressed forward, leaving the boy to his own devices. I have some hope for humanity.

Just a few days before Memorial Day, I lost my last touch of the Second World War. My grandfather had been something of a boy soldier himself. Or, rather, sailor. Unlike my paternal grandfather, who had waited to the ripe old age of 16 to enlist, my maternal grandfather had enlisted at 15. He served in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945. As the vast American fleet sat off the coast of Japan, his vessel, PGM-27, was sunk in a typhoon. All the sailors aboard survived. Over six decades later, my grandfather spent his last few years disabled and at the edge of poverty. As he waited out his last hours, his sons found that he was eligible for some awards he had never received.

I last visited a little over a year ago. Speaking to my grandmother, I am struck by how much one grows together with another after 68 years of marriage.

The generation that made this country as we know it is nearly spent.

They are missed.

I, for one, would be relieved if Obama were to simply call a Rose Garden press conference to accept guilt. He should describe, in detail, how he ordered the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. At least, that’s what I assume happen based on reading only right wing websites. Other than that, I can’t imagine any scenario in which some incompetent handling of public relations at the outset of the violence could possibly be considered criminal.

So please, Mr. President, admit that you ordered some bottom-tier terrorist recruits to murder U.S. government officials. Because that’s what secret Muslim Kenyan half-Jew usurpers do.

Bill Clinton tricked his inquisitors into accepting his CLEARLY carefully manipulated definitions in order to skate through the entire event without having technically lied.

He was nevertheless impeached in the circus that followed the Monica Lewinski affair. Many think he was lucky to have survived, despite the fact that his inquisitors were at fault for having been so easily MANIPULATED. Fortunately for Mr. Clinton, he did not have the aggravating condition of hypermelaniniasis (AKA overt blackitude) working against him.

In this case, another center-right president has failed to be far-right enough for the corporate media. While the straws at which the GOP and its media grasp are as substantial as cobwebs, Obama’s mere existence as an Executive Darkie is an affront to everything the GOP’s current iteration has come to stand for. That is to say, the importance of White Supremacy is such that any challenge to its claims is dealt with by rabid and immediate counterattack.

President Obama is such a challenge. He is dealt with thus.

Everything would work out much better if the capitulation-prone Democratic Party would simply give up, sacrifice Obama and other uppity minorities, and allow the wealthiest among us to continue transferring the wealth of this country to East Asia and the Middle East in exchange for skimming a little off the top.

Summarizing the last week’s events, I have the following comments:

1. A small bomb is not anywhere near a “weapon of mass destruction.” When that term was coined, it referred to the atomic bomb. If the largest RAF “blockbuster” bombs of World War II weighed in at twelve thousand pounds and were not thusly termed, how do the professional bed-wetters of American “journalism” claim a crude homemade device merits the moniker? And why has the justice department suddenly downgraded the already downgraded term (it had been expanded to include chemical and biological weapons, neither of which is as efficient a killer as plain old TNT bombs)? It has gone from a device whose first wartime employment killed upwards of 100,000 people to a crude mutilator with a death toll of 3. If you weren’t doing the math, that is five orders of magnitude difference.
2. Rights as outlined in that quaint document known as the Constitution (more specifically, the Bill of Rights) do, indeed, protect the rights of terrible people. The reason they exist, however, is to protect everyone. If a miserable scumbag do not have the protection from warrentless searches, neither do you. If an obviously guilty person does not have a right to a fair trial, neither do you. As one who resembles roughly 75% of wanted posters (minus the tattoos and questionable facial hair), I appreciate this right.
3. By the fear-mongering allowances granted above, the explosion in the sleepy little burg of West, TX should be considered a tragedy on par with the entire American Civil War. Somehow, it has seen nowhere near the coverage of a pair of pathetic losers attempting to earn a place in headlines. I suppose “terrorism” intent (as long as only non-WASPs are involved) is ‘sexier’ news than criminal negligence. Thankfully, the right people are on the scene to emphatically ask the question “Who could have known?” to all who will listen. Of course as soon as the federal government finished handing out public money to clean up after this private disaster, they can just get the hell out of town. Private industry can police itself. As long as Uncle Sam foots the bill for the consequences.

[Update]: Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, and Money on the disparity in coverage between West and Boston:

Again, when workers die because of massive negligence by owners, those owners need to be charged with some form of a murder crime, perhaps equivalent to a fatal drunk-driving charge. Instead, the owners themselves are often seen as victims, including at West.

Two articles he references, Boston, Texas, and the roads: affect and the power of normalization, and The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten also wonder at the peculiar focus of the corporate “news” agencies.