Thursday, November 24, 2005
Happy F---ing Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
I wanted to take this chance to reflect on being thankful and living in America. And seeing as I am the Devil, this reflection will probably be the opposite of what you are expecting. But that’s fine with me. Put that on my grave: The Opposite of What We Expected.
I want to be an asshole. I want to poke a hole in the inflated self-opinion of gaseous patriots.
So, to wit, I want to ridicule this patriot who wrote to my native Chicago Tribune:
Today America enjoys a freedom unequaled in the history of civilization. Our good fortune goes unnoticed by most everyone in his or her day-to-day life.
We are free to express ourselves.
I hear this argument every day from conservatives and I want it to end. They cite the freedom of speech we enjoy in this country (a freedom they endlessly seek to abridge, whether through banning flag-burning or debate on the war) as proof that this is a great country. I heard the same argument on WLS, the local fascist propaganda broadcaster.
They can’t be this stupid. They can’t not know that all of Europe and, indeed, the Developed World enjoys these freedoms, from Japan to South Africa. Even many (if not most) developing countries enjoy this freedom, including India, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Costa Rica. Many of the most wretched nations enjoy this freedom sporadically, depending on the government, including the charnel houses known as Liberia, Somalia, and Colombia.
Being thankful for this is one thing, but using this as justification for the assertion that this is “the greatest nation on earth” is laughable. If this assertion were presented to the Swedes or Singaporeans they would shrug and say “big deal.”
I know, I know. Soldiers died to give me that freedom. Actually, they didn’t. This is another myth, a guilt trip worthy of my mother. Are soldiers dying in Iraq right now to protect my freedom of speech? Of course not. They are dying to further the interests of Halliburton, of the chess players in the White House who have been playing games with soldier’s lives for generations. They are dying for $30,000 to go to college. What about Vietnam? We weren’t defending our nation in that war. We were defending South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese might be more grateful if 2 million of them hadn’t been slain in the war. What about the Korean War? Again, the soldiers died to protect another ally, South Korea. Go ask them for thanks, not me. What about the Big One? Again, Japan never attempted to invade the U.S. Nor did Germany. Japan was simply interested in knocking out the America fleet for long enough at Pearl Harbor to solidify their hold on their nascent Pacific Empire.
This is one of the Big Lies: soldiers die to defend you. In reality, soldiers die to defend national interests as determined by a ruling class that never literally fights its own wars. Nor do their sons. Bush was shoehorned into the Texas Guard by a general on a phone call from a friend of the family. Dan Quayle did the same thing. Cheney had five deferments. Condoleeza Rice never served and was never eligible for the draft, being female. Bill Clinton had student deferments. So did most other boomer politicians. But more importantly, the politicians and patricians who make these wars don’t fight them. They are too old, and they don’t have the courage of their convictions.
This is usually true. WWII was a rare exception, when two dictators blatantly started a war. The truth is the average working-class type doesn’t lose or gain from a war. The citizens of the Kingdom of Serbia in WWI wouldn’t have been better or worse off if they had been conquered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The citizens of China in WWII had an unhealthy choice in the 1940s between imperialist Japanese rule or Communist Chinese Oppression. Even nationalist fights between the Vietnamese and French or Chinese Imperialists usually doesn’t the leave the average Vietnamese peasant, so the speak, any better or worse off. He still has to spend all day tending the rice patty. Any peripheral benefits are of debatable import.
The afore-mentioned patriot went on in his brainless way:
We are free of oppression.
We are free of fear.
Unfortunately, we are also, apparently, free of common sense and insight, if we are writing this shit. Fear is what W banks on more Stephen King. It’s how he got re-elected. It’s how he justified two wars and hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars in defense spending. The Patriot Act. The Department of Homeland Security. Unfettered use of torture by CIA interrogators.
