Tannishblog

If we dare seek a future glance into the Bush Administration’s abysmal environmental policy, we need look no further than China. China is well known for lacking not only safety policies for factory workers, but also lacking sanctions and restrictions for polluters. Earlier this year we learned about toxic water near a MSG factory, causing many of the poorest agricultural neighbors forced to drink from streams and wells serious intestinal problems.

Today we hear about an explosion at a petrochemical plant and the subsequent release of a 50-mile long slick of highly toxic waste floating seaward toward some highly populated areas. Typical to any totalitarian government, lies, cover-ups and a series of “blame game” attacks follow the poison slick downriver. Not unlike the FEMA disaster of New Orleans 2005, which will likely mark one of the greatest disasters in American history, so too will this gob of petroleum by-products be seen as one of China’s most disastrous accidents.

The similarities of policy are staggering: Neither government cares about the health of its people, neither care about clean air or potable water. No thought is given to the future of generations or to what kind of world we are leaving for our children. Only economic growth (read: money) and political strength (read: military power) matter to the leaders of both China and the United States. Both nations are bent on a myopic policy of unrestrained growth unmindful of any destructive impact it may have on society, humanity or our fragile planet.

In both nations leaders are driving the force of hyper-industrialization blindly. We, the powerless people, must stand aside and watch as our future is abandoned, our children’s children pay untold costs, and our globe heats up on its way to extinction of all life. All the while we pray that we don’t get run over by the sightless drivers of our political malcontent.

In this time of year, when Holiday Cheer (horns blaring impatiently near shopping malls, the occasional vulgar shout as another vehicle takes the parking spot you scoped out) and Purchasing Orgy (”More, more, cheaper, cheaper…”) collide, we again hear the insipid yet bucolic strains of music of Christmas Past. It should remind us of better times. Not, however, at the expense of current times. Perhaps we should update some of our favorites to reflect the season as it is during the New American Century.

I don’t profess such talents, but If I tried, I would start with something about a White Phosphorous Christmas, in honor of all the Iraqi civilians burned by the oxydizing political effects of our nation’s Culture of Life:

“First, I think it should be a stated goal of United States policy to not melt the skin off of children. As a natural corollary to this goal, I think the United States should avoid dropping munitions on civilian neighborhoods which, as a side effect, melt the skin off of children.

You can call them ‘chemical weapons’ if you must, or far more preferably by the more proper name of ‘incendiaries.’ The munitions may or may not precisely melt the skin off of children by setting them on fire; they do melt the skin off of children, however, through robust oxidation of said skin on said children, which is indeed colloquially known as ‘burning’…

No doubt the Three Wise Men are rolling in their graves.

You know what frosts my tinsel?

The current trend in holiday retail sales reportage, as if this is yet another spectator sport, is vulgar. Since when is it important for the MSM to announce the retail sales? Whose idea is this anyway? Even the systematic destruction of a foreign land takes a step aside for the “news” of how people in this – the most fat-rich nation on Earth – spend money.It’s disgusting.

If holiday shopping were an Olympic event, it would follow these rules: The gun sounds when the turkeys are carved and gobbled. Then we all put our joggers on and race to the nearest mall, armed only with greed and plastic money with which to spread Holiday Cheer through Purchasing Power. The last one with a positive credit rating loses. Only by outspending ourselves compared with last year can we prove to the Spirit of Christmas that we’ve got what it takes for another round of Holiday Retail Frenzy™.

The first Saturday after Thanksgiving, we hear about how Wal-Mart and Target boasts good sales, while Sacks and Needless Markup struggle. What: are these sports teams or corporate entities (what’s the difference, anyway?) Who cares how other people are spending?!? This is important, how?

Now I hear today is “Cyber Monday,” for Christ’s Sake. It’s not enough I tax my feet for the pleasure of Corporate Greedmongers, I now have to One-Click my way into bankruptcy as well. Let’s remember the rules for filing have changed in favor of the lenders, so buyers beware.

Has anyone heard a national news story about feeding the homeless this Thanksgiving? Has anyone heard broadcasted a story about visiting ill children on MSM? How about locally sponsored Church events? If these things are happening, they’re invisible. The message is clear: being nice is not news. The media doesn’t care, but it does care about how much money we spend on holiday gifts.

The holidays in America, if you’ve been under a rock (or maybe in a bombed-out building in Falluja) is about money. Everything in America is about money. To quote Pink Floyd: “Don’t give that do goody-goody bullshit.” Only the bottom line matters.

Happy Holidays

After a while, politics gets boring. Media is repetitive, uninspired, and still – despite all the Internet accomplishes – our main source of information. Don’t bother to stifle your yawns. Important news is never printed; Bodypolitik does not want us to know.

