Rudy Rudy Rudy, this deep in Bush's doody

I am so glad to know that I am not the only one who cannot stand Rudy Giuliani.

And Another Thing

John Kerry doesn't seem to be the kind of man (I use the term purposively) to bear grudges or to indulge in smug personal comparison as a balm to setback.

But I am, (not the man part) and so in that spirit I offer this observation:

George W. Bush may have once again pulled the presidency of the United States of America out of his hat after running against a man better than him in every way, but he will always be rich white trash -- as you can see by how his daughters turned out.

More From The Writing God

"As for George W. Bush and his neoconservative helpers, they will go down in history as the grave diggers of the American empire."

And Now For Something Completely Different

For all writers, editors, book-creating people everywhere, a fun new blog to read. I love the tagline: Max Perkins, he dead. So what next?

The Onion Changes Focus.

The nation's leading source of social and political commentary based on farce has now apparently opted for irony.

Real Reporter Alive and Working in this Country Alert!

Keith Olberman, we salute you.

Another (not so blatant) Reflection on the Stupidity Theme

History has been supplanted by an imaginary past -- and no less by a bloodthirsty imaginary future.

Fear! Loathing! -- All Is Explained

I adore Simon Schama. I even own his BBC series on the History of England. In fact, there is a disc in there (or two) about the religious wars of the Charleses and the Jameses and the odd commoner, over more than a century rallying the masses to kill for God.

So are the Democrats the Catholics and the Republicans the Protestants in this meme?

{edit} oh foo I said "meme" -- forgive me . . .

Stupidity Alert

Dear insulted fundamentalist:

Why descendants of the Enlightenment think you are stupid.

The Illogical Logic of Nah-Nah-Nah

Of course, some people voted for Bush for rational reasons. Haliburton executives, lobbyists, people who don't want to lose their cushy jobs at the White House. But what about regular people, non-connected, not powerful people, people who aren't going to get anything but the shaft from this Administration?

Why did you do it? the whole rational world asks, not really expecting an answer. How can disaster answer peace? Does a swarm of pirhana explain itself to anything in its way?

So far, the take seems to be:

"We did it because we are sick and tired of being called stupid, of being laughed at by the Democrats and the elite media and having our faith belittled."

Well, let me say this about that 'faith': I fart in its general direction.

So many Democrats are heading for the covers, bleating "we must make nice with the Religious Right."

Crap!

To someone who disagreed with Bush on Iraq, is terrified of what the deficit will do to interest rates, does not want our country addicted to oil and yet voted for Bush because he/she is tired of being called stupid -- do you think your vote will change that?

You only showed the world that you are powerful. You confirmed that you are stupid.

To be fair, you may only be duped. The end result of watching too much Fox television and listening to a cultish perversion of Christianity that leads down a dark and hateful road. You say you are the one with moral values, and again confirm you are either stupid or a dupe.

When the national treasure has been plundered, and countless more die in Iraq and GOD knows where else, when Social Security has been turned over to Morgan Stanley, when Labor is gone, and slave wages are the norm -- then will you stupid dupes, clinging to your SuperJesus, wake up?

sent by a friend; I don't know the source, other than on a cosmic level

How the Nazis Did It

I stopped at my favorite coffee store, Boulevard Coffee, in the funky part of Carmichael. It’s a place that was established in the late 70s, was very hippy-ish, whole-foods-ish, wheat-flour-ish. Now they sell Droll Designs and $15 hazelnut-flavored honey and are the only place I can find my favorite coffee beans (Tanzania peaberry). I go there on the way home from the chiro, and I went there today.

I felt even bluer – I had just found out that my chiropractor voted for Bush.

I ordered my coffee beans and looked at the Droll and overheard this snippet of a conversation:

One woman: Everyone who has come in here has been so cranky this morning.

Another woman: They must be Democrats.

It sent a current of cold rage running through my being, the way she said “Democrats” with such dismissive contempt.

And I thought, that is the answer to the question I have heard off and on through my life: “How could the Nazis gain power in Germany?”

Because that woman said “They must be Democrats” the way the Nazis, and the people who joined/tolerated them, used to say “They must be Jews.”

How to reason with a mindset like that?

There is no reasoning. There is only fighting and winning or losing and what follows.

Evil is truly afoot in the land, and the ones who are “power-up” think I am anathema.

The Crusades; une foi, un roi, un loi; St. Bartholomew's Day 1572; Cromwell; Salem; theocrats never die; and more are born every day . People can be dumb quite easily. We thought the dark ages were behind us; but like weeds, ignorance threatens constantly.

We Lay Down and Wept

The America of my childhood is gone
A death, after a long, cruel wasting disease.

