The Hurricane Exit Strategy:
At some point here, some wise, ambitious, and none-too-cynical member of Congress, perhaps Chuck Hagel, perhaps Russ Feingold, needs to say the obvious: Hurricane Katrina offers the ultimate exit strategy from Iraq. What other excuse need there be to pull vast numbers of troops and billions of dollars out of our overseas failure?
The patently absurd waste of billions of dollars will be brought to light by the suffering along the Gulf Coast. A couple of months from now, whenever some worthless, stupid right-wing fuck puppet declares that the U.S. has built schools in Basra, it'll simply be a reminder of how much faster things could have been done in Biloxi if all those funds and all that personnel were readily available.
Instead, a brave politician can step forth and offer a resolution about the magnitude of the disaster being nearly unprecedented in U.S. history and that a nation needs to take care of its own before it secures another country. (If he/she wants, he/she can even say that it's a homeland security measure because, with all the attention being paid to Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, the country is wide open to attack.)
The exit strategy works on so many levels: it's actually a graceful way to pull out of Iraq. We're not cuttin' and runnin'. We need the troops back home. And even bloated hogfuckers in Congress and the Administration, who wanna keep the government largesse in the pockets of Halliburton and other companies, can get on board. Fuck, get private contractors to take care of various and sundry shit along the way. Move the whole goddamn "rebuilding" operation to the southeast U.S. They need bridges, infrastructure, water, food, shelter.
Sure, some will say that the sponsoring members of Congress are opportunists, that they're kicking the President when the nation is down, but such courage from a politician, such logic in the face of disasters here and abroad, will be hailed by the majority of Americans, inundated with images of suffering, trees down, high-flying rescues, and Superdome holes.
For, yes, and it can be said, right now we are facing a choice in this America, where the Bush administration has looted the Treasury as surely as any desperate parent or disgusting opportunist running through the Walgreen's on Canal Street in New Orleans, leaving the coffers as empty as the diaper shelves and the pharmacies: Iraq or the U.S. South?
And those who say we can do both do not comprehend exactly what has happened down by the Gulf of Mexico. We haven't even begun to see the poisoning done by the toxic gumbo that now covers New Orleans. Besides, we couldn't even do Iraq's reconstruction right. Now we can do both badly or try to do one well.
Probably not, though. For, if there's anything we know about this Republican government, if there's a way to exacerbate a fuck-up into a mighty fuck-up, they'll do it.
Late Post Today:
Back later with a post on Iraq and Katrina. The Rude Pundit has seen the rubble of no less than three of his favorite bars in and around New Orleans and is trying to wrap his mind around such loss.
Thanks to readers for all the links and info on Slidell (even for the obvious shit, like "Check the New Orleans newspaper").
Back later with a post on Iraq and Katrina. The Rude Pundit has seen the rubble of no less than three of his favorite bars in and around New Orleans and is trying to wrap his mind around such loss.
Thanks to readers for all the links and info on Slidell (even for the obvious shit, like "Check the New Orleans newspaper").
Washed Away:
The best fried shrimp po' boys in the New Orleans area are found at a little place called "Check In, Check Out" in Slidell. The original location is a former gas station/convenience store that made such intensely overstuffed, exquisitely flavorful sandwiches that it was transformed into a grubby diner, although the Rude Pundit's always just picked up his po' boy and returned to wherever he was staying, munching on the sweet and salty shrimp as he drove away.
Referring to the Check In, Check Out in the present tense is a bit overly optimistic today, for Slidell sits across Lake Ponchartrain, northeast of New Orleans, and it was in the path of the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina. Little is known about what's happened to Slidell, a small city of over 30,000 people, because, if Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans is correct, it is now underwater. Parts of the main bridge that connected Slidell to New Orleans, known as the Twin Span on I-10, are gone. The approaches from the northwest, from Hammond and Covington, are lakes.
For years, the citizens of Slidell argued about the destruction of the wetlands that provided at least some protection from the massive lake. Save Our Wetlands, an environmental organization in Louisiana, even filed lawsuits to prevent development that would destroy the wetlands, specifically citing the protection from hurricane tidal surges as a primary concern. Of course, by 2004, it was far, far too little, far, far too late, and the development that had occurred since the 1960s, with the draining of wetlands for highways and homes, with the bypassing of environmental impact studies before the Army Corps of Engineers permitted the construction of a huge addition to Slidell in the 1970s, had eaten away far too much of that buffer zone. There's no telling if the wetlands, left alone or restored, would have helped Slidell yesterday, but there's a good chance the complete devastation that appears to have occurred might have been mitigated. But greed will always will out. It will always will out. And shortsightedness mixed with greed mixed with a government that feels it must always kneel at the altar of business is a combination that's gonna screw people over again and again.
The St. Tammany Parish forum at WWL-TV is a catalog of frustration, confusion, and horrors-some which will prove to be true, some which are just rumor. A gas station exploded. Homes are under ten feet of water. The entire top floor of the Days Inn is gone, just gone. The water tower has collapsed. Eight feet of water in the hospital. You can't tell, they say, where the lake ends and the town begins. There's waist deep (or deeper) water all the way to Old Spanish Trail, which happens to be where the Check In, Check Out is.
Slidell has never been one of the Rude Pundit's favorite towns - it's got way too much of a generic suburb feeling, and, hell, the French Quarter and Uptown are just thirty minutes away. But he has a lot of memories of it, going all the way back to July 4, 1976, when the family was out in the swimming pool of a Holiday Inn at nightfall and we could see the fireworks celebrating the Bicentennial while floating on our backs. We stayed in Slidell because it was significantly cheaper than staying in New Orleans, and probably for some vaguely racist feeling of the Rude parents that it was safer.
The Rude Pundit never lived there, but he knows a lot of people in that damn town, and he knows they got out. But he's also pretty damn sure that their homes are wrecks or are gone. He's pretty sure that alligators are swimming in the streets of the subdivisions (and that ain't hyperbole - there's a lot of friggin' alligators there), that a plague of snakes has come out of its isolation in the dessicated swamps. But its the water, the omnipresent water, that we would shake our heads about whenever a hurricane came near.
And as the levees break or are topped in New Orleans, bringing god knows what else to the city, there will be time to rake over the coals those responsible for the callous disregard of environmental degradation, those who neglected to understand that "homeland security" means making sure that people in the homeland are secure. For now, gird yer loins. The nightmare's just starting.
If anyone gets any news about Slidell or St. Tammany Parish, e-mail: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
The best fried shrimp po' boys in the New Orleans area are found at a little place called "Check In, Check Out" in Slidell. The original location is a former gas station/convenience store that made such intensely overstuffed, exquisitely flavorful sandwiches that it was transformed into a grubby diner, although the Rude Pundit's always just picked up his po' boy and returned to wherever he was staying, munching on the sweet and salty shrimp as he drove away.
Referring to the Check In, Check Out in the present tense is a bit overly optimistic today, for Slidell sits across Lake Ponchartrain, northeast of New Orleans, and it was in the path of the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina. Little is known about what's happened to Slidell, a small city of over 30,000 people, because, if Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans is correct, it is now underwater. Parts of the main bridge that connected Slidell to New Orleans, known as the Twin Span on I-10, are gone. The approaches from the northwest, from Hammond and Covington, are lakes.
For years, the citizens of Slidell argued about the destruction of the wetlands that provided at least some protection from the massive lake. Save Our Wetlands, an environmental organization in Louisiana, even filed lawsuits to prevent development that would destroy the wetlands, specifically citing the protection from hurricane tidal surges as a primary concern. Of course, by 2004, it was far, far too little, far, far too late, and the development that had occurred since the 1960s, with the draining of wetlands for highways and homes, with the bypassing of environmental impact studies before the Army Corps of Engineers permitted the construction of a huge addition to Slidell in the 1970s, had eaten away far too much of that buffer zone. There's no telling if the wetlands, left alone or restored, would have helped Slidell yesterday, but there's a good chance the complete devastation that appears to have occurred might have been mitigated. But greed will always will out. It will always will out. And shortsightedness mixed with greed mixed with a government that feels it must always kneel at the altar of business is a combination that's gonna screw people over again and again.
The St. Tammany Parish forum at WWL-TV is a catalog of frustration, confusion, and horrors-some which will prove to be true, some which are just rumor. A gas station exploded. Homes are under ten feet of water. The entire top floor of the Days Inn is gone, just gone. The water tower has collapsed. Eight feet of water in the hospital. You can't tell, they say, where the lake ends and the town begins. There's waist deep (or deeper) water all the way to Old Spanish Trail, which happens to be where the Check In, Check Out is.
Slidell has never been one of the Rude Pundit's favorite towns - it's got way too much of a generic suburb feeling, and, hell, the French Quarter and Uptown are just thirty minutes away. But he has a lot of memories of it, going all the way back to July 4, 1976, when the family was out in the swimming pool of a Holiday Inn at nightfall and we could see the fireworks celebrating the Bicentennial while floating on our backs. We stayed in Slidell because it was significantly cheaper than staying in New Orleans, and probably for some vaguely racist feeling of the Rude parents that it was safer.
The Rude Pundit never lived there, but he knows a lot of people in that damn town, and he knows they got out. But he's also pretty damn sure that their homes are wrecks or are gone. He's pretty sure that alligators are swimming in the streets of the subdivisions (and that ain't hyperbole - there's a lot of friggin' alligators there), that a plague of snakes has come out of its isolation in the dessicated swamps. But its the water, the omnipresent water, that we would shake our heads about whenever a hurricane came near.
And as the levees break or are topped in New Orleans, bringing god knows what else to the city, there will be time to rake over the coals those responsible for the callous disregard of environmental degradation, those who neglected to understand that "homeland security" means making sure that people in the homeland are secure. For now, gird yer loins. The nightmare's just starting.