Speaking of this Greatest of All Countries and CIA interrogators, the story of the “Iceman” recently came to light. You may remember him as the bruised-looking corpse on ice in one of the horrible pictures that emerged from Abu Ghraib. His name is known now, though it’s unpronounceable to me. His story is known now, too. He was detained by the CIA for “questioning.” This “questioning” involved breaking his ribs, putting a bag over his head, and crucifying him by hanging him from his arms with his arms cranked behind his back. The combination killed him. But, oh, we don’t torture people, according to the President. If you still believe anything that comes out if his mouth you are a fucking idiot.
Speaking of idiots, the idiot in question went on:
Our lives are utopian, yet most Americans never stop to think about the many brave young men and women who are standing at the gates, guarding our nation: the soldiers, sailors, airmen and women and Marines who are fighting, bleeding and dying in foreign lands so that we may remain free.
See? I told you he’d wheel out this old lie. They just can’t stop themselves. It’s like they need to keep dosing themselves with this intellectual opiate like Rush Limbaugh needs Oxycontin.
This is the patriotic static that spews regularly from the mouth of one Dick Cheney, the soulless, blank-eyed, blood-soaked warbot of the Bush Administration. His approval rating is half of what the president’s is, which is quite an accomplishment, seeing as the president’s JAR is about 38% right now. This is one of the cynical liars in the bush administration who said there was “no doubt” Hussein had WMDs, links to Al-Qaeda, and a nuclear weapons program. He had “no doubt” because all of their sources were either discredited (see “Curveball”) or based on crude forgeries and disputed analysis (aluminum tubes, yellowcake from Niger). He later denied saying what he said in front of millions of people (here).
Rice and Powell were saying the same things, though, as was the President and the SecDef. They all knew better. They are all equally culpable. I have no idea why Cheney receives more opprobrium than Powell other than he’s far less likable. I, personally, found Condoleeza’s scare tactic (“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) to be especially reprehensible. This was her response to a question asking her how sure she was of her sources. A relatively clever tactic, that: she was basically saying “I’m not sure and my sources aren’t iron-clad but we can’t take the chance.”
Of course, we can take the chance. We take the chance every day that North Korea and Iran sit on weapons programs. We take the chance every day that nuclear weapons rest in poorly-maintained silos in Russia guarded by underpaid scientists and technicians. We take the chance every day that Pakistan sits on nuclear weapons in the nexus of the “Islamofascist” world (the administration’s word. I use it because it amuses me). We take the chance every day because every tin pot dictator on Earth can make chemical weapons with technology from 1914. We just can’t take the chance with a nation in a strategically essential part of the world, sitting on the second-greatest proven oil reserves on Earth, threatening Israel and thumbing its nose at U.S. hegemony.
Of course, the public can’t handle the truth. The administration knew this. What disturbs me is that they lied blatantly to attain their Imperial goals.
When I see politicians lying so blatantly it makes me wonder. Are they stupid? Surely not. I’d like to think the levers of power in this country are more sophisticated than that, that any chimp with dumb-assed luck can’t become Preznit Drinky VIII. But the only people the President is accountable to are the unwashed masses, and as long as the Preznit gets his votes he can do anything else he wants. I’ve always known this, but the election of 2000 was a wake-up call for me. I simply didn’t realize the American electorate was so stupid. I said at the time that W was the least-qualified nominee for the Presidency that the Republican Party had ever nominated, and I stand by that analysis. He got elected anyway. I was stunned. I wasn’t bitter about Florida, because the fact that he even got close to 50% of the popular vote was inexcusable. I guess people were just tired of prosperity and a centrist government. Of balanced budgets. Of intelligent leaders.
W got elected because, having had to give knob-jobs to Klu Klux Klan members and Christian Ayatollahs for decades to cobble together a majority, the Republicans knew how to service ignorance. They knew that the vast majority of voters are hideously ignorant about the most fundamental aspects of politicians and politics in general. They knew how to throw splinter groups a bone, how to play on the fears of people with no intellectual curiosity and too much to lose, how to leverage money into political power. They understood this, I think, because the only thing they’ve ever had was money and the desire for more. They never had a mandate. They never were fighting the “good” war. They never had positions that were in agreement with the opinions of the majority a majority of the time. Dick Nixon never gave a shit about what the masses wanted. Reagan was good at keeping a positive image and smiling as he slashed taxes for the wealthy and exploded the national debt. So is Bush. But they’ll wave the flag, if that’s what people want. They’ll intimidate other countries so that we can all feel macho and proud about being Americans. They’ll be happy to vote a certain way on abortion or same-sex marriage if that delivers the one-issue voters and the bigot vote, respectively.