I am older today
Than yesterday

And I will not be in Jersusalem next year
or the next

I am like the woman wailing
for a lost love called my demon lover
and who I know in my memory
as Tamuz, Dumuzi,
Zion.

They Can Kill Us

But we will not commit suicide.

Count the votes. My god, do we even have to say it?

No surrender.
No surrender.
No surrender.

With the House, the Senate, and no need to be re-elected, what do you think the Bushies will do to our country, our world?

omigawd icantstandit

I feel like throwing up, I'm so nervous about tomorrow's election.

The Bushies have simply got to go.

(PS: I send out to the universe a quiet, heartfelt "thank you" to Craig Crawford of the Congressional Quarterly for his comment yesterday on one of the gabfests about the "gift" spin on the OBL tape. He was obviously disgusted with such a mindset, and it was just nice to see that disgust among the delicate sensibilities of the others.)

And Nothing to get Hung About

"let me take you down, Strawberry Fields, where nothing is real . . ."


So OBL's tape is a little gift to the Bush Campaign.

A little gift to the prez
this revenant that keeps on giving
the wizard of 9/11 become George W's
Partner in terror.

Dumuzi to his Gilgamesh

And we, the hapless people, resign our virgins to their flame.

The Bruce, The Spirit of America, The Quarterback, the Endgame, ah FOUR MORE DAYS!

Big, Left, Outside in an inspiring, heart-lifting, goomba-go screed that gave me chills, man:

Democracy will be reborn on Tuesday… Or it will die.
That is all.

(My son reminds me that there are other democracies in the world than this one. Point taken.)

Perlustration and its Branch Vessels

Midlife Mama says it better than I can.

Heavy sigh, I so relate to this post . . .

If You Meet The Dr. Hunter S. Thompson On the Road, Do You Kill Him?

So what have I become, a pandector, a perlustrationist?

That is why George W. Bush is President of the United States, and Al Gore is not. Bush simply wanted it more, and he was willing to demolish anything that got in his way, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not by accident that the Bush White House (read: Dick Cheney & Halliburton Inc.) controls all three branches of our federal government today. They are powerful thugs who would far rather die than lose the election in November.

Of All the Lines I've Loved Before . . .

Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae is one of the most wonderfully written books I have read. Her sentences (sheesh, now I am self-conscious and will write drivel this whole post) are Fizzies of intelligence. And James Wolcott's site is my current fascinating new thing in Writers' Houses of the Holy.

But it is a line like this

To the Freudian psyche, hunger is the opposite of love, or something like that.

that reminds me just how great Cintra Wilson is. And besides, Christian Bale has been turning me into a dirty old lady lately. (Read the article, and you'll know.)

L'il Devil

A seeming aside from politics:

A certain person ,would like to keep her blog semi-private, and so no links will appear in this post. But, big-mouthed-frog that I am, I must comment because I must on her first post.

a doxy may be a floosie-type female
but when I read the word
doxy
after reading the word
Wormwood

And thinking of Wormwood as a permutation of Satan

My brain, in its sorting function, leapt from doxy to doxology

and I think of doxology as a sort of spiritual proclamation

And so my response to Wormwood's Doxy was

How Fun! a devil's advocate, an open mind, explorer, seeker!

Wormwood's Doxy.

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?

AP Wire 10/22/2004 Two Arrested for Hurling Pies at Columnist

The god of writing says it better than I could. He says everything better than I could.

I do like the notion of the Great White Beastie being attacked by Al Pieda.

Mea Grossa

I realize the language I used in the previous post is harsh. I could modify it, but my outrage is not modified, nor mollified; and though I am embarrassed to have been tacky, I let the language stand.

Makes You Want to Pull Their Ears and Send Them Into a Corner Till They Fully Comprehend the Entirety of Their Foolishness

(Except for Ginsberg, for Whom There is Not Even a Scintilla of Hope)

So I am watching my Daily Dose and Chris Matthews starts chortling with Ben Ginsberg over what a GAFFE! Teresa HeinzKerry made by suggesting that Laura Bush's life experience as the consort of the Bad Prince of the Bush Dynasty might be not as "big" as the experience of a woman who has also had a job in her adult life in addition to doing all the stay-at-home female-type crap.

Ooh-hoo! Did Teresa ever put her foot in it this time! Hee! Isn't it funny she dared say a woman with a job has more experience in life than a woman who has never had a job!!

Fuck them. Fuck them hard and with a splintery stick goddammit don't they know how hard it is for us women out here in the world with our jobs (without which we would be bag ladies).

Damn straight we women with jobs have a "bigger" experience than the Laura Bushes of this world and how dare Matthews and Ginsberg find it so cute and funny.

And fuck Andrea Mrs. Greenspan Mitchell for not putting them in their place.

