Archive for the ‘Iran-Contra’ Category

The salient point I’m about to serve up is not original.  It is not mine, I just happen to enthusiastically agree.

Names have not been changed to protect a single asshole.

Off we go.

If I hear another Republican dipshit criticize Obama’s reaction to the the Iranian election clusterfuck, when they all know as well as anyone else, for us to intervene or interfere anymore than we have is counter to foreign policy 101, with a country like Iran who’s history we’ve meddled in disastrously, I’ll projectile puke.

Shut up you idiots.  Our Man’s course of action is obvious, informed and reasonable.  What would you have him do?

Ridiculous and absurd.  Their own people asking us not to wade into their affairs again.  They are grateful for our support.  Yet they understand better than the royal “we”, that any influence perceived as American fuel in this struggle will dilute it and ultimately disease it.

Duh.

Iranians and Americans cannot afford for American government to be a component of this struggle.  It would ruin it.  It’s that simple.

The douchebags that persist in shouting that crap from the roof tops aren’t doing favors for anyone.  McCain, Bill Bennett, Lindsey Graham and Newt.  A message that only falls on the ears of the great unwashed.  The lowest common denominator.  The deaf.  The stupid.  The under informed.  The arrogant jingo assholes who think it’s our duty to force our bullshit on every other camper.

Work with me, it was this exact thinking that got us into the trouble we’re in now.

I’m here to tell you that terrorists will not be killing you in your bed.  They really are the least of our worries and even that’s an accident.  If you’re on a list as a suspected terrorist, your biggest problem will be boarding a commercial airliner.  The least of your inconveniences are buying guns or explosives.  If you are an evil doer (love those two words), your best bet is some destruction at home as opposed to interstate travel.  Our advice to you is to shit where you eat.  The current terrorist watch list of more than a million members, does not prevent anyone from purchasing guns or even explosives, interstate travel however, is far more difficult.

You bet.  Yeah baby we’re on it.  Fear not, the NRA has your back.

It’s a goddamn joke and we are pigs.

God has not even dick to do with it.

An election was stolen from the Iranian people.  They are indignant and I understand.  I think they just might be an example to us.  C’mon.  Their bravery is awesome.  We have been giant vaginas.  Forgive the gender aspect.  I’m just saying.

We should stay out of it for obvious reasons and let them show us how it’s done.

I’m getting tired of American hubris.  Who the fuck do we think we are?

Drinks for my friends.

We are barely thirty days in and already a legion of Guy Smiley conservatives are pinning the tail of the demise of America on Obama, our shiniest donkey. Our best hope.

They piss and moan about the deficit like they didn’t oversee the most gargantuan one in world history. Like they didn’t inherit a massive surplus. See kids, the first rule of business is you have to spend money to make it. You guys spent it foolishly. Now, we need to spend more money because you assholes did it wrong. Shut up. This is your fault. You’ve left us no choice. Shut up.

Bill Clinton wasn’t Jesus but he was Elvis.

Wall street is tanking. Frightening indeed. World markets are falling towards the most spectacular faceplant we may ever see. It sucks. It’s bad.

But, I’m not willing to let the most concentrated army of irresponsible greedy speculators be some sort of barometer for our economic future. They surf economic waves, they straddle inflated bubbles. They knew housing was gonna pop like a greasy zit. Of course they’re not happy with current stimulus effort because it’s not about them. At least not in the short term. They will have to wait. Every damn one of them has let the phrase ‘long term thinking’ escape their pie hole. Time for some of your own serum you fools.

If you’re looking to the stock market as any indicator at all about this administration’s potential for edible bacon, you’re a damn fool.

They love to gripe about tax increases. They never even bother to mention that damn near every workaday American will see their tax burden reduced and that any increase will only be for the top one percent. One percent that owns eighty percent of this country’s money and assets. We’re talking about ninety five percent of us who will spend that money because we need to as opposed to the richest folks on the planet that will never experience the onus of spending a single dime more on anything. When the bottom line sags, they cut jobs. They tip less. They trim their own nose hair. Sometimes, they fold their own socks.

This trickle down economic theory hatched by conservative birdbrain/icon Reagan has done nothing but shovel fuel into the engines of the ridiculously wealthy to steam us further and faster towards an endogamous caste system. We’re already a plutocracy. It’s a really bad idea that has been exclusively antithetical to the American Dream of economic equality and social parity.

Trickle Down Economics is an anathema to the American Middle class. After almost forty uninterrupted years of said philosophy, the once strong back of the American middle class is all but broken. It’s never been harder to simply work for a living wage.

They would have us believe that any and all spending on infrastructure is pork. Nevermind that everything from electrical grids to bridges and hospitals are crumbling like dirt clods in the hands of fourth graders in an arid desert. Nevermind that these projects will create jobs immediately that cannot be outsourced. Nevermind the dignity and self respect it will restore to men and women that want nothing more than a job that contributes in a tangible way to their own communities and pays the bills.

Nevermind FDR and The New Deal.