A note about the abortion thing: pro-life my ass. Every time I see those signs I want to shove them up the asses of the fucktards holding them. I want to shove those signs in the faces of the protesters wielding them and choke them to death with them. These people don’t know what pro-life is. These people go to the ballot box and write letters and support the death penalty, cuts in government services for the poor and elderly, and American pre-emptive war and they have the gall to call themselves pro-life.
If you are a member of the minority that doesn’t fit this profile than congratulations, my hat is off to you. You are a model American. You also don’t have many friends.
These people, the slaves of Dobson et al, were the ones who the Republican Majority threw a bone to with the Terri Schiavo vote. If this inane bill was all that is required to keep those yipping dogs at bay the Democrats should consider dumping NOW and adopting the position of the Christian Right on this issue. The Christian Ayatollahs deliver more votes.
Gasp! Is he serious? Yes, I am. I don’t trust Democrats very much. I certainly know that as long as money and political parties are allowed in politics determined by votes cast from ignorant voters our political system will remain a moral wasteland. Have you ever looked at the most popular Democratic Presidents of the last fifty years? They are indistinguishable from moderate Republicans. Look at Jack Kennedy, or Bill Clinton. I can’t tell the difference. Look at Hillary Clinton, for God’s sake. She has spent more time tacking to the right than a plane with no right wing. I don’t blame her. I would do the same thing if I had no morals and no vision. It’s what her husband did and it won him two terms. If I were a Republican I would want her to run for President in 2008. Not only is she basically a Republican already, none of the bigots will vote for a woman anyway. Unless Condi is the only other option, of course. And then the racist vote is gone and the Republican Party will self-destruct spectacularly. Because of that, Condi Rice will get the Republican Nomination the day monkeys jump out of my ass.
I wanted to take this chance to reflect on being thankful and living in America. And seeing as I am the Devil, this reflection will probably be the opposite of what you are expecting. But that’s fine with me. Put that on my grave: The Opposite of What We Expected.
I want to be an asshole. I want to poke a hole in the inflated self-opinion of gaseous patriots.
So, to wit, I want to ridicule this patriot who wrote to my native Chicago Tribune:
Today America enjoys a freedom unequaled in the history of civilization. Our good fortune goes unnoticed by most everyone in his or her day-to-day life.
We are free to express ourselves.
I hear this argument every day from conservatives and I want it to end. They cite the freedom of speech we enjoy in this country (a freedom they endlessly seek to abridge, whether through banning flag-burning or debate on the war) as proof that this is a great country. I heard the same argument on WLS, the local fascist propaganda broadcaster.
They can’t be this stupid. They can’t not know that all of Europe and, indeed, the Developed World enjoys these freedoms, from Japan to South Africa. Even many (if not most) developing countries enjoy this freedom, including India, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Costa Rica. Many of the most wretched nations enjoy this freedom sporadically, depending on the government, including the charnel houses known as Liberia, Somalia, and Colombia.
Being thankful for this is one thing, but using this as justification for the assertion that this is “the greatest nation on earth” is laughable. If this assertion were presented to the Swedes or Singaporeans they would shrug and say “big deal.”
I know, I know. Soldiers died to give me that freedom. Actually, they didn’t. This is another myth, a guilt trip worthy of my mother. Are soldiers dying in Iraq right now to protect my freedom of speech? Of course not. They are dying to further the interests of Halliburton, of the chess players in the White House who have been playing games with soldier’s lives for generations. They are dying for $30,000 to go to college. What about Vietnam? We weren’t defending our nation in that war. We were defending South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese might be more grateful if 2 million of them hadn’t been slain in the war. What about the Korean War? Again, the soldiers died to protect another ally, South Korea. Go ask them for thanks, not me. What about the Big One? Again, Japan never attempted to invade the U.S. Nor did Germany. Japan was simply interested in knocking out the America fleet for long enough at Pearl Harbor to solidify their hold on their nascent Pacific Empire.