Fuck them all.

Looking Glass Based Thinking

Who would have thought, not too long ago, that the Republican President of the United States, running for election, would be personally and politically aligned with the fascist leader of the ex Soviet Union?

Pre Magna Carta Thinking

There comes a time when the jaw has dropped so low there is nowhere further for it to go.

One of the latest Bushie -- I'm going to quit saying "Republican" now; this is beyond political party. This crowd in the WH has subverted and usurped the Republican party. These people are closer to neo-religio-corporate fascists than anything the traditional Grand Old Party would recognize.

One of the latest Bushie talk points is to accuse John Kerry of pre 9/11 thinking -- as if this is a bad thing! If we succomb to post 9/11 thinking, don't the terrorists win?

But read this NYT article (it's long, but we're Democrats; we are not reading wusses). The Bushies have perverted thinking itself. Thinking is no longer required; hell, to them it is suspect.

The Emperor Has No Bowtie

If you were there, then you know.

In that 30 minutes, Jon Stewart showed why he is the only Real Man in political comment today.

It was beautiful.

It was exciting.

Will Jon Stewart still be living next week?

Style Points to the Death

GWB refuses to answer questions about the incompetence of his drive into Iraq. Substitutes swagger, smirk, and lecture.

Republican lackeys applaud his bravado! -- and make clear that Georgie's style points are more important than our soldiers' (never mind Iraqi civillians') lives.

Incredible.

How About a Nice Crap Sandwich?

I have noticed a pervasive Republican "legislative" technique:

Give a bill a lovely name i.e. Clear Skies, No Child Left Behind and fill it up with what you really want. Then ridicule Democrats for objecting to it.

Like making someone a vinegar sandwich on their favorite bread, then deriding them for refusing to eat it.

Greater Than Themselves Redux

The polls say, and I have heard actual people say, and I have said:

I am voting not for John Kerry but AGAINST George W. Bush and the whores he rode in on.

This is not about how (insert negative descriptor) Kerry is. It is about how truly gawdawful is this regime, not a presidency by any decent, American definition.

I happen to think John Kerry will be a very good president. He will reconnect us to the world community. He will restore teeth to the EPA, stop the looting of the national treasury. Those alone are worth the trip to the ballot box.

As good as John Kerry will be, George II is worse.

So when Republican talking heads do that gloat/snarl/ridicule thing they do and say "no one likes John Kerry. More Democrats say they are voting against George Bush than for their own candidate" the best answer is:

Exactly. That is how bad the Bush Administration is for this country.

And that is what Kerry/Edwards should campaign on. This is not the time to like John Kerry. This is the time to hate George Bush.

This Post Hath No Title

Why write when this man writes?

That Hamilton Woman

Masha Hamilton has a new story available online. And dont forget about her WONDERFUL Staircase of a Thousand Steps, and coming soon The Distance Between Us.

As Brooke says in Middlemarch, "I only mention it . . . "

Greater Than Themselves

What Democrats also forgot was that McCain is an ambitious, self-interested politician. His new relationship with Bush is simply a recalculation of that self-interest

Q. Does caving in to Karl Rove negate McCain's valiant resistance to his North Vietnamese captors?

Discuss.

Ockam's Swift Boat

blah blah blah ... blahdee blah-blah ... snerk . . . snark

Q o' the Day:

When you're on a swift boat in the Mekong Delta, who do you hope is its captain?

_____ A. John F. Kerry

_____ B. George W. Bush

(Correct answer saves your life?)

America Doesn't Know

In this artilcle in Salon, an Iraqi asks a journalist, "Why does America hate poor people so much?"

America doesn't know it hates poor people. After so many years -- since Reagan really -- of slurs against liberal government and open hatred for goverment itself, America has lost its memory. We forget why we wanted our own goverment in the first place. We forget the power of government to generally make the lives of common people better; what our Founders called the general welfare has lost its standing.

We are reverting, losing our democracy. Aristocracy has re-emerged. Sons and daughters of the powerful get the good jobs, the coveted positions. Hangers-on (Wolfowitz) and jesters (Rice) get the key appointments.

The government trough feeds not the common welfare but the connected few who can get their snouts in.

It translates to contempt for poor people, or for anyone who can't afford to have or be anything and everything. You always hate the one you are guilty of neglecting, even if it is yourself.

So why does America hate poor people? Because they are the testimony to our failure.

Political Mythology

Just a thought:

John Kerry is John O'Neil's Io.
Alan Keyes, on the other hand, will follow any cow.

In the Future, we will not know how many blogs we have.

So I signed up to post a comment on a friend's blog (ooh, that was easy!) and got this blog.  I still haven't got to the place where I post to MidlifeMama.

Back later.