If anyone gets any news about Slidell or St. Tammany Parish, e-mail: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
The One Word Death of Democracy in Iraq:
It's strange that an enormous, almost ridiculously micromanaging document like the Iraqi draft constitution ought to come down to its use of a single word. And while one could easily say that the fact that the document begins with a shout-out to the "Sons of Mesopotamia" means women are shat on from the outset and that the line, "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam," means that Iraq will become mullahrific, it's a single word, used a couple of times in the entire constitution, that means Iraq is fucked.
It is the word that, if amended to the U.S. Constitution, would make the Christian right go into a weeklong orgy the likes of which Babylon only dreamt of. James Dobson would go down on the withered, dusty snatch of Phyllis Schlafly while Chuck Colson, having a prison flashblack, fucks Dobson in the ass as Ted Haggard, madly jacking off, shoves a butt plug into the heaving, weeping Watergate criminal. Such madness would ensue, with Beverly LaHaye unable to fit enough cocks into her mouth to satisfy her, with Tony Perkins and Cal Thomas sword fighting on top of her lapping tongue. Surrounding it all will be a circle jerk of Pat Robertson, Tom DeLay, and Antonin Scalia, who has his prostate massaged by Clarence Thomas to ensure Lil' Tony gets his full mojo going. Goddamn, Gomorrah was destroyed for less, with the piles of bald eagle guts that the fucking mass will devour raw, with Terri Schiavo's stolen ashes mixed with blood smeared all over them, with virgin female members of Campus Crusades for Christ deflowered by trains of megachurch goers right on top of huge marble Ten Commandments monuments. Such grace, such smells, such screeches. But it'd be a once in a lifetime celebration over one word. A word that is part of the Iraqi constitution to be voted on by the people of that pseudo-nation in the coming weeks.
Article 17, Part 1 reads: "Each person has the right to personal privacy as long as it does not violate the rights of others or general morality." Article 36 says that freedoms of "expressing opinion by all means," "of press, publishing, media, and distribution," and "assembly and peaceful protest" are guaranteed "as long as it does not violate public order and morality." And in that one word, "morality," the hopes of a free and open and democratic Iraq are as dead as the soldiers falling there as this is written.
Let's re-state this: If you engage in personal, private activity that violates "general morality," you do not have the right to engage in it. Sweet Foucaultian nightmare scenarios. Homosexuality, judicious use of pleasure devices, adultery, pre-marital sex, even sexual positions in a married relationship can be banned because it violates what might be considered "general morality." And, since the Constitution says that Islam rules, forget about anal sex, with oral sex and masturbation up for debate. So if you like your husband to fuck you in the ass and you happen to mention it to some of the women at the market and they tell the local authorities, you can pretty much expect a home visit from club-wielding governmental holy thugs.
'Course, if this was just about the fucking, we could get all culturally-relativistic and shit (although, you see, as every fundamentalist of every stripe knows: if you control the fucking, you control the person). The Iraqi Constitution, if approved, would not give you the freedom to express an opinion, in press, in public, in private, if it violates "morality." Thought police, motherfuckers, thought police. This ain't about yelling "Fatwa" in a crowded theatre. It ain't even about supporting terrorism (that's specifically banned in other articles). It's about writing an editorial in the local paper that offends morality, like a call for more women to enter the electoral process. Then get ready for the pungent odor of burning paper, ink, and presses.
This doesn't even address whose morality will be followed: a national moral code? A regional one? A town by village code? Will there be shariah cops, like in Saudi Arabia?
In the end, banning offenses to "morality" means, simply, "we own you." Quite a democratic document there, even if it only succeeds in starting a civil war, plunging the region into chaos. Yep, it's worth a few thousand more lives to make sure morality is enforced, right?
And, loaded as it is, the Rude Pundit keeps thinking about another single word: immoral.
It's strange that an enormous, almost ridiculously micromanaging document like the Iraqi draft constitution ought to come down to its use of a single word. And while one could easily say that the fact that the document begins with a shout-out to the "Sons of Mesopotamia" means women are shat on from the outset and that the line, "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam," means that Iraq will become mullahrific, it's a single word, used a couple of times in the entire constitution, that means Iraq is fucked.
It is the word that, if amended to the U.S. Constitution, would make the Christian right go into a weeklong orgy the likes of which Babylon only dreamt of. James Dobson would go down on the withered, dusty snatch of Phyllis Schlafly while Chuck Colson, having a prison flashblack, fucks Dobson in the ass as Ted Haggard, madly jacking off, shoves a butt plug into the heaving, weeping Watergate criminal. Such madness would ensue, with Beverly LaHaye unable to fit enough cocks into her mouth to satisfy her, with Tony Perkins and Cal Thomas sword fighting on top of her lapping tongue. Surrounding it all will be a circle jerk of Pat Robertson, Tom DeLay, and Antonin Scalia, who has his prostate massaged by Clarence Thomas to ensure Lil' Tony gets his full mojo going. Goddamn, Gomorrah was destroyed for less, with the piles of bald eagle guts that the fucking mass will devour raw, with Terri Schiavo's stolen ashes mixed with blood smeared all over them, with virgin female members of Campus Crusades for Christ deflowered by trains of megachurch goers right on top of huge marble Ten Commandments monuments. Such grace, such smells, such screeches. But it'd be a once in a lifetime celebration over one word. A word that is part of the Iraqi constitution to be voted on by the people of that pseudo-nation in the coming weeks.
Article 17, Part 1 reads: "Each person has the right to personal privacy as long as it does not violate the rights of others or general morality." Article 36 says that freedoms of "expressing opinion by all means," "of press, publishing, media, and distribution," and "assembly and peaceful protest" are guaranteed "as long as it does not violate public order and morality." And in that one word, "morality," the hopes of a free and open and democratic Iraq are as dead as the soldiers falling there as this is written.
Let's re-state this: If you engage in personal, private activity that violates "general morality," you do not have the right to engage in it. Sweet Foucaultian nightmare scenarios. Homosexuality, judicious use of pleasure devices, adultery, pre-marital sex, even sexual positions in a married relationship can be banned because it violates what might be considered "general morality." And, since the Constitution says that Islam rules, forget about anal sex, with oral sex and masturbation up for debate. So if you like your husband to fuck you in the ass and you happen to mention it to some of the women at the market and they tell the local authorities, you can pretty much expect a home visit from club-wielding governmental holy thugs.
'Course, if this was just about the fucking, we could get all culturally-relativistic and shit (although, you see, as every fundamentalist of every stripe knows: if you control the fucking, you control the person). The Iraqi Constitution, if approved, would not give you the freedom to express an opinion, in press, in public, in private, if it violates "morality." Thought police, motherfuckers, thought police. This ain't about yelling "Fatwa" in a crowded theatre. It ain't even about supporting terrorism (that's specifically banned in other articles). It's about writing an editorial in the local paper that offends morality, like a call for more women to enter the electoral process. Then get ready for the pungent odor of burning paper, ink, and presses.
This doesn't even address whose morality will be followed: a national moral code? A regional one? A town by village code? Will there be shariah cops, like in Saudi Arabia?
In the end, banning offenses to "morality" means, simply, "we own you." Quite a democratic document there, even if it only succeeds in starting a civil war, plunging the region into chaos. Yep, it's worth a few thousand more lives to make sure morality is enforced, right?
And, loaded as it is, the Rude Pundit keeps thinking about another single word: immoral.
La Habra, California - Just Another Stop In Gitmo America:
So, like, on August 7, when terrorism expert and former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus, speaking on Fox "News," gave out the exact address of a Southern California home that allegedly was the residence of the leader of the group that committed the London bombings, it should have perhaps occurred to him that he might be wrong. Because otherwise, he'd be a stupid fuck whose credibility would be worthless, even as he spouts happy bullshit like that he "believes that we may be witnessing the death throes of the fundamentalist terror states, and the birth of a renaissance of modernity in the Middle East."
And, of course, potentially evil Middle Easterner Iyad K. Hilal hadn't lived at the La Habra residence for three years. And, of course, it was a middle class white couple with three kids who now lived there. And, in a sign that perhaps Americans are a bit more color-blind than we might think, the family's been harassed, and their home's been vandalized, with the strange word "Terrist" spray-painted on it, which could also mean they're fond of terriers or just like to rip shit up.
Fox hasn't done anything more than offer a one-sentence "d'oh" to the L.A. Times (and Loftus wrote an apology to the family). But nothin' on the air, something that might remove the taint of the violent Other from the Vorick home. While Fox deserves even more scorn and pointing and laughing, let's not let the vigilantes who are attacking the Voricks off the hook. They are pathetic, worthless dungheaps, unable to articulate anything more than "Terrist bad" and rage at the full moon for daring to take away the shadows they cower in, piss bucket opportunists who only need to be told where to bring the mob so, hunched over and grunting, they can lynch and burn, lynch and burn, without the niceties of trial, the delays of due process, and cavort and cackle like crazed jackals over the carrion corpses of the dead. In this way, they are just like the Bush administration.
This is Gitmo America, where guilt need only be implied for us to be willing to allow torture, psychological and otherwise, to be heaped upon the accused. If the military and the government in general can tolerate and advocate the good of "pressure" tactics to squeeze information out of people who may be innocent, then it's a fine way to drive a potential terrorist out of the neighborhood.
And Loftus, so plump with speaking fees, said that he gave out the information based on "the best information we had at the time." Is that the unimpeachable excuse for every massive fuck-up now? You know, "the best information we had at the time" said that blacks were mentally inferior to whites who could be best served by being slaves. "The best information we had at the time" said that Native Americans were subhuman savages who needed to be slaughtered. "The best information we had at the time" told Colin Powell that Iraq had WMDs. If you tell your one-night stand that she can't catch your herpes from sucking you off, and then she does and does get your herpes, you can say you were working on the best information you had at the time. In other words, "the best information we had at the time" is the catch-all bullshit for every time you operate out of willful ignorance, outright lies, and stupidity. It's a cop-out. It's a way of saying that you're wrong now, but, shit, you weren't wrong then, when, really, and, c'mon, if you're wrong, you're fuckin' wrong, no matter when.