Most of the political blogs I read struggle to refresh the stale in much the same way as newspapers. As the new news replaces the old news, one becomes the other. Blogging off the newswire is doomed to the same procedural limitations as the MSM, yet more so for being further from the source. The sheer volume of fourth-hand virtual reporters gives way to homogenization of reportage, as surfers only read people with whom they tend to agree. I, for one cannot stomach Michele Malkin, and to peruse Powerline sends bile upward.

We are preaching to the choir, Left and Right: no one else is listening anymore. How many times need I read reinforcements of my political stance? My worldview needs no reinforcement, although it is nice to know others share it. Politicking to the likeminded is counter productive. This is not debate. The open-mindedness of Hamilton-Jeffersonian discourse is dead in America. No doubt they hated one another, as does the Left and Right, but they shared a common understanding of the healthiness of political debate. We’ve lost that.

All you who feel they harbor an open political mind can speak out now. I write in generalities, seeking an overview, a pattern. I speak for the vast majority of Americans who waste too much of themselves in the endless struggle to “get by.” Yes, there are a few of you who have more-than-average time and/or interest to follow the dichotomy of American politics. You are too few to influence the many, or to sway a vote. I note your presence now sit down.

There are always the fence-sitters, fewer these days, for whom the vast majority of political contributions are spent to knock one way or the other. They who own the most power in our upcoming elections, simply for their unpredictability, for whose indecision the rest of us must pay in tolerating banal political tripe, are the crux of what remains of political discourse in America.Should any read our bloggings and be swayed? Are we whistling into the hurricane force winds of war-weariness and political disgust? As we preach to the acolytes, will any dissenting voice wander in from the storm? While we’re all beating our drums, one question rises above all:

Does it matter?

File this alongside of other empty promises made by GWB, like his “uniter, not divider” spiel or vowing to bring morality back to the White House. “No Child Left Behind” ended up being No Child Left Unfunded (or is that Untested?). Dare we say “Mission Accomplished?”

Now we learn, via WaPo, that (gasp!) Mr. Bush’s promise, boldly called his “Vision for Space Exploration,” is more political vaporware. NASA doesn’t have the money.

A large deficit in NASA’s troubled shuttle program threatens to seriously delay and possibly cripple President Bush’s space exploration initiative unless the number of planned flights is cut virtually in half or the White House agrees to add billions of dollars to the human spaceflight budget.

Sources familiar with ongoing negotiations between NASA and the White House say the administration has no intention of spending extra money to deal with a shortfall that some space experts say could exceed $6 billion from 2006 to 2010, when NASA plans to retire the shuttle for good.

We know where that money is going: Halliburton, et al. After all, who is going to pay for the white phosphorous chemical weapons we use to combat terrorism and its phantom WMD’s? That money has to come from somewhere. NASA, build on the backs of Democratic administrations past, seems a likely fall guy for diversion of funds into the pockets of Republican shareholders present, in the guise of “rebuilding.” Right: Ask Philip Bloom about that.

George is consistent, I’ll say that. He fails to deliver even now, when his “political capitol” is spent and the bills are overdue. He creates the Department of Homeland Security, which can’t function during a crisis. His Federal Emergency Management Agency incompetence cost untold lives, and his War on Terror has turned America into a nation of terrorists in the eyes of the world. The only Department that works in this administration is the Department of Empty Promises, one which no one admits exists.

While the village idiot of Crawford, Texas is flying around Asia on a free (to him) sightseeing tour of ego-bolstering proportions, the dogs of War are nipping at the heels of the few congressmen brave enough to demand change. The Big Dog, of course, is (the) Dick Cheney, who intends to continue to bombast any detractors. As a one-man Ministry of Propaganda, he has little choice. The Party bet all its cookies on Iraq. They forces through their agenda with great relish and fervor, and everyone involved knows this sad truth: There’s no going back.

Any group who embraces the hard line, aggressive politics characteristic of the Bush administration must do so by burning many metaphorical bridges. Now, their collective backs are against the raging torrents of a wide, deep river of discontent, verily foaming with distrust, and all the bridges used to get there are blackened stumps protruding from the rising waters. In this political era of recriminations and regrouping, some truths can no longer be avoided. To wit:

“The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight, but any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false,” Mr. Cheney said. “Senator John McCain put it best: ‘It is a lie to say that the president lied to the American people.’ ”

I agree with that. The President did no lie to the American people. His keepers did. George W-is for-Wimp Bush only did what he was told, only said what others told him to say. That’s George’s secret; he believes what he says, and he’ll provide a good showing because of this. That the information fed to the empty figurehead of the Republican Party (heil!) is erroneous does nothing to deter the earnest, shameless delivery of untruths to the public. The evil troika of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney are the liars; Mr. Bush is the fall guy.

So while the visage of our Cowboy-in-Chief is galloping around as far away as his handlers can send him, the real work needs addressing. This is stuff of subtlety and nerve, of which our Favorite Shrubbery has little, and so it falls to the Presidential Insurance Policy (would you want Cheney in the top job?) to manifest his ire at all truth seekers, and in so doing, spin a web of lies to reinforce the aging web already in place.

