Tannishblog

The right wing blogophiles have been having fun dissing Al Gore and his supposed energy-gluttony. One goes as far as to compare Gore’s Tennessee mansion with George Bush’s four bedroom Texas ranch, as if apples and cucumbers have anything in common. The talk is about double standards and how Al’s a hypocrite. Try as I might, I cannot find a reference to the hypocrisy of a whole administration for four years of beating dissenters over the head with "Support the Troops" while ignoring the needs of wounded soldiers in VA hospitals. Can you?

The denizens of Right Blogistan are slamming the man, Hollywood’s latest fling, because he’s the darling of the Left Coast. They cannot slam his massage. Even the head-in-sand diehards are grudgingly and grumpily conceding that the weather has been uppity. So, the only thing left is to discredit the dude who has the gumption of forcing them to look where they don’t want to.

My friend and blogging antithesis, Leucanthemum, has set me off again. In her latest column for her town newspaper, repeated here, she compares the Iraqi War with the Chicago Bears. Let that sink in a moment.

She’s referring to the media’s coverage of President Bush’s flip-flop on the status of the war; from "Absolutely, we’re winning," to "We’re not winning and we’re not losing." (As if the latter comment makes any sense. My father used to talk like that: "I may not always be right, but I’m never wrong." Say What?)

My favorite blogging flower defends the whole debacle, as usual. She’s consistent. But to compare a war to a football game leaves much to ponder. First, football, as all team sports and competitions, are highly stylized battles. That’s their appeal. That such events are entertainment to the masses and by extension huge business enterprises says mush about the un-evolved nature of human tendencies (see yesterday’s posting.) In may ways we’re still approach live much like Neanderthals.

Second, her comparison of a war where, I remind her, people are being killed, to a sporting event shows a great flaw in any person still foolish enough to support this tragedy - the dehumanization and trivialization of systemized, politically sanctioned murder.

Not to flippantly compare a war  with football games, but it seems to me, our troops have a hugely loyal fan base, and a history of mostly winning, even when they’re statistical underdogs.

Oh, but you are.

It’s still midseason, not even at playoffs, yet.   Of course we’re not winning, right now.  But that doesn’t mean we won’t, as long as we don’t do something Chicago-sports-stupid,  like giving up and coming home before the season is over.

The popular eighties band the Police sang about "Too many cameras and not enough food," and that mentality is exemplified by the war-is-spectator-sport crowd. They would rather see blood and destruction than a more evolved attitude of, say, rebuilding Iraq without losing billions of earmarked dollars in the process. I remember Hockey games were more popular with blood on the ice. While the home crowd is cheering, people in Iraq are dying. While we bolster support for a lagging team whose fans are slipping away, collateral damage is leveling cities, destroying families, exacerbating a cultural hatred that needed no help, destroying the lives and future of children both in Iraq and at home when they learn their beloved parents are not coming home.

This is not a sport, people!

Democrats.com is pounding the impeachment drum. AfterDowningStreet.org is clambering for a reason to exist. Together, they are trying to turn December 10 from Human Rights Day into Impeachment Day. Check it out here.

While I’m all for giving the buggers their due, for forcing accountability up the bung holes of government, the time for impeachment is past. There simply is not enough time left in G. Warmonger Bush’s presidency to pull it off. It would take at least a year to gather all the information and prep it for litigation. There’s quite a bit out there. Just sifting through all his crimes to parse out the strongest arguments would take months. By then we’d have only a year left to affect the impeachment - or less, perhaps. We’d be cutting things thin enough for the remaining Republicans to shuffle their feet a bit and, before we know it, the dude’s back at the ranch, smirk and all.

No. Impeachment is not an option. But there’s more than one way to skin a fat cat.  I’d like to wait until the perps are out of office, then try them for war crimes. We can practice on Rummy. Are their statutes of limitation to human rights abuses? For war profiteering? I’m sure the Geneva conventions revisionism is prime fodder for litigious inclinations. On top of that, let’s sue the war profiteers, then give the money to military families adversely affected by Our National Sham(e). Let them that got us into this pay for the right to use American blood to leverage personal profit.

Sue them. Try them. Lock them up. See what their money buys them in prison.

To my eyes, the big story today is not Senator Allen’s defeat. He did that to himself, and we all saw that coming. Even the momentum of Democratic victory is only a small story. While the ousting of Rummy is welcome, it too is small compared to today’s spewing from Rush Limbaugh. It seems Oxycontin-boy feels the need to both cover his prodigious ass and to distance himself from the losing party.  I’m sure the following snippet is being echoed everywhere else, so why not here?

Now, I mentioned to you at the conclusion of the previous hour that people have been asking me how I feel all night long. I got, "Boy, Rush, I wouldn’t want to be you tomorrow! Boy, I wouldn’t want to have to do your show! Oh-ho. I’m so glad I’m not you." Well, folks, I love being me. (I can’t be anybody else, so I’m stuck with it.) The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I’m going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, "Well, why have you been doing it?" Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat Party and liberalism does.