Sure, Loftus said he was sorry and that "mistakes happen." But mistakes don't just happen. People make mistakes. Slavering publicity whores make mistakes when they're dry humping the press machine for bigger speaking fees and book contracts. Perhaps they forget that to win a case as a prosecutor, you have to prove something "beyond a reasonable doubt." Ahh, but that's such pre-9/11 thinkin', no?
Oh, and the swarthy Middle-Easterner who used to live there, Iyad Hilal? He's a Garden Grove, CA grocery store owner who has gone into hiding with his family. Hilal says he broke off ties to the Muslim group accused of being a terrorist organization in 1997 when he "didn't agree with certain ideologies that were being put forth" at a London conference. Bakri Mohammed, the cleric who said Hilal was head of the U.S. branch of the group, called the U.S. branch a small group of "reformers."
But Gitmo America has no place for such shadings. It's just rights and wrongs, blacks and whites, might and right.
So, like, on August 7, when terrorism expert and former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus, speaking on Fox "News," gave out the exact address of a Southern California home that allegedly was the residence of the leader of the group that committed the London bombings, it should have perhaps occurred to him that he might be wrong. Because otherwise, he'd be a stupid fuck whose credibility would be worthless, even as he spouts happy bullshit like that he "believes that we may be witnessing the death throes of the fundamentalist terror states, and the birth of a renaissance of modernity in the Middle East."
And, of course, potentially evil Middle Easterner Iyad K. Hilal hadn't lived at the La Habra residence for three years. And, of course, it was a middle class white couple with three kids who now lived there. And, in a sign that perhaps Americans are a bit more color-blind than we might think, the family's been harassed, and their home's been vandalized, with the strange word "Terrist" spray-painted on it, which could also mean they're fond of terriers or just like to rip shit up.
Fox hasn't done anything more than offer a one-sentence "d'oh" to the L.A. Times (and Loftus wrote an apology to the family). But nothin' on the air, something that might remove the taint of the violent Other from the Vorick home. While Fox deserves even more scorn and pointing and laughing, let's not let the vigilantes who are attacking the Voricks off the hook. They are pathetic, worthless dungheaps, unable to articulate anything more than "Terrist bad" and rage at the full moon for daring to take away the shadows they cower in, piss bucket opportunists who only need to be told where to bring the mob so, hunched over and grunting, they can lynch and burn, lynch and burn, without the niceties of trial, the delays of due process, and cavort and cackle like crazed jackals over the carrion corpses of the dead. In this way, they are just like the Bush administration.
This is Gitmo America, where guilt need only be implied for us to be willing to allow torture, psychological and otherwise, to be heaped upon the accused. If the military and the government in general can tolerate and advocate the good of "pressure" tactics to squeeze information out of people who may be innocent, then it's a fine way to drive a potential terrorist out of the neighborhood.
And Loftus, so plump with speaking fees, said that he gave out the information based on "the best information we had at the time." Is that the unimpeachable excuse for every massive fuck-up now? You know, "the best information we had at the time" said that blacks were mentally inferior to whites who could be best served by being slaves. "The best information we had at the time" said that Native Americans were subhuman savages who needed to be slaughtered. "The best information we had at the time" told Colin Powell that Iraq had WMDs. If you tell your one-night stand that she can't catch your herpes from sucking you off, and then she does and does get your herpes, you can say you were working on the best information you had at the time. In other words, "the best information we had at the time" is the catch-all bullshit for every time you operate out of willful ignorance, outright lies, and stupidity. It's a cop-out. It's a way of saying that you're wrong now, but, shit, you weren't wrong then, when, really, and, c'mon, if you're wrong, you're fuckin' wrong, no matter when.
Sure, Loftus said he was sorry and that "mistakes happen." But mistakes don't just happen. People make mistakes. Slavering publicity whores make mistakes when they're dry humping the press machine for bigger speaking fees and book contracts. Perhaps they forget that to win a case as a prosecutor, you have to prove something "beyond a reasonable doubt." Ahh, but that's such pre-9/11 thinkin', no?
Oh, and the swarthy Middle-Easterner who used to live there, Iyad Hilal? He's a Garden Grove, CA grocery store owner who has gone into hiding with his family. Hilal says he broke off ties to the Muslim group accused of being a terrorist organization in 1997 when he "didn't agree with certain ideologies that were being put forth" at a London conference. Bakri Mohammed, the cleric who said Hilal was head of the U.S. branch of the group, called the U.S. branch a small group of "reformers."
But Gitmo America has no place for such shadings. It's just rights and wrongs, blacks and whites, might and right.
A Reminder of Gentle Times Past:
The Rude Pundit's feelin' a steamin' wave of exhaustion caressing his temples like a crowbar blow from a skinhead. So today, let's offer a rude blast from the past, another of the oh-so-many reminders that everything old is, indeed, new again.
Here's the 13-year old lyrics to "Winter of the Long Hot Summer" by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Michael Franti's old band, reminding us that in 1992, under another Bush, it was all so, so obvious what was one day gonna come our way to fuck us up and that, Christ, we've been here before - it's just our willful forgetfulness that brings us here again (except, you know, for Milli Vanilli):
It all seemed so idiotic all the accusations of unpatriotic
The fall we'll always remember, capitulating silence
election November before the winter
of the long hot summer
Somewhere in the desert
we raised the oil pressure
and waited for the weather
to get much better
for the new wind to blow in the storm
We tried to remember the history in the region
the French foreign legion, Imperialism,
Peter O'Toole and hate the Ayatollah
were all we learned in school
Not that we gave Hussein five billion
Not of our new bed partner the Syrian
and of course no mention of the Palestine situation
It was amazing how they steamrolled
They said eighty percent approval
but there was no one that I knew polled
No one had a reason for being in the Gulf
We waited for congress to speak up illegal build up
But no one would wake up
Our representatives were Milli Vanilli's
for corporate Dallas Cowboy Beverly Hillbillies
With perfect timing
the politicians rhyming their sentiments
so nicely oil gold and sand
my sediments precisely....
We regretfully support the lunacy
I'm afraid there is no time for more scrutiny
National unity preserve our community
Teflon© election opportunities
were in profundant abundance
On January second the Bush administration
announced a recession had stricken
the Nation the highest quarterly
earnings in ten years were posted
by Chevron©
Meanwhile a budget was placed in our hands
as the deadline in the sand came to an end
so much for the peace dividend
one billion a day is what we spent
and our grandchildren will pay for it 'til the end
When schools are unfunded
and kids don't get their diplomas
they get used for gun boat diplomacy
disproportionately
black or brown we see
bullet catchers for the slave master
Then the conservatives called up reservists
to active service left families nervous
but more importantly broke nine hundred a month
but the check came late, army red tape you see,
this golden opportunity
We watched the tube and read the newspaper
The propaganda of the gas masked raper
was the proper slander to whip up the hatred
The stage was lit and the lights were all faded
The pilots in night vision goggles Kuwaited and
generals masturbated
'til the fifteenth two days later they invaded
Not a single t.v. station expressed dissension or
hardly made mention to the censorship of information
from our kinder and gentler nation
blinder and mentaler retardation
DISORIENTATION
The pilots said their bombs lit Baghdad
like a Christmas tree
It was the Christian thing to do you see
they didn't mention any casualties
no distinction between the real
and the proxy
only football analogies
We saw the bomb hole
We watched the Super Bowl
We saw the scud missile
We watched Bud© commercials
We saw the yellow ribbons
Saw pilots in prison
We never saw films of the dead...at eleven
Angela Davis addressed the spectators
and shouting above a rumbling generator said
if they insist on bringing us down
then let's shut the whole country down
Marching through the downtown
A hundred thousand became participants
and we heard the drums of millions off in the distance
rushing through the cities
some of them did things that weren't so pretty
most were there for primal scream therapy
news men concentrated
on the negative liked the jingoists more
peaceful protesters ended up
on the cutting room floor
Nintendo© casualties of the ratings war
More bombs dropped than in World War II
on in both Asian invasions, new world order persuasion,
Business as usual
for our nation
Could you imagine a hundred fifty thousand dead,
the city of Stockton
coffins locked in when we clocked in...not to mention
civilians
The loss of life on both sides
pushed the limits of resilience
The scent of blood in our nostrils
fuel of the fossil land of apostle
The blackness that covered the sky was not the only thing
that brought a tear to the eye or
the taste of anger to the tongues
of those too young to remember Vietnam
Is heroin better in a veteran's mind
than the memory of the dying laying in a line
Is it the smell or the shadows heaving and weeping
that keeps the soldier from sleeping
as he sings the orphan's lullaby
When the soldiers put down their bayonets
the strings are chained to the marionettes
Emir of Kuwait gets back in his jet
we replace the dead with new cadets
will we hate those who did the shelling
or will we hate those who weren't willing to do the killing
when the leaders of the bald eagles come home to roost
will we sing a song of praise and indebtedness
for our deliverance from evil
or will we sing a song of sadness
for the dreaded debt this mess delivered us PEOPLE.
The Rude Pundit's feelin' a steamin' wave of exhaustion caressing his temples like a crowbar blow from a skinhead. So today, let's offer a rude blast from the past, another of the oh-so-many reminders that everything old is, indeed, new again.
Here's the 13-year old lyrics to "Winter of the Long Hot Summer" by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Michael Franti's old band, reminding us that in 1992, under another Bush, it was all so, so obvious what was one day gonna come our way to fuck us up and that, Christ, we've been here before - it's just our willful forgetfulness that brings us here again (except, you know, for Milli Vanilli):
It all seemed so idiotic all the accusations of unpatriotic
The fall we'll always remember, capitulating silence
election November before the winter
of the long hot summer
Somewhere in the desert
we raised the oil pressure
and waited for the weather
to get much better
for the new wind to blow in the storm
We tried to remember the history in the region
the French foreign legion, Imperialism,
Peter O'Toole and hate the Ayatollah
were all we learned in school
Not that we gave Hussein five billion
Not of our new bed partner the Syrian
and of course no mention of the Palestine situation
It was amazing how they steamrolled
They said eighty percent approval
but there was no one that I knew polled
No one had a reason for being in the Gulf
We waited for congress to speak up illegal build up
But no one would wake up
Our representatives were Milli Vanilli's
for corporate Dallas Cowboy Beverly Hillbillies
With perfect timing
the politicians rhyming their sentiments
so nicely oil gold and sand
my sediments precisely....