This is one of the Big Lies: soldiers die to defend you. In reality, soldiers die to defend national interests as determined by a ruling class that never literally fights its own wars. Nor do their sons. Bush was shoehorned into the Texas Guard by a general on a phone call from a friend of the family. Dan Quayle did the same thing. Cheney had five deferments. Condoleeza Rice never served and was never eligible for the draft, being female. Bill Clinton had student deferments. So did most other boomer politicians. But more importantly, the politicians and patricians who make these wars don’t fight them. They are too old, and they don’t have the courage of their convictions.
This is usually true. WWII was a rare exception, when two dictators blatantly started a war. The truth is the average working-class type doesn’t lose or gain from a war. The citizens of the Kingdom of Serbia in WWI wouldn’t have been better or worse off if they had been conquered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The citizens of China in WWII had an unhealthy choice in the 1940s between imperialist Japanese rule or Communist Chinese Oppression. Even nationalist fights between the Vietnamese and French or Chinese Imperialists usually doesn’t the leave the average Vietnamese peasant, so the speak, any better or worse off. He still has to spend all day tending the rice patty. Any peripheral benefits are of debatable import.
The afore-mentioned patriot went on in his brainless way:
We are free of oppression.
We are free of fear.
Unfortunately, we are also, apparently, free of common sense and insight, if we are writing this shit. Fear is what W banks on more Stephen King. It’s how he got re-elected. It’s how he justified two wars and hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars in defense spending. The Patriot Act. The Department of Homeland Security. Unfettered use of torture by CIA interrogators.
Speaking of this Greatest of All Countries and CIA interrogators, the story of the “Iceman” recently came to light. You may remember him as the bruised-looking corpse on ice in one of the horrible pictures that emerged from Abu Ghraib. His name is known now, though it’s unpronounceable to me. His story is known now, too. He was detained by the CIA for “questioning.” This “questioning” involved breaking his ribs, putting a bag over his head, and crucifying him by hanging him from his arms with his arms cranked behind his back. The combination killed him. But, oh, we don’t torture people, according to the President. If you still believe anything that comes out if his mouth you are a fucking idiot.
Speaking of idiots, the idiot in question went on:
Our lives are utopian, yet most Americans never stop to think about the many brave young men and women who are standing at the gates, guarding our nation: the soldiers, sailors, airmen and women and Marines who are fighting, bleeding and dying in foreign lands so that we may remain free.
See? I told you he’d wheel out this old lie. They just can’t stop themselves. It’s like they need to keep dosing themselves with this intellectual opiate like Rush Limbaugh needs Oxycontin.
This is the patriotic static that spews regularly from the mouth of one Dick Cheney, the soulless, blank-eyed, blood-soaked warbot of the Bush Administration. His approval rating is half of what the president’s is, which is quite an accomplishment, seeing as the president’s JAR is about 38% right now. This is one of the cynical liars in the bush administration who said there was “no doubt” Hussein had WMDs, links to Al-Qaeda, and a nuclear weapons program. He had “no doubt” because all of their sources were either discredited (see “Curveball”) or based on crude forgeries and disputed analysis (aluminum tubes, yellowcake from Niger). He later denied saying what he said in front of millions of people (here).
Rice and Powell were saying the same things, though, as was the President and the SecDef. They all knew better. They are all equally culpable. I have no idea why Cheney receives more opprobrium than Powell other than he’s far less likable. I, personally, found Condoleeza’s scare tactic (“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) to be especially reprehensible. This was her response to a question asking her how sure she was of her sources. A relatively clever tactic, that: she was basically saying “I’m not sure and my sources aren’t iron-clad but we can’t take the chance.”