What? Is he Aquarian? Water-boy to the stars? No. What he is admitting to is to being a political hack who’ll say anything to promote Lies, Injustice and the Conservative Agenda (r). Sore loser! I’d go on, but Huffington Post has bettered me on this. Not that that’s so difficult…

The really twisted part is that Rush will probably keep his job, continue his verbal vomit, and most of his listeners won’t care that he has - by his own admission - assassinated his credibility. At least we can be fairly sure Rummy won’t be back.

I despair. It’s one thing to hear the psychological warfare perpetrated upon good people in the name of Republican power mongering when those people are strangers. One can dismiss their ramblings easily. But when the smear campaign comes from a friend, one whom you care for… it becomes personal. The temptation to rebut by line item is strong, but I’ll resist. I know futility when I see it.

It hurts my sensitive Democratic heart to hear a friend so brainwashed by the Exurbian Psychosis gripping this nation. It angers me when references to 9/11 justify failed political policies that have to date killed and maimed more Americans that the original heinous act. The death toll is rapidly approaching 9/11 totals. Any doctor, psychologist, or spiritual mentor will tell you that there comes a time to end the grieving, a time to begin healing. America needs that right now.

It seems every time someone invokes September 11 for political gain, a soldier dies. Enough already! Let’s begin to heal. I can only hope that, if the elections aren’t electronically altered, the brakes can be applied to our foreign policy train wreck, our fiscal irresponsibility, and our culture of scandal and sociopathic hubris.

Maybe I should entitle this post, "Why We’re Going To Lose This Election." I don’t want to jinx anything, but I feel we progressives are missing something essential.

We have no leader.

Republicans love to ridicule us because we are still - this late in the election cycle - wringing our hands and whining about how bad things are. They’re right. We have no focus beyond complaining. Whom do we have to lead the growing ranks of the Disenchanted? Can someone please stand up, take a stance against Conservative Demagoguery, and lead us? At least take the chance and try…

I once thought Howard Dean to "have the right stuff." Then I pondered on the ability of Wesley Clark to push forward. Both these gentlemen know a fight when they see one. As I write this, I cannot envision anyone having the "chutzpah" to deliver impassioned challenges to the status quo. Write me if I’m missing something…

That’s one thing the Republicans have that we need, someone brash enough (or so full of himself that he can’t envision losing) to plant his feet and shout, "Charge!" Unless and until we find this brave person, we will continue to falter. Unlike the Conservative majority, we Progressives are too mired in reason to suspend disbelief regarding our capacity to fail. Because of this, we have refrained from taking a much needed stand against this administration. Because of this, we’ve lost already; sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

That’s the catchphrase of the Progressive agenda, the moniker of the upcoming election.

For those dwindling few who think America’s rightful place in the world is slave master, resource hog, global polluter and creator of global poverty, the Republican party is awaiting your hard earned money. Don’t expect any change back. All monies and other resources are being funneled into the fewest bank accounts as possible - and it won’t be yours.

For the rest of the yawning, too-slowly awakening populace, there is a growing chance to change course. The damage already done cannot be reversed until generations of progress ensue. For six short years, we have steered the course of History toward the brink of self-immolation, toward the undermining of long-held systems of belief that has kept our species advancing toward global coexistence. It will take most of the rest of this century to correct the changes wrought by the unscrupulous among us, the politically self absorbed, the criminally greedy.

We begin by shouting "Enough!" First, we categorize infractions. Much has been written about our current administration, little to the good. Then we do something about it.

One man in Baltimore has written his Citizen’s Bill of Impeachment. While many others attempt to utilize the system to foment change, I can’t help but ponder the necessity of another American Revolution to throw out the garbage in Washington and rebuild. I’m not alone in that thought. As the adage says: "Desperate times call for desperate measures." I ask you: Are you desperate enough?

Crossposted at: Democrats.org.

King George signed another useless and unenforceable law onto the books yesterday. In the name of Republican hegemony, we now have provisions for make our ports "Safer" weeks before an important election. It’s been five years since the last terrorist attacks, and now we’re just getting to looking after a huge gaping hole in national security. I guess it just wasn’t important until now.

Attached to the port-security bill is another issue vital to national security: online gambling. A rider proudly named Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act now makes it a crime to use credit cards and electronic funds transfers to place bets at online gambling sites. No, wait! This is important, guys. Imagine the Islamofascist suicide gamblers clicking their way to millions of American funds through the nefarious combination of identity theft and Internet gambling. This is an under-reported security threat. Why, they can bankrupt the people throught these means just as surely as congress has impoverished our economy to fund an un-winnable illegal war in the name of God-and-Country, Amen.

The conservative Caucus is showing desperation, here. They couldn’t keep Terri Schiavo alive, They lost critical momentum on vital national security issues like anti-Darwinism, Abortion, Gay Marriage and Dominionism. They’re weeks away from the scariest election in years, and - most frightening - they’re bag of dirty tricks has a hole in it: obfuscation and damnation has not secured out nation, and the people are finally waking up to that.