We regretfully support the lunacy
I'm afraid there is no time for more scrutiny
National unity preserve our community
Teflon© election opportunities
were in profundant abundance
On January second the Bush administration
announced a recession had stricken
the Nation the highest quarterly
earnings in ten years were posted
by Chevron©
Meanwhile a budget was placed in our hands
as the deadline in the sand came to an end
so much for the peace dividend
one billion a day is what we spent
and our grandchildren will pay for it 'til the end
When schools are unfunded
and kids don't get their diplomas
they get used for gun boat diplomacy
disproportionately
black or brown we see
bullet catchers for the slave master
Then the conservatives called up reservists
to active service left families nervous
but more importantly broke nine hundred a month
but the check came late, army red tape you see,
this golden opportunity
We watched the tube and read the newspaper
The propaganda of the gas masked raper
was the proper slander to whip up the hatred
The stage was lit and the lights were all faded
The pilots in night vision goggles Kuwaited and
generals masturbated
'til the fifteenth two days later they invaded
Not a single t.v. station expressed dissension or
hardly made mention to the censorship of information
from our kinder and gentler nation
blinder and mentaler retardation
DISORIENTATION
The pilots said their bombs lit Baghdad
like a Christmas tree
It was the Christian thing to do you see
they didn't mention any casualties
no distinction between the real
and the proxy
only football analogies
We saw the bomb hole
We watched the Super Bowl
We saw the scud missile
We watched Bud© commercials
We saw the yellow ribbons
Saw pilots in prison
We never saw films of the dead...at eleven
Angela Davis addressed the spectators
and shouting above a rumbling generator said
if they insist on bringing us down
then let's shut the whole country down
Marching through the downtown
A hundred thousand became participants
and we heard the drums of millions off in the distance
rushing through the cities
some of them did things that weren't so pretty
most were there for primal scream therapy
news men concentrated
on the negative liked the jingoists more
peaceful protesters ended up
on the cutting room floor
Nintendo© casualties of the ratings war
More bombs dropped than in World War II
on in both Asian invasions, new world order persuasion,
Business as usual
for our nation
Could you imagine a hundred fifty thousand dead,
the city of Stockton
coffins locked in when we clocked in...not to mention
civilians
The loss of life on both sides
pushed the limits of resilience
The scent of blood in our nostrils
fuel of the fossil land of apostle
The blackness that covered the sky was not the only thing
that brought a tear to the eye or
the taste of anger to the tongues
of those too young to remember Vietnam
Is heroin better in a veteran's mind
than the memory of the dying laying in a line
Is it the smell or the shadows heaving and weeping
that keeps the soldier from sleeping
as he sings the orphan's lullaby
When the soldiers put down their bayonets
the strings are chained to the marionettes
Emir of Kuwait gets back in his jet
we replace the dead with new cadets
will we hate those who did the shelling
or will we hate those who weren't willing to do the killing
when the leaders of the bald eagles come home to roost
will we sing a song of praise and indebtedness
for our deliverance from evil
or will we sing a song of sadness
for the dreaded debt this mess delivered us PEOPLE.
The Jolly Rancher:
The Rude Pundit said it a couple of days ago, and he'll continue to say it: This is all just getting embarassing. Around the nation, the majority of Americans now cringe with gut-churning fear and shame whenever they hear George W. Bush speak. Indeed, localities are appealling to the federal government for emergency funds to deal with sewage overflows from all the vomit and diarrhea that an angst-ridden population is puking and shitting when Bush appears on the news. Because when one is filled with undirected rage, impotence, and futility, it's gonna take itself out on one's stomach lining and colon. And it's gonna burn, motherfuckers, oh, how it's gonna burn.
See, when Bush speaks, it's like watching the President of another country talk. "God," we think, in ever-increasing, staggeringly large, impeachment supportable numbers, "what a happy nation that man lives in; god, how we wish we lived there; oh, fuck, he's talkin' about here; oh, fuck me, we're fucked." When Bush talked briefly to reporters yesterday in his Idaho vacation away from his vacation "ranch," it was all jovial shit about how super-duper wonderful Iraq is in its splendiferous shiny new pseudo-Constitution; how, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary, he could say, "The fact that Iraq will have a democratic constitution that honors women's rights, the rights of minorities, is going to be an important change in the broader Middle East." Despite news reports that very day saying how the Sunnis have been excluded from the process, despite the outcry of Iraqi women, it's all great, greater, bestest.
Hey, you know what document guaranteed the rights of minorities and women in Iraq? The fuckin' constitution they had before we invaded, written in 1970. Not to get all Juan Cole here, but, like with disbanding the military, we had to toss everything with the Saddam taint into the demolition dump, thinkin' that it was easier to dig a new foundation in the rock and rubble than to build on what was there. It could have been easy: one just had to maybe be a little better than Saddam Hussein and follow through with the Provisional Constitution's guarantees of free speech, free assembly, and more, including Kurdish autonomy. 'Course, that document was also socialistic, codifying universal health care and education for all. But, shit, it was secular (if Baathist-heavy), a damn step or two better than what we're about to get.
Shit, though, who the fuck cares what we anti-war extremists think anyway. We who think the Iraq War is a mistake along the lines of waking up in your bed, after a bad speedball/acid trip, right next to a decapitated corpse with blood on your lips and a head in your hands and no idea how you got there, are just seeking to "empower terrorists," as Trent Duffy told reporters this week. Perhaps not, but we are sure feeling that dread of the coming horror in our nauseated bellies and smelling the fear emanating from our befouled toilets.
And the happy, daisy-skippin' President? After talkin' to reporters, he "may go for a bike ride," he hadn't made up his mind about fishing, just "kind of hanging loose, as they say." While hangin' the rest of us out to dry.
The Rude Pundit said it a couple of days ago, and he'll continue to say it: This is all just getting embarassing. Around the nation, the majority of Americans now cringe with gut-churning fear and shame whenever they hear George W. Bush speak. Indeed, localities are appealling to the federal government for emergency funds to deal with sewage overflows from all the vomit and diarrhea that an angst-ridden population is puking and shitting when Bush appears on the news. Because when one is filled with undirected rage, impotence, and futility, it's gonna take itself out on one's stomach lining and colon. And it's gonna burn, motherfuckers, oh, how it's gonna burn.
See, when Bush speaks, it's like watching the President of another country talk. "God," we think, in ever-increasing, staggeringly large, impeachment supportable numbers, "what a happy nation that man lives in; god, how we wish we lived there; oh, fuck, he's talkin' about here; oh, fuck me, we're fucked." When Bush talked briefly to reporters yesterday in his Idaho vacation away from his vacation "ranch," it was all jovial shit about how super-duper wonderful Iraq is in its splendiferous shiny new pseudo-Constitution; how, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary, he could say, "The fact that Iraq will have a democratic constitution that honors women's rights, the rights of minorities, is going to be an important change in the broader Middle East." Despite news reports that very day saying how the Sunnis have been excluded from the process, despite the outcry of Iraqi women, it's all great, greater, bestest.
Hey, you know what document guaranteed the rights of minorities and women in Iraq? The fuckin' constitution they had before we invaded, written in 1970. Not to get all Juan Cole here, but, like with disbanding the military, we had to toss everything with the Saddam taint into the demolition dump, thinkin' that it was easier to dig a new foundation in the rock and rubble than to build on what was there. It could have been easy: one just had to maybe be a little better than Saddam Hussein and follow through with the Provisional Constitution's guarantees of free speech, free assembly, and more, including Kurdish autonomy. 'Course, that document was also socialistic, codifying universal health care and education for all. But, shit, it was secular (if Baathist-heavy), a damn step or two better than what we're about to get.
Shit, though, who the fuck cares what we anti-war extremists think anyway. We who think the Iraq War is a mistake along the lines of waking up in your bed, after a bad speedball/acid trip, right next to a decapitated corpse with blood on your lips and a head in your hands and no idea how you got there, are just seeking to "empower terrorists," as Trent Duffy told reporters this week. Perhaps not, but we are sure feeling that dread of the coming horror in our nauseated bellies and smelling the fear emanating from our befouled toilets.
And the happy, daisy-skippin' President? After talkin' to reporters, he "may go for a bike ride," he hadn't made up his mind about fishing, just "kind of hanging loose, as they say." While hangin' the rest of us out to dry.
Info On More Tickets Added For the Rude Pundit Live:
Click on over to the show website for the skinny on the release of more tickets for Friday's performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely.
Click on over to the show website for the skinny on the release of more tickets for Friday's performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely.
Speech, Free and Otherwise:
Ya gotta have principles in this fucked-up world, ya know? Ya gotta be able, at the end of the day, to stand up and say, "This is what I believed and you know what, motherfuckers? I stuck by that shit until the bitter end." The Rude Pundit's got a few principles, here and there, most of them involving essential oils, old Portishead CDs, and glow-in-the-dark condoms, but one towers over all of them: you got to believe in freedom of speech or all else in the detritus-ridden national "dialogue" is worthless. Supporting freedom of speech as a relative absolute can be soul-sapping, like watching the last season of MASH - goddamn, it sucked tanks of noxious gas, but you're gonna stick by it until the bitter end. And it means that you have to support the right of fucktards of all political stripes to make stupid ass statements.
So it means you can't stand there and do a little happy jig when some rank little turd like talk radio jackass Michael Graham gets fired for something he said that doesn't violate any laws or putrid FCC regulations. Graham is known to many on the left as the occasional token conservative on Bill Maher's shows, sniffle-giggling in that vaguely righteous repressed-white-guy way that right wingers use when they deign to make a "point." His book is Redneck Nation, with its bizarro cover of Graham apparently fucking a pick-up truck. Guess that's what rednecks must do now that donkeys are in much smaller supply.