Of course, we can take the chance. We take the chance every day that North Korea and Iran sit on weapons programs. We take the chance every day that nuclear weapons rest in poorly-maintained silos in Russia guarded by underpaid scientists and technicians. We take the chance every day that Pakistan sits on nuclear weapons in the nexus of the “Islamofascist” world (the administration’s word. I use it because it amuses me). We take the chance every day because every tin pot dictator on Earth can make chemical weapons with technology from 1914. We just can’t take the chance with a nation in a strategically essential part of the world, sitting on the second-greatest proven oil reserves on Earth, threatening Israel and thumbing its nose at U.S. hegemony.
Of course, the public can’t handle the truth. The administration knew this. What disturbs me is that they lied blatantly to attain their Imperial goals.
When I see politicians lying so blatantly it makes me wonder. Are they stupid? Surely not. I’d like to think the levers of power in this country are more sophisticated than that, that any chimp with dumb-assed luck can’t become Preznit Drinky VIII. But the only people the President is accountable to are the unwashed masses, and as long as the Preznit gets his votes he can do anything else he wants. I’ve always known this, but the election of 2000 was a wake-up call for me. I simply didn’t realize the American electorate was so stupid. I said at the time that W was the least-qualified nominee for the Presidency that the Republican Party had ever nominated, and I stand by that analysis. He got elected anyway. I was stunned. I wasn’t bitter about Florida, because the fact that he even got close to 50% of the popular vote was inexcusable. I guess people were just tired of prosperity and a centrist government. Of balanced budgets. Of intelligent leaders.
W got elected because, having had to give knob-jobs to Klu Klux Klan members and Christian Ayatollahs for decades to cobble together a majority, the Republicans knew how to service ignorance. They knew that the vast majority of voters are hideously ignorant about the most fundamental aspects of politicians and politics in general. They knew how to throw splinter groups a bone, how to play on the fears of people with no intellectual curiosity and too much to lose, how to leverage money into political power. They understood this, I think, because the only thing they’ve ever had was money and the desire for more. They never had a mandate. They never were fighting the “good” war. They never had positions that were in agreement with the opinions of the majority a majority of the time. Dick Nixon never gave a shit about what the masses wanted. Reagan was good at keeping a positive image and smiling as he slashed taxes for the wealthy and exploded the national debt. So is Bush. But they’ll wave the flag, if that’s what people want. They’ll intimidate other countries so that we can all feel macho and proud about being Americans. They’ll be happy to vote a certain way on abortion or same-sex marriage if that delivers the one-issue voters and the bigot vote, respectively.
A note about the abortion thing: pro-life my ass. Every time I see those signs I want to shove them up the asses of the fucktards holding them. I want to shove those signs in the faces of the protesters wielding them and choke them to death with them. These people don’t know what pro-life is. These people go to the ballot box and write letters and support the death penalty, cuts in government services for the poor and elderly, and American pre-emptive war and they have the gall to call themselves pro-life.
If you are a member of the minority that doesn’t fit this profile than congratulations, my hat is off to you. You are a model American. You also don’t have many friends.
These people, the slaves of Dobson et al, were the ones who the Republican Majority threw a bone to with the Terri Schiavo vote. If this inane bill was all that is required to keep those yipping dogs at bay the Democrats should consider dumping NOW and adopting the position of the Christian Right on this issue. The Christian Ayatollahs deliver more votes.
Gasp! Is he serious? Yes, I am. I don’t trust Democrats very much. I certainly know that as long as money and political parties are allowed in politics determined by votes cast from ignorant voters our political system will remain a moral wasteland. Have you ever looked at the most popular Democratic Presidents of the last fifty years? They are indistinguishable from moderate Republicans. Look at Jack Kennedy, or Bill Clinton. I can’t tell the difference. Look at Hillary Clinton, for God’s sake. She has spent more time tacking to the right than a plane with no right wing. I don’t blame her. I would do the same thing if I had no morals and no vision. It’s what her husband did and it won him two terms. If I were a Republican I would want her to run for President in 2008. Not only is she basically a Republican already, none of the bigots will vote for a woman anyway. Unless Condi is the only other option, of course. And then the racist vote is gone and the Republican Party will self-destruct spectacularly. Because of that, Condi Rice will get the Republican Nomination the day monkeys jump out of my ass.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 3:36 PM 