Seriously though, Can we do away with legislative riders that have nothing in common with the thrust of the bill to which they are attached? In my mind, this is beyond sneaky and most of the way to criminal. Yes. I know both parties do it, whatever, it’s still a disservice to hardworking Americans who don’t have time or means to follow all the underhanded disjunction of legislative process. If you want to attack a person’s freedom to gamble, put it on the top of the table, instead of at the bottom of a ream of non-related legalities and force it through via sleight-of-law.

We live in a Democratic Republic, "we, the people" have all kinds of "rights," including the right to be wrong. At least we did when I woke up yesterday. Although, I don’t gamble, I support the rights for others to find their thrills by risking their incomes. I cannot countenance my government telling me whether or not to risk my family’s security on a few cheap (make that expensive) thrills. I especially can’t stomach our lying, warmongering, greedy and corrupt leadership telling me how to live my life on any level. We have a pack of thieves, liars, profiteers with the occasional pedophile running our country. Who would take their word on any moral issue? Not me.

To hell with International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which occurred last Tuesday. We need something more substantial to celebrate. While many people lose themselves in trivialities, thereby absolving themselves of any lasting contribution to world society, others are fighting the good fight of - well, not fighting at all!

Today is International Peace Day!

This holiday-we’ve-never-heard-of has been with us since 1981, when the United Nations dedicated a day to promote world peace. You won’t hear this on Fox News (or any Murdoch media outlet.) Bloodhawks and Warhounds don’t want us to know about this Unamerican holiday. As the UN created it, it must be FRENCH!

At noon today, I plan on taking a minute of silence to commemorate the remote possibility that humanity can come to its senses before it annihilates itself. Imagine:

September 21, the International Day of Peace, is a day on which
we reaffirm our commitment to this quest… It is meant to be a day of global cease-fire, when all countries and all people stop all hostilities for the entire day.

And it is a day on which people around the world observe a minute of silence at 12 noon local time. Twenty-four hours is not a long time.
But it is… long enough to look over the barricades, or through the barbed wire, to see if there is another path.

MESSAGE ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
Secretary-General Kofi Annan
New York, 21 September 2005

For all people’s talk about God lately, one would think also that God might want us to live together peacefully. Yet we can’t seem to manage this… We are truly pathetic as a species.

"All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance."

Hold up! I think I’ve found a blogger who’s more jaded, angrier, and perhaps more "out there" than yours truly!

Didn’t think that was possible, huh?

Democrats.org, in a last-ditch effort (or belated, at least) at organization, launches a set of tools called PartyBuilder, utilizing hotsy-totsy web 2.0 stuff like social networking, search tools, petition tools and blogging, Of course, I checked out the blogs. As the site debuted today, only a couple entries exists. One post, by Thomas T Panto, blew my sock off: Who Owns This Plantation? Some snippets:

WE, the American People (laborers), conceive, design, build, box, ship, sell, buy and pay all the taxes on, all the products.

WHO got the TRILLIONS of DOLLARS that YOU MADE? And WHAT did those DEREGULATED and UNGOVERNED corporations use that money buy ?

WHO purchased your ”Free Press” ? WHO funded your political parties, all their candidates, on both sides, and paid for their Media Time on the stations THEY OWN ?

WHO SETS the WAGES AND the PRICES to keep you working in their military economy?

[…]

America is now Intitutionalized Slavery. While you were busy at work, your children were pldeged, allegianced and indoctrinated to serve THEM for trinkets.

Just the money spent last year to murder the people of Iraq would lift every American out of poverty, and there are still trillions unaccounted for.

This is not the Democracy that the Founding Fathers intended for us to have.

[…]

The ”Wealth” of a government depends on the number of people they have in slavery and how LITTLE they have to feed each slave. The Starch and Sugar they feed you is killing you. When your physical problems occur then their medical pricing will ensure that what ever wealth you have aquired in your life will be consumed to treat your condition, so that your children will not inherit a way out of their slavery.

Phew! Dark, powerful, outrageous… I like it! Although it’s quite sensational, the roots of the issue might be true. We already distrust the Media, multinational corporations, and our own government; it’s a small stretch to connect the dots together. We already know big Brother is watching us, categorizing every purchase, every credit or debit in every bank. If the data wasn’t available, already aggregated, sorted and compartmentalized, would identity thieves have such an easy time of their "craft"?

Mr. Panto offers hope, a bit weakly, as a summation:

How can we save our children ?

Identifying the evil scum controlling our country is fairly easy to do.
They are the ones telling you what to hate, who to hate, and who to invade and murder.

To restore America, select ONLY those candidates who rebel against the use of lies and murder to solve Humanities problems. Those candidates will be underfunded by the owners of Washington and will be misrepresented by the governments controlled media.

Don’t be fooled by their propaganda. Vote only for the candidates who CARE about Living Things, and especially about Humans.

Evil Scum…that kind of rules out a rational debate on the subject. As for the line about "the ones telling you to hate…" Rush Limbaugh comes readily to mind, as does Anne Coulter. This article proves the anger seething barely below the surface of American (dare I say) discourse. Anywhere you look you can find someone angrier that thou.