On July 21, Graham said, "Because of the mix of Islamic theology that—rightly or wrongly—is interpreted to promote violence, added to an organizational structure that allows violent radicals to operate openly in Islam’s name with impunity, Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization. It pains me to say it. But the good news is it doesn’t have to stay this way, if the vast majority of Muslims who don’t support terror will step forward and re-claim their religion." In essence, Graham is actually being far, far more polite than, say, Michael Savage, who, it seems, wants to eat a screaming Muslim child live on the air, or Congressman Tom "Nuke Mecca" Tancredo or Ann "Convert 'Em With My Magical Cunt of Christian Justice" Coulter. But because Graham said that "Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization," and refused to apologize for it, he incurred the wrath of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Again, Graham is just another Limbaugh/Hannity wannabe, flouting his "redneck" credentials as if saying that a man from the South is conservative is some kind of revelation. He says vile things, and, in the end, he was fired because he upset people with his words. You wanna call the advertisers and get them to bail on the show or the station? Great. You wanna boycott shit? Fine. You wanna put up posters saying that Michael Graham is a wad of fuck and photoshop his face into Satan's? Go right the fuck ahead. And if Graham gets cancelled because he has no listeners and no advertisers, then so be it.
But let us not "applaud," as CAIR did, Graham's firing for his words. It's the same as applauding ABC for firing Bill Maher after 9/11. It'd be the same as taking Marc Maron off Air America for some of the (really funny) shit he says about fundamentalist Christians.
Graham is a martyr now for the right. He's gonna be on O'Reilly's watch-me-lick-my-own-taint show tonight. Because of CAIR's actions, Islam will be bashed far more than if the organization had argued with Graham, put out statements opposing Graham's words, or a thousand other actions. Graham's gonna end up with more exposure, more "fans," more ways to spread whatever the fuck he believes. All because of the failure to believe in freedom of speech.
Sometimes supporting freedom of speech is one fuck of a burden. Ask the ACLU (who, by the way, Graham criticized profusely like a good conservative nutzoid). Ya gotta be willin' to get down and dirty, into the shit and muck, willing to prop up that right for even the most odious fucks around.
But if you support it wholeheartedly, even for those you despise, you can feel free, free, so liberatedly free to say things like: "Fuck you, Pat Robertson, you squinty-eyed shitbag, so full of years of unmitigated hate and bile that it oozes out of you like pus from an untreated herpes sore. And fuck anyone who still buys that said bag of shit is anything even remotely related to Christianity and is gonna defend Robertson no matter what crazed nightmare vision of reality spews from him like vomit from a flu-ridden toddler. Like male dogs who suck their own balls to get little red hard-ons, you 700 Club fans want everyone to see your proud, slimy cocks, but, really, you're just blowin' yourself. Robertson wants the U.S. to assassinate legally-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Ain't that what we call a 'fatwa' in other contexts? Or should we just call it more bloviation and bullshit from a man who's been buggering Jesus on live television for decades?"
Damn, that free speech feels good.
Ya gotta have principles in this fucked-up world, ya know? Ya gotta be able, at the end of the day, to stand up and say, "This is what I believed and you know what, motherfuckers? I stuck by that shit until the bitter end." The Rude Pundit's got a few principles, here and there, most of them involving essential oils, old Portishead CDs, and glow-in-the-dark condoms, but one towers over all of them: you got to believe in freedom of speech or all else in the detritus-ridden national "dialogue" is worthless. Supporting freedom of speech as a relative absolute can be soul-sapping, like watching the last season of MASH - goddamn, it sucked tanks of noxious gas, but you're gonna stick by it until the bitter end. And it means that you have to support the right of fucktards of all political stripes to make stupid ass statements.
So it means you can't stand there and do a little happy jig when some rank little turd like talk radio jackass Michael Graham gets fired for something he said that doesn't violate any laws or putrid FCC regulations. Graham is known to many on the left as the occasional token conservative on Bill Maher's shows, sniffle-giggling in that vaguely righteous repressed-white-guy way that right wingers use when they deign to make a "point." His book is Redneck Nation, with its bizarro cover of Graham apparently fucking a pick-up truck. Guess that's what rednecks must do now that donkeys are in much smaller supply.
On July 21, Graham said, "Because of the mix of Islamic theology that—rightly or wrongly—is interpreted to promote violence, added to an organizational structure that allows violent radicals to operate openly in Islam’s name with impunity, Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization. It pains me to say it. But the good news is it doesn’t have to stay this way, if the vast majority of Muslims who don’t support terror will step forward and re-claim their religion." In essence, Graham is actually being far, far more polite than, say, Michael Savage, who, it seems, wants to eat a screaming Muslim child live on the air, or Congressman Tom "Nuke Mecca" Tancredo or Ann "Convert 'Em With My Magical Cunt of Christian Justice" Coulter. But because Graham said that "Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization," and refused to apologize for it, he incurred the wrath of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Again, Graham is just another Limbaugh/Hannity wannabe, flouting his "redneck" credentials as if saying that a man from the South is conservative is some kind of revelation. He says vile things, and, in the end, he was fired because he upset people with his words. You wanna call the advertisers and get them to bail on the show or the station? Great. You wanna boycott shit? Fine. You wanna put up posters saying that Michael Graham is a wad of fuck and photoshop his face into Satan's? Go right the fuck ahead. And if Graham gets cancelled because he has no listeners and no advertisers, then so be it.
But let us not "applaud," as CAIR did, Graham's firing for his words. It's the same as applauding ABC for firing Bill Maher after 9/11. It'd be the same as taking Marc Maron off Air America for some of the (really funny) shit he says about fundamentalist Christians.
Graham is a martyr now for the right. He's gonna be on O'Reilly's watch-me-lick-my-own-taint show tonight. Because of CAIR's actions, Islam will be bashed far more than if the organization had argued with Graham, put out statements opposing Graham's words, or a thousand other actions. Graham's gonna end up with more exposure, more "fans," more ways to spread whatever the fuck he believes. All because of the failure to believe in freedom of speech.
Sometimes supporting freedom of speech is one fuck of a burden. Ask the ACLU (who, by the way, Graham criticized profusely like a good conservative nutzoid). Ya gotta be willin' to get down and dirty, into the shit and muck, willing to prop up that right for even the most odious fucks around.
But if you support it wholeheartedly, even for those you despise, you can feel free, free, so liberatedly free to say things like: "Fuck you, Pat Robertson, you squinty-eyed shitbag, so full of years of unmitigated hate and bile that it oozes out of you like pus from an untreated herpes sore. And fuck anyone who still buys that said bag of shit is anything even remotely related to Christianity and is gonna defend Robertson no matter what crazed nightmare vision of reality spews from him like vomit from a flu-ridden toddler. Like male dogs who suck their own balls to get little red hard-ons, you 700 Club fans want everyone to see your proud, slimy cocks, but, really, you're just blowin' yourself. Robertson wants the U.S. to assassinate legally-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Ain't that what we call a 'fatwa' in other contexts? Or should we just call it more bloviation and bullshit from a man who's been buggering Jesus on live television for decades?"
Damn, that free speech feels good.
Caught In the Crossfire of the Iraq Circle Jerk:
So, like, do you think Deborah Johns would be proud if her Marine son William died to create another Iran? Opposed to Cindy Sheehan's now-interrupted vigil outside of Bush's Crawford ranch, Johns is one of the mothers of soldiers embarking on the "You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy" Tour (aka the "Tools Across the U.S.A" tour). The caravan will wind its way across the western U.S., from San Francisco to Crawford, with stops at the Doubletree Hotel in Bakersfield, where the brave right-wing supported caravaners can relax by the palm tree-lined pool, and the Dallas Hyatt Regency, with its multiple restaurants and amazing fitness center. That'll show Joan Baez she shouldn't join Cindy's followers in the ditches of Crawford.
But do you think Natalie Healy, who lost her son in Afghanistan but believes that the conflicts there and in Iraq are related, would be proud to know that Daniel, one of those missing Navy SEALS, died in a "larger" war that ensures the rise of a state that will enshrine the repression of women as part of its constitution? What about all the other anti-Sheehan mothers dug up by the media in a desperate attempt to offer "balance"? Do you think they wonder which conservative perversion of Islam will Iraq take? The Saudi Arabian track, where women can't drive or go much of anywhere without being accompanied by a male? Or what about the Taliban track, where girls can't even be schooled? And what about the veil? How insane will Iraq become to live up to the Islamic ideal that man is head of the household? Is this what you sacrificed your kids for? (And the Rude Pundit is not saying this to "attack" Islam - when wackjob fundamentalists try to impose Christian dogma on a government, he calls bullshit. And let's not even get into Israel.)
It's not that the whole Iraq War isn't an epic disaster the likes of which makes Custer's "Last Stand" seem like a well-planned, well-ordered, by the book military operation. It's not that anyone not suckling at the teat of Bush administration "leaks" and "anonymous sources" didn't know that there was going to be a prolonged conflict, with lots of casualties, and, you know, no fuckin' WMDs. No, no, we know all that shit, along with the inevitable civil war and/or Islamist state as the end result. It's just that it's about to get really, truly, oh-fuck-how-can-he-even-show-his-face-in-public embarrassing for George W. Bush.
Sometimes teenage boys, when not engaged in pimple-poppin' or text-messaging or watchin' Hobofight videos, like to masturbate. No, really. It's a known fact: teenage boys like to jerk off. And sometimes they like to jerk off with their friends. Maybe a group of 'em. All sittin' around the basement, talkin' about hot pieces of ass, thinkin' that each of 'em has their eyes closed as they start to rub their cocks, and if one of 'em looks, he'll be the one called a "gaywad," even though to catch him, someone else had to be lookin'. It's like callin' "Shotgun" when you're about to get in a car. Whoever says it first wins.