What about this doesn’t make sense to you greedy bastards?

Drinks for my friends.

Oil and pot. One syllable, three letters each. What’s the only difference? One’s legal and one’s not. People die, get kidnapped and beheaded at the behest of both. A simple product. A commodity. The bad people get rich either way. The terrorists are just as sexy.

Among the most dangerous and foolish of games.

The prison industrial complex. Mexican warlords. Where the money goes has not changed since Nixon. The only significant change has been the amount of money. Can you say exponential? The gleaming city is underwater. The levees have failed. The cash overflows. America’s Drug War is the second or third stupidest thing we’ve ever done. After slavery, Viet Nam and Iraq.

It may be the second or third most expensive.

Then there was The Pet Rock, The Osmonds and Spam as meat.

Lives lost and innocent imprisoned in numbers staggering and shameful. Pigs at the trough, persecuting, prosecuting and killing their own while they horde the filthy lucre. You want terrorism? It’s on your southern border and it’s blowing the fuck up. Terror not mutually exclusive with the North American continent anymore.

It’s state sponsored, by your state, by the US of A. As we speak, it spills over. Civilians slaughtered. Juarez, Tijuana, El Paso and San Diego. Every American city bends and groans under the weight of our archaic policies and a draconian incarceration non-solution.

Enforce, enforce, enforce.

We learned in the thirties that prohibition is wrongheaded and the furthest thing from efficacious mankind could possibly muster. Stupid then, stupid now. It gave rise to a brand of crime we came to call ‘organized’. I wonder why we called it that. Seems kinda non-nefarious. A non sequitur. What it is today, is bad news. Organized crime like this, is American made. Homegrown like Jazz and The Blues. Just like a gorgeous and unique art form, we are worldwide with the violence and the ignorance.

I worry about my parents. They winter in Yuma. They have the world’s best insurance but they still cross the border to save money on a few things.

This is where we are. This is what we’ve allowed to happen. It’s sick. The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. The conversation with my mother will be about their safety on the border, because of The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. Because they could be killed on a lazy Sunday.

This is bullshit. We need to shut this nonsense down. We reap what we have sown. Did you know Reagan dealt drugs? He also dealt arms to folks we’d all decided as a country we couldn’t do business with because they were brown and kinda socialist. Or was it the other way around? I forget.

Even in my world the clouds part.

Then there’s Our Man’s choice for Drug Czar (head of the ONDCP), Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. I don’t know much about this guy yet but he looks to be pretty progressive. Alternet calls him “a relatively enlightened cop.” Seattle is goddamn liberal. They’ve lowered marijuana as an enforcement priority and have needle exchange.

Maybe there’s potential.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed he will not be pursuing DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics. A policy shift that’s precisely 180 degrees out from the previous administration. It’s a waste of time and money and it foments distrust and fear. Smart move. Makes me smile.

Pretty big deal the aggregate of these issues alone. The departure they represent, despite them not being secondary or even tertiary to the electorate these days, it’s awesome. Forgive me but it is. It reveals a compassion and pragmatism people won’t recognize because it’s been so long since they’ve seen it.

Trust me, this is big.

My sincere hope is that it’s harbinger of things to come.

It he tells us he’s closing Gitmo, ending torture and the war in Iraq. Gonna wind down the defense budget a little, spend lots on infrastructure, healthcare and education. He seems to understand this is a long term deal. This is not your father’s President. His short game looks good too. Aggressive and decisive. Perhaps we should do something to revive the patient as opposed to speculating ad nauseum over what will be it’s demise.

If we could just stop spending money to kill people or be able to kill them better in the future. Not forever. Maybe for a few years. You know, a three year moratorium would just about get us out of this mess. It could work pretty well in the short term.

End the drug war, stop killing folks. Stop putting them in jail. Let the masses self medicate and get off your asses and allow America to cultivate hemp. Oil, nutrition and textiles in a crop requiring no pesticides that can be turned around every twelve to sixteen weeks. It’s illegal because it scared the shit out of Hearst (paper) and Rockefeller (oil) back in the thirties.

Good green bud has Pfizer horrified and vomiting.

Life is not a game and we’re not necessarily here to compete all the time. But when people succumb, when they become overly cynical and bitter. They have lost. They are losers on the human stage. They may succeed in some ways, but when they lose in important ways, nobody gives a damn.

Drinks for my friends.

7-11 has gotten pretty aggressive with branding of late. The products seem to be of quality and affordable. I tripped on a canard though. I bought some trail mix labeled “Swiss Trail Mix” that contained M&M’s. How can it be Swiss, if it’s most delicious ingredient is an iconic American candy? Not only do they contribute to the palatability of the recipe, they are the backbone in terms of contrasting flavors and textures. In concert with, but far beyond, the raisins.

It’s not a stretch to view this instance as an analog for the salt and pepper of Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Actually it is, but bear with me, there’s a tragic flaw. These two elements are not mixing with any sort of shared purpose. Too bad, ever had sea salt and ground pepper on calimari? Far less pepper is required than salt.