“The terrorists believe that by controlling an entire country,” he said, “they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia. They have made clear, as well, their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death in the United States.”

Sounds threatening, doesn’t it? Yet America believes that by controlling an entire country, we will be able to overthrow other governments in the region, and to establish a radical Democratic Empire that encompasses much of the same areas Mr. Cheney mentions as well as all of Europe, the two Americas, and much of the Pacific Rim. We have made it clear, as well, our ultimate ambition to create a United States of Earth in the form of economic slavery and American dominance of all markets throughout the world.

That, my friends, is the goal of the New American Century, as has been hinted at for the past sixty years, since the end of World War 2. Many of the administrations critics have many of the same goals, overall. Only the methods are debated. As a whole the entire establishment of our so-called Two Party System is in agreement about American Global Domination in one form or another. The Cold War taught us that economics, utilized properly, can be just as effective a weapon as a cluster bomb. The term “corporate warfare” is not always a metaphor. In light of this it’s easy to see our great nation has been involved in some kind of warfare constantly for the past century.

And we, the enablers, the blind, self-absorbed and overweight, hyper-consumers of America, look the other way while our nation dominates the world. Some of us think this is a good thing, but most of the world disagrees. I’d like to end this rant with one obvious point: we’re grossly outnumbered; China alone has over one billion people. When push and shove collide, as they inevitable will, we cannot possible win against such odds.

Yesterday we learned about Philip Bloom, grafting to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today, we read about an Ex-convict taking bribes as comptroller in Iraq. Millions of dollars are involved in this case. Robert J. Stein, despite a conviction of felony fraud (or perhaps because of it), was hired as a financial officer of the American occupation in Iraq, received – according to authorities - “bribes, kickbacks and gratuities amounting to at least $200,000 per month.”

While we fire bomb civilians, we graft money earmarked for rebuilding. While we Scrape clear the residue of fused soil and depleted phosphor, we steer money back to our selves, thereby stealing from the POTUS.
Corruption is what we voted into Washington DC. We are bankrupting our nation for the sake of swindlers, liars, and thieves like Mr. Stein, of whom a former boss said: “This guy is a thief. He’s a con artist and a crook.” That is the kind of people hired by the Bush administration, and its cronies. If they’re not completely unqualified, like Mr. Brown, formally of FEMA, they’re quite capable crooks.

God, but this is depressing…

Big Dick Cheney is well rested, after his recent health problems, and willing to take on the Democrats. I like his rhetoric, only because it’s so thin: It seems – again – that disagreeing with the elite by questioning our leaders integrity regarding the case for war is “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.” That is, besides the lies that got us here in the first place.

Also, to question our leaders, after insurmountable evidence against the war in Iraq, is “making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war.” Perhaps “making a play for political advantage” during a national crisis is somehow more acceptable?

I think not.

I have to say I’m not surprised about the grafting charges brought against Philip H. Bloom. He is victim of the same mindset the rest of the warmongering elite suffers: the end justifies the means. Our sorry excuse for foreign policy screams out every time Our Favorite Shrubbery speaks about “staying the course,” that the ends justify the means. Bloodshed and torture are nothing against the ideals we are shoving down the throats of others. Our national penchant for no-bid contracts, in both Iraq and in Louisiana, cries real tears that the ends justify the means. Due process is only a bother when we are trying to rule the world. Now we find that entrepreneurs find any excuse to scarf up all the riches they can get, because the ends justify the means. What better end is there to the American mind?

Money is GOD! Power is currency to the Political elite; with power, one can get more money. Money is power to the business elite; with more money, one can but more power. Together, we see an endless reciprocality of privilege, manifesting a paradigm of greed, dishonor, and war. Such is the currency of our deity, and the virtues we give lip service to become our sacrifice to the God of the Almighty Dollar to whom America kneels in obeisance.

We, who by doing nothing default to acceptance of this God and his adherents. We, kept enslaved by materials wealth, drained of spiritual acumen, are the victims of the Money God to whom our leaders pray. By pretending to look away, by avoiding our civil duties of voting and political participation, we allow the unthinkable. Victims, yes, as well as enablers. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

I knew this when I voted against our useless president: twice. I know this even better now. Mr. Bloom is an adherent of a false God, but he is only a minor manifestation of a larger sickness. And, we may not recover.

“Ooh, what’s that smell? The smell of death surrounds you.” -Lynard Skynard

A joint statement by the American Embassy and the United States military command called the situation “totally unacceptable” and said American officials “agree with Iraq’s leaders that mistreatment of detainees will not be tolerated.”

Can you smell the hypocrasy here? Who taught the Iraqi Security Forces? The same people who have blood on their hands. If it is “totally unacceptable” over there, so it is over here, too. As for the ousting of Saddam Hussein, I’ll quote another well-known song:

“Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss…” -The Who