Yep, sometimes teenage boys have well-polished circle jerk behavior, ejaculating so the spooge only lands in a Kleenex or a well-used pillow. Seein' who can top the other for moanin' and pretendin' they're fuckin' some girl, refusin' to recognize that if they'd all just admit they're gay they'd have a whole helluva lot more fun, such a fantasy world, man, such a fantasy world. Uh-huh, it's all well and good. Until Mom walks into the basement. Then you're just a bunch of teenage boys caught with your dicks in your hands. Sure, you can try to explain it away, but, really, it's better to put your dick back in your pants and run home.
George W. Bush is the proudest of the serial masturbators. He can't give it up. Here he is, plagiarizing himself, in his why-bother radio address this past Saturday: "In a few weeks, our country will mark the four-year anniversary of the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. On that day, we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors no longer protect us from those who wish to harm our people. And since that day, we have taken the fight to the enemy." God, you just wanna avert your eyes and cover your ears so that you don't have to witness the jacking off anymore, the unashamed yanking of that cock until he comes all over Condi's hair. (Plus, you know, could someone please fucking tell Bush that oceans didn't protect us from the British back in the day? Or that Native Americans weren't really all that well protected by oceans, either? Or, really, anyone since, say, the invention of the boat?)
It's only gonna get worse. Now Bush is gonna go on a tour, in roughly the opposite direction of the anti-Cindy caravan, to re-sell his war. He's gonna compare it to World War II. And he's just gonna shame us all, as we watch the cringe-inducing cheering crowds, the panicked flailing of the kid who's trying to explain to his mom why there's so much dry cum on the basement floor.
It's such a sorry state when the circle jerk must abruptly end. But Mom's walked into the room, and she's pissed.
So, like, do you think Deborah Johns would be proud if her Marine son William died to create another Iran? Opposed to Cindy Sheehan's now-interrupted vigil outside of Bush's Crawford ranch, Johns is one of the mothers of soldiers embarking on the "You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy" Tour (aka the "Tools Across the U.S.A" tour). The caravan will wind its way across the western U.S., from San Francisco to Crawford, with stops at the Doubletree Hotel in Bakersfield, where the brave right-wing supported caravaners can relax by the palm tree-lined pool, and the Dallas Hyatt Regency, with its multiple restaurants and amazing fitness center. That'll show Joan Baez she shouldn't join Cindy's followers in the ditches of Crawford.
But do you think Natalie Healy, who lost her son in Afghanistan but believes that the conflicts there and in Iraq are related, would be proud to know that Daniel, one of those missing Navy SEALS, died in a "larger" war that ensures the rise of a state that will enshrine the repression of women as part of its constitution? What about all the other anti-Sheehan mothers dug up by the media in a desperate attempt to offer "balance"? Do you think they wonder which conservative perversion of Islam will Iraq take? The Saudi Arabian track, where women can't drive or go much of anywhere without being accompanied by a male? Or what about the Taliban track, where girls can't even be schooled? And what about the veil? How insane will Iraq become to live up to the Islamic ideal that man is head of the household? Is this what you sacrificed your kids for? (And the Rude Pundit is not saying this to "attack" Islam - when wackjob fundamentalists try to impose Christian dogma on a government, he calls bullshit. And let's not even get into Israel.)
It's not that the whole Iraq War isn't an epic disaster the likes of which makes Custer's "Last Stand" seem like a well-planned, well-ordered, by the book military operation. It's not that anyone not suckling at the teat of Bush administration "leaks" and "anonymous sources" didn't know that there was going to be a prolonged conflict, with lots of casualties, and, you know, no fuckin' WMDs. No, no, we know all that shit, along with the inevitable civil war and/or Islamist state as the end result. It's just that it's about to get really, truly, oh-fuck-how-can-he-even-show-his-face-in-public embarrassing for George W. Bush.
Sometimes teenage boys, when not engaged in pimple-poppin' or text-messaging or watchin' Hobofight videos, like to masturbate. No, really. It's a known fact: teenage boys like to jerk off. And sometimes they like to jerk off with their friends. Maybe a group of 'em. All sittin' around the basement, talkin' about hot pieces of ass, thinkin' that each of 'em has their eyes closed as they start to rub their cocks, and if one of 'em looks, he'll be the one called a "gaywad," even though to catch him, someone else had to be lookin'. It's like callin' "Shotgun" when you're about to get in a car. Whoever says it first wins.
Yep, sometimes teenage boys have well-polished circle jerk behavior, ejaculating so the spooge only lands in a Kleenex or a well-used pillow. Seein' who can top the other for moanin' and pretendin' they're fuckin' some girl, refusin' to recognize that if they'd all just admit they're gay they'd have a whole helluva lot more fun, such a fantasy world, man, such a fantasy world. Uh-huh, it's all well and good. Until Mom walks into the basement. Then you're just a bunch of teenage boys caught with your dicks in your hands. Sure, you can try to explain it away, but, really, it's better to put your dick back in your pants and run home.
George W. Bush is the proudest of the serial masturbators. He can't give it up. Here he is, plagiarizing himself, in his why-bother radio address this past Saturday: "In a few weeks, our country will mark the four-year anniversary of the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. On that day, we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors no longer protect us from those who wish to harm our people. And since that day, we have taken the fight to the enemy." God, you just wanna avert your eyes and cover your ears so that you don't have to witness the jacking off anymore, the unashamed yanking of that cock until he comes all over Condi's hair. (Plus, you know, could someone please fucking tell Bush that oceans didn't protect us from the British back in the day? Or that Native Americans weren't really all that well protected by oceans, either? Or, really, anyone since, say, the invention of the boat?)
It's only gonna get worse. Now Bush is gonna go on a tour, in roughly the opposite direction of the anti-Cindy caravan, to re-sell his war. He's gonna compare it to World War II. And he's just gonna shame us all, as we watch the cringe-inducing cheering crowds, the panicked flailing of the kid who's trying to explain to his mom why there's so much dry cum on the basement floor.
It's such a sorry state when the circle jerk must abruptly end. But Mom's walked into the room, and she's pissed.
If You Want To Go To the Show...:
There's still seats available for tomorrow night's added performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely. Go to the show blog for more info.
There's still seats available for tomorrow night's added performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely. Go to the show blog for more info.
Cheney: Our Military Is Ragtag and Unorganized:
Whenever the viscous-goo-that-slouches-like-a-man known as Vice President Dick Cheney slimes up to a podium to speak, flowers lose their petals, butterflies drop from the sky, and a pall of doom and darkness is cast throughout the land so that toddlers sense it in their chilled bones and begin to cry, in unison, uncontrollably. Cheney is our misanthropic government's master of dark arts, his purpose to offer visions of a world on fire the likes of which would make Satan himself scratch his balls' black van dyke and mutter, "Those're goddamn fine flames, goddamn fine flames," itching for the end of the miracles of technology that keep Cheney alive so that the Vice President may finally die and rightfully join the devil by his side to assist in rule over the damned.
So it was that Cheney belched and spat puss at the gathered veterans at the National Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. Amid his usual recitation of the myriad horrors that have afflicted the world since, well, he and Bush took office, Cheney offered this heartwarming anecdote about Iraq: "In Iraq, terrorists have slaughtered innocent people in marketplaces, in restaurants, in private homes, at police recruiting stations, in a hospital, and outside a mosque. They have beheaded bound men in front of cameras, and killed UN employees and international aid workers. Earlier this summer, as American soldiers were giving candy to children, a suicide bomber drove into the crowd, killing 18 boys and girls and an American soldier." Yes, Iraqis are serious about teaching their children not to take candy from strangers.
But beyond lessons in childhood safety, Cheney offered a truly bizarre take on the U.S. forces in Iraq. See, despite being the "best-trained, best-equipped" military in the world, the Americans in Iraq are really just the same scruffy lot that fought the American Revolution. Farted Cheney, "The victories in 1776 were few, and the condition of the Army was dreadful. By Christmastime our men were cold, hungry, and exhausted, and many of them didn't even have boots to wear. The volunteers were near the end of their rope, and thousands of enlistments were set to expire on New Year's Day. These men were bound and determined to leave, so the Continental Army was about to evaporate."
See? You get it? It's not that the administration's a bunch of stumblefucks who couldn't wipe their asses with a diagram and feces-finding tissue. It's that the lack of body armor and, oh, say, a plan is exactly what's needed so the troops really suffer for their country. It's a morale builder, not a soul wrecker.
It took a great leader, said Cheney, George Washington himself, to rally the bedraggled soldiers and rouse them to fight another day: "'My brave fellows,' he said, 'you have done all I asked you to do and more than could be reasonably expected; you have worn yourself out with fatigues and hardships; but we know not how to spare you. The present is emphatically the crisis, which is to decide our destiny.' One by one the men stepped forward. They could not let their country or their fellow soldiers down. Inspired by leadership and renewed in their strength, they stayed in the fight -- and America won the war." Get it? Bush is like Washington, right? And the Americans are just fighting the British all over ag...oh, fuck, wait a second.
Ahh, see the little problem here is that, back in the day, the British army was the best-equipped, best-trained military in the Western world. And, you know, the American revolutionaries? Shit, let's just let the Army tell the story: "A force of farmers and townsmen, fresh from their fields and shops, with hardly a semblance of orthodox military organization, had met and fought on equal terms with a professional British Army. On the British this astonishing feat had a sobering effect, for it taught them that American resistance was not to be easily overcome."
And if we're gonna go with this "holy shit, we're the Redcoats in Iraq" scenario, let's go whole hog. Here's how the Revolutionary War was viewed, at least partly, in England: To fight the war, "Britain had first to raise the necessary forces, then transport and sustain them over 3000 miles of ocean, and finally use them effectively to regain control of a vast and sparsely populated territory. Recruiting men for an eighteenth century army was most difficult. The British Government had no power to compel service except in the militia in defense of the homeland, and service in the British Army overseas was immensely unpopular." How did the British make up for the lack of recruits? By outsourcing to the Hessians. Mercenaries, they were called then. Today, they're "security companies" or "Halliburton."