The Republicans are pepper.

No unity. Zero cooperation. What should be a symbiotic relationship, is the furthest thing from it. A contemporary example of the classic conundrum; the pot accusing the kettle of blackness and all the internecine feline agitprop.

Ladies and gentlemen we have a blog title.

I gotta stop buying those Cheladas.

Childish, churlish and obstructionist. They are the body designated and elected to serve our best interests. We The People.

“Watch for the classic tactic of American rightwing propaganda: Always accuse one’s opponent of doing the very thing that one is doing, especially if one has been caught or exposed while doing it.” -from my friend J’s blog

It’s what they accused Democrats of over and over when they were in charge. Obstructionism, when they encountered opposition to silly irresponsible tax cuts to the very rich. Fiscal irresponsibility is at the top of their lungs now, though it was the Republicans who ran the deficit up to a trillion dollars with chickenshit tax cuts and senseless wars.

Nothing proactive there. Our man understands he’s steering into deeper waters. He’s not happy about it but he understands that any way he turns the wheel, people on this boat will piss and moan. He’s got a very smart crew. They think the sea might be more manageable where we’re headed. He’s chosen course as best he can because we have to keep moving. Stand still you die.

Just who the fuck are these guys? Identity and principle have never been less important to the GOP. The tragedy is that in times so breathtakingly dire, they still think it’s 1994. They still think it’s a goddamn game.

They don’t see America. Criminals, pimps, whores, fastfood workers and union folks. We want to address the malaise at this point. Lawyers and midgets. Philanderers and microbioligists. Those chicks who paint you up at Macy’s. We all want it to work.

We’re a mystery to them. They know not what to make of us. See how they walk around with their mouths open?

I’m still fond of the notion that our government benefits from some modicum of parity. A ballast to power absolute. Checks and balances. It’s just these jackasses aren’t up to the ideal. Virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity perhaps. They’ve praticed a black art with such facility for so long that they now practice it exclusively for the sake thereof. Completely absent any regard for the people, their constituents. They have no moral or ethical imperatives. They have no center.

Like balloons in a thunder storm. No power against the Earth’s whipping wind. Notice how they keep falling? Have you seen the debris? The wind has no regard for faith. Faith is centered in the Midwest. So is wind. Huh.

You know why I like Biden despite him being such a loose lipped cashier? He’s the least wealthy member of the Senate and probably most of Congress too. The Guy’s broke despite having been there forever. The only guy in debt. Just like the rest of us, he’s got a mortgage. Now he’s the Vice Goddamn President. Not much speaks louder than that.

As near as I can tell, Our Man has done more in a month to reach across the aisle than Dumbya did in eight years. Magnanimous. Refreshing. Futile? Naw.

I think it’s important for this administration to continue being the better man. Extend a hand and when you get a fist, walk away. Spit over your shoulder. Maintain transparency and clarity all the time. Have the cameras rolling and the microphones on. Play us like they did, only in the right direction. There’s no sin in that.

Let the record show who played good honest ball and who didn’t bring a decent game. Who subsequently lied, obfuscated and willfully assumed ownership of the Sore Loser Trophy. All the Republicans are willing to offer is business as usual. I don’t need to point out they’ve screwed the pooch at the expense of the middle class for not just eight, but every year since Reagan. They would have us believe tax cuts to be the key to the Rapture.

Innocence in America ended with the assassination of Jack, Bobby, Malcom and Martin. Corruption enjoyed a nascent emergence with Nixon. Ford fell down the steps and Jimmy fell up. Corruption became an institution with Reagan and Iran-Contra among other things. 41 was hapless but not evil. Definitely a prick. Barbara was and still is, a platinum haired sasquatch. I bet she stinks like bad deer meat.

Clinton was almost exactly what we needed. He stepped in shit but it was mostly his own. Not ours. And forgive me, but he beat them back, they were at the gates brandishing torches and he sent them home. Rockstar.

It all became business as usual with the Dumbya administration. An administration so corrupt, it’s towering incompetence was overshadowed by ghoulish moral depravity and malignant avarice. These guys fucking sucked.

One last thought on this subject: Let’s not forget, despite the gale, it’s in Barack’s best interest to deliver this vessel into more pleasant waters.

By the way. The Cartoon in the NY Post? Fucking racist.

Now they’re shrill about all the humor comparing Bush to a monkey because he was a dipshit. See, that was legit in my mind because it was the truth. The funniest shit is almost always the most truthful. Nothing to do with racism. Whenever blacks have been degraded in this country to the point of dehumanization, monkeys have been used as overt and shameless imagery.

A dead chimp and the caption: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The Post is owned, along with Fox, by Rupert News Corp.

That may be all boys and girls. I had to get that out.

Make sure you check him before he wrecks him. Our Man. Stay engaged. Think globally, act locally. Judge not lest ye be.

I mean, don’t do what I do, do what I say.

Drinks for my friends.