If Dick Cheney is breathing he's lying. Or he's insulting the United States Military once again by comparing them with a bunch of untrained, weakly-armed, barely cohesive bands of citizen-terrorists who were cobbled together to fight against an occupying power. Or he's the most ironic motherfucker in history.
Satan is licking his lips, waiting for Cheney's arrival. For such unmitigated, unapologetic evil is rare. Cheney will make a good viceroy and an even better chew toy for the Devil's hounds to tear into pieces, be healed again, and get ripped to shreds over and over for eternity.
Year of Living Rudely Tickets:
There's still about 20 tickets left for tomorrow night's extra super-special added performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely at Dixon Place in New York City. Buy online here or try (with cash) at the door.
Whenever the viscous-goo-that-slouches-like-a-man known as Vice President Dick Cheney slimes up to a podium to speak, flowers lose their petals, butterflies drop from the sky, and a pall of doom and darkness is cast throughout the land so that toddlers sense it in their chilled bones and begin to cry, in unison, uncontrollably. Cheney is our misanthropic government's master of dark arts, his purpose to offer visions of a world on fire the likes of which would make Satan himself scratch his balls' black van dyke and mutter, "Those're goddamn fine flames, goddamn fine flames," itching for the end of the miracles of technology that keep Cheney alive so that the Vice President may finally die and rightfully join the devil by his side to assist in rule over the damned.
So it was that Cheney belched and spat puss at the gathered veterans at the National Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. Amid his usual recitation of the myriad horrors that have afflicted the world since, well, he and Bush took office, Cheney offered this heartwarming anecdote about Iraq: "In Iraq, terrorists have slaughtered innocent people in marketplaces, in restaurants, in private homes, at police recruiting stations, in a hospital, and outside a mosque. They have beheaded bound men in front of cameras, and killed UN employees and international aid workers. Earlier this summer, as American soldiers were giving candy to children, a suicide bomber drove into the crowd, killing 18 boys and girls and an American soldier." Yes, Iraqis are serious about teaching their children not to take candy from strangers.
But beyond lessons in childhood safety, Cheney offered a truly bizarre take on the U.S. forces in Iraq. See, despite being the "best-trained, best-equipped" military in the world, the Americans in Iraq are really just the same scruffy lot that fought the American Revolution. Farted Cheney, "The victories in 1776 were few, and the condition of the Army was dreadful. By Christmastime our men were cold, hungry, and exhausted, and many of them didn't even have boots to wear. The volunteers were near the end of their rope, and thousands of enlistments were set to expire on New Year's Day. These men were bound and determined to leave, so the Continental Army was about to evaporate."
See? You get it? It's not that the administration's a bunch of stumblefucks who couldn't wipe their asses with a diagram and feces-finding tissue. It's that the lack of body armor and, oh, say, a plan is exactly what's needed so the troops really suffer for their country. It's a morale builder, not a soul wrecker.
It took a great leader, said Cheney, George Washington himself, to rally the bedraggled soldiers and rouse them to fight another day: "'My brave fellows,' he said, 'you have done all I asked you to do and more than could be reasonably expected; you have worn yourself out with fatigues and hardships; but we know not how to spare you. The present is emphatically the crisis, which is to decide our destiny.' One by one the men stepped forward. They could not let their country or their fellow soldiers down. Inspired by leadership and renewed in their strength, they stayed in the fight -- and America won the war." Get it? Bush is like Washington, right? And the Americans are just fighting the British all over ag...oh, fuck, wait a second.
Ahh, see the little problem here is that, back in the day, the British army was the best-equipped, best-trained military in the Western world. And, you know, the American revolutionaries? Shit, let's just let the Army tell the story: "A force of farmers and townsmen, fresh from their fields and shops, with hardly a semblance of orthodox military organization, had met and fought on equal terms with a professional British Army. On the British this astonishing feat had a sobering effect, for it taught them that American resistance was not to be easily overcome."
And if we're gonna go with this "holy shit, we're the Redcoats in Iraq" scenario, let's go whole hog. Here's how the Revolutionary War was viewed, at least partly, in England: To fight the war, "Britain had first to raise the necessary forces, then transport and sustain them over 3000 miles of ocean, and finally use them effectively to regain control of a vast and sparsely populated territory. Recruiting men for an eighteenth century army was most difficult. The British Government had no power to compel service except in the militia in defense of the homeland, and service in the British Army overseas was immensely unpopular." How did the British make up for the lack of recruits? By outsourcing to the Hessians. Mercenaries, they were called then. Today, they're "security companies" or "Halliburton."
If Dick Cheney is breathing he's lying. Or he's insulting the United States Military once again by comparing them with a bunch of untrained, weakly-armed, barely cohesive bands of citizen-terrorists who were cobbled together to fight against an occupying power. Or he's the most ironic motherfucker in history.
Satan is licking his lips, waiting for Cheney's arrival. For such unmitigated, unapologetic evil is rare. Cheney will make a good viceroy and an even better chew toy for the Devil's hounds to tear into pieces, be healed again, and get ripped to shreds over and over for eternity.
Year of Living Rudely Tickets:
There's still about 20 tickets left for tomorrow night's extra super-special added performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely at Dixon Place in New York City. Buy online here or try (with cash) at the door.
Added Performance of the Rude Pundit Live in NYC - Saturday, August 20 - Buy Tickets Now:
The New York International Fringe Festival has added a performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely this Saturday, August 20, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance by going to Ticketweb and typing in "Dixon Place" in the venue search. Or try clicking here.
So far, this is the only additional performance of the sold-out Rude Pundit live show. Only 40 seats available.
Also, some standby seats are available for all other performances (tonight at 7:15, Sunday at 2:15, Wednesday at 5 p.m., Friday the 26th at 10:30 p.m.). Show up fifteen minutes prior to the show if you wanna see if you can get in (and this ain't a fuckin' guarantee, but, hey, it also ain't Wicked).
Come and experience live, rude punditry.
The New York International Fringe Festival has added a performance of The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely this Saturday, August 20, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance by going to Ticketweb and typing in "Dixon Place" in the venue search. Or try clicking here.
So far, this is the only additional performance of the sold-out Rude Pundit live show. Only 40 seats available.
Also, some standby seats are available for all other performances (tonight at 7:15, Sunday at 2:15, Wednesday at 5 p.m., Friday the 26th at 10:30 p.m.). Show up fifteen minutes prior to the show if you wanna see if you can get in (and this ain't a fuckin' guarantee, but, hey, it also ain't Wicked).
Come and experience live, rude punditry.
Hating Cindy:
It is the way of the bully, you know, to choose the weakest, nose-pickingest, insignificant, wouldn't-hurt-a-fuckin-flea kid on the playground and pummel that little bastard into the dirt. And, as study after study has shown, bullies lash out against the schoolyard peons because it's the only way they can deal with truths they cannot face.
So, like, when some crazed white collar redneck plows through a field of flags and crosses bearing the names of soldiers who died in Iraq simply because said crosses were planted by Cindy Sheehan and her fellow Crawford protesters, we can pretty much assume that said crazed white collar redneck, also known as Waco realtor Larry Northern, may have been acting out of a sense of impotence, rage, and fear, the same combination that has driven crazed rednecks since Bocephus Yankeebeater pissed on the first pair of shoes ever to make its way up the Ozarks to Fuckedmysister, Arkansas.
It's not to excuse Northern (Operation Truth has already done the takedown) or stupid ass neighbor Larry Mattlage, apparently forgetting that bullets that go up do fuckin' come down, fired a warning shot near the demonstrators. But Mattlage and Northern are helpless, voiceless, deluded pukes who, like the kid whose father is beating his mother and him, have no other way but violence to express their anger and chimp-like confusion about Sheehan. ("She's a mother whose son died in the war. But wait. She opposes our President. But wait. She's a mother whose son died in the war. But wait. She's gettin' more people to protest the war. Aw, fuck it, let's just break shit.")
However, what are we to make of our depraved, desperate right wing punditry who are clinging, like plague fleas to the hair on the balls of the last rat in 1665 London, to any shred of an iota of evidence that Sheehan is wrong, which would discredit her vigil and, they hope, the entire cause of anti-war protesters. There's needs-to-be-sodomized-with-a-microphone Bill O'Reilly, who on his Fox "news" masturbatory yowl-fest, keeps repeating that Sheehan once said that Israel should get out of Palestine (as if that's somehow a far-left sentiment, despite having been expressed by many on the right who are not nutzoid end-of-days evangelicals or nutzoid neocons or David Horowitz) and that Sheehan posts messages on Michael Moore's website. And, of course, O'Reilly's making the story about himself, about whether or not he implied Sheehan was "treasonous." He did imply it, and he did say and imply that she was now a tool of "radicals" in America, denying her the voice he repeatedly insists she's allowed to have, treating her like the little woman who can't compete in the big, bad world of ideological rhetoric.
And what are we to make of Ann Coulter, whose cuntistry knows no bounds or limitations? In her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean "the sidewalk chalk scribbles of a delusional paranoiac just escaped from the chains holding her in her shit covered cell in the basement of the local charity hospital"), Coulter lashes out at Sheehan as if, say, Sheehan had sent the nation to war under false pretenses. Coulter, always the mainstream voice of the monkeyfuck insane right, says, "After your third profile on Entertainment Tonight, you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show." Coulter then tries to impugn Sheehan with out of context quotes. But the words don't matter. O'Reilly's connections don't matter.
All over the right, the attempts to destroy Sheehan are getting increasingly desperate and repellent, from dragging out her divorce documents and the liens against her property to saying that she "endangers" the troops (damn, you'd think lack of body armor would be doin' that, but then, fuck you - if you speak of it, our troops'll die). But that image, of the mother, outside, in that no-wonder-everyone's-goin'-insane heat of Central Texas, is far more powerful. When you hear her voice, it ain't the crazy rantings of the so-called loony left. It's the calm, reasonable tone of the righteous. And that's what's so fuckin' threatening to the bullies.
Goddamn, it feels good to pound that weakling into the dirt until you hear the weakling's sobs and cries of mercy. But what happens if the weakling gets up, brushes off, and dares you to take another shot? That's the way the bullies crumble.
It is the way of the bully, you know, to choose the weakest, nose-pickingest, insignificant, wouldn't-hurt-a-fuckin-flea kid on the playground and pummel that little bastard into the dirt. And, as study after study has shown, bullies lash out against the schoolyard peons because it's the only way they can deal with truths they cannot face.
So, like, when some crazed white collar redneck plows through a field of flags and crosses bearing the names of soldiers who died in Iraq simply because said crosses were planted by Cindy Sheehan and her fellow Crawford protesters, we can pretty much assume that said crazed white collar redneck, also known as Waco realtor Larry Northern, may have been acting out of a sense of impotence, rage, and fear, the same combination that has driven crazed rednecks since Bocephus Yankeebeater pissed on the first pair of shoes ever to make its way up the Ozarks to Fuckedmysister, Arkansas.
It's not to excuse Northern (Operation Truth has already done the takedown) or stupid ass neighbor Larry Mattlage, apparently forgetting that bullets that go up do fuckin' come down, fired a warning shot near the demonstrators. But Mattlage and Northern are helpless, voiceless, deluded pukes who, like the kid whose father is beating his mother and him, have no other way but violence to express their anger and chimp-like confusion about Sheehan. ("She's a mother whose son died in the war. But wait. She opposes our President. But wait. She's a mother whose son died in the war. But wait. She's gettin' more people to protest the war. Aw, fuck it, let's just break shit.")
However, what are we to make of our depraved, desperate right wing punditry who are clinging, like plague fleas to the hair on the balls of the last rat in 1665 London, to any shred of an iota of evidence that Sheehan is wrong, which would discredit her vigil and, they hope, the entire cause of anti-war protesters. There's needs-to-be-sodomized-with-a-microphone Bill O'Reilly, who on his Fox "news" masturbatory yowl-fest, keeps repeating that Sheehan once said that Israel should get out of Palestine (as if that's somehow a far-left sentiment, despite having been expressed by many on the right who are not nutzoid end-of-days evangelicals or nutzoid neocons or David Horowitz) and that Sheehan posts messages on Michael Moore's website. And, of course, O'Reilly's making the story about himself, about whether or not he implied Sheehan was "treasonous." He did imply it, and he did say and imply that she was now a tool of "radicals" in America, denying her the voice he repeatedly insists she's allowed to have, treating her like the little woman who can't compete in the big, bad world of ideological rhetoric.
And what are we to make of Ann Coulter, whose cuntistry knows no bounds or limitations? In her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean "the sidewalk chalk scribbles of a delusional paranoiac just escaped from the chains holding her in her shit covered cell in the basement of the local charity hospital"), Coulter lashes out at Sheehan as if, say, Sheehan had sent the nation to war under false pretenses. Coulter, always the mainstream voice of the monkeyfuck insane right, says, "After your third profile on Entertainment Tonight, you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show." Coulter then tries to impugn Sheehan with out of context quotes. But the words don't matter. O'Reilly's connections don't matter.
All over the right, the attempts to destroy Sheehan are getting increasingly desperate and repellent, from dragging out her divorce documents and the liens against her property to saying that she "endangers" the troops (damn, you'd think lack of body armor would be doin' that, but then, fuck you - if you speak of it, our troops'll die). But that image, of the mother, outside, in that no-wonder-everyone's-goin'-insane heat of Central Texas, is far more powerful. When you hear her voice, it ain't the crazy rantings of the so-called loony left. It's the calm, reasonable tone of the righteous. And that's what's so fuckin' threatening to the bullies.
Goddamn, it feels good to pound that weakling into the dirt until you hear the weakling's sobs and cries of mercy. But what happens if the weakling gets up, brushes off, and dares you to take another shot? That's the way the bullies crumble.
John Roberts Does Not Heart Women:
Young John Roberts, fresh, clean, Ivy-League anus scrubbed and tight, seems to have had a problem with women's rights, across the board, while he worked under Reagan's Attorney General Edwin Meese. (Full disclosure and fun story: the Rude Pundit was once nearly dragged out of a Meese talk about civil rights in the wake of the Rodney King beatings. Meese danced around and wouldn't answer the Rude Pundit's question. The Rude Pundit demanded that that bejowled fuck answer. Meese just danced. Security approached the Rude Pundit. Nat Hentoff, also speaking that night, intervened before the Rude Pundit was shown just what civil rights meant in the Bush I era.)
Yes, John Roberts, who has no problem giving the right hand of love when it comes to gay rights, just seemed to burn with Scalia-like visceral hatred of the goals of the feminist movement. Like a patrician at a 1964 regatta, wearing a yachting jacket and joking about the little women with the other patrician men in yachting jackets, Roberts wrote of the notion of equal pay for comparable work in response to the concerns of three Republican women: their letter "contends that more is required because women still earn only $0.60 for every $1 earned by men, ignoring the factors that explain that apparent disparity, such as seniority, the fact that many women frequently leave the work force for extended periods of time."
And then, in a line that could easily start with "Well, Trent and Drake," Roberts added, "I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistributive concept. Their slogan may as well be, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender.'" And, oh, ho, oh, ho, how Trent, Drake, and John would have laughed at the Buckley-esque allusion to Marxism before downing their gins and tonics and turning, seething with repressed anger, towards their wives who now dared to wear pants to the yacht club.
We're told again and again on every shred of evidence the Bush adminstration drools out: don't look at these documents to understand how he might vote on any case. Problem here is that in his Reagan-era memos, Roberts goes above and beyond the call of White House counsel duties. Take the memo above. Roberts could have stopped with the legal argument. Instead, he pushes further, to mocking the women for their silly socialism. It's like if Donna visits the porn set where her girlfriend Wanda is "acting" in her latest opus, Fistings of Fury VI, and Donna watches Wanda getting roundly fisted by Shaun but Wanda seems to be enjoying it just a little more than necessary, moaning more loudly than even the director tells her, coming earlier than she was supposed to. If later Wanda tells Donna that she shouldn't read anything into it and, by the way, does Donna mind if she meets up with Shaun later, is Donna supposed to just forget about it? Only if Donna's an idiot.
But we're supposed to think that Roberts' memo in support of funerals for fetuses, calling it "an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy" is insignificant. We're supposed to overlook his ability to somehow separate women from pregnancy in his brief supporting Operation Rescue's blockading of women's health clinics, that it was not discriminatory behavior by the crazed Christian nutzoids because it was protecting the fetus, which may, you know, be male or female.
This is the ever-focusing picture of John Roberts: a man who gives his pro bono time to support gays, who wrote brief after memo aggressively shooting down women's rights, who didn't marry until he was in his forties, who played Peppermint Patty in the school play. All that and he looks like Jeffrey Dahmer on Prozac. C'mon, this is a guy with skulls in his freezer and maybe a Gannon in his closet. And if they're found, the women-hating, gay-bashing right will teeter like an earthquake's hit it.
Is this a baseless pseudo-accusation? Is it a stretch of the facts to fit a predetermined enmity towards John Roberts? Fuckin' a, yeah, it is. And it's no worse than what the right is doing to Cindy Sheehan. And she ain't up for a lifetime appointment that'll affect us all for the rest of our lives.
Young John Roberts, fresh, clean, Ivy-League anus scrubbed and tight, seems to have had a problem with women's rights, across the board, while he worked under Reagan's Attorney General Edwin Meese. (Full disclosure and fun story: the Rude Pundit was once nearly dragged out of a Meese talk about civil rights in the wake of the Rodney King beatings. Meese danced around and wouldn't answer the Rude Pundit's question. The Rude Pundit demanded that that bejowled fuck answer. Meese just danced. Security approached the Rude Pundit. Nat Hentoff, also speaking that night, intervened before the Rude Pundit was shown just what civil rights meant in the Bush I era.)
Yes, John Roberts, who has no problem giving the right hand of love when it comes to gay rights, just seemed to burn with Scalia-like visceral hatred of the goals of the feminist movement. Like a patrician at a 1964 regatta, wearing a yachting jacket and joking about the little women with the other patrician men in yachting jackets, Roberts wrote of the notion of equal pay for comparable work in response to the concerns of three Republican women: their letter "contends that more is required because women still earn only $0.60 for every $1 earned by men, ignoring the factors that explain that apparent disparity, such as seniority, the fact that many women frequently leave the work force for extended periods of time."
And then, in a line that could easily start with "Well, Trent and Drake," Roberts added, "I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistributive concept. Their slogan may as well be, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender.'" And, oh, ho, oh, ho, how Trent, Drake, and John would have laughed at the Buckley-esque allusion to Marxism before downing their gins and tonics and turning, seething with repressed anger, towards their wives who now dared to wear pants to the yacht club.
We're told again and again on every shred of evidence the Bush adminstration drools out: don't look at these documents to understand how he might vote on any case. Problem here is that in his Reagan-era memos, Roberts goes above and beyond the call of White House counsel duties. Take the memo above. Roberts could have stopped with the legal argument. Instead, he pushes further, to mocking the women for their silly socialism. It's like if Donna visits the porn set where her girlfriend Wanda is "acting" in her latest opus, Fistings of Fury VI, and Donna watches Wanda getting roundly fisted by Shaun but Wanda seems to be enjoying it just a little more than necessary, moaning more loudly than even the director tells her, coming earlier than she was supposed to. If later Wanda tells Donna that she shouldn't read anything into it and, by the way, does Donna mind if she meets up with Shaun later, is Donna supposed to just forget about it? Only if Donna's an idiot.
But we're supposed to think that Roberts' memo in support of funerals for fetuses, calling it "an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy" is insignificant. We're supposed to overlook his ability to somehow separate women from pregnancy in his brief supporting Operation Rescue's blockading of women's health clinics, that it was not discriminatory behavior by the crazed Christian nutzoids because it was protecting the fetus, which may, you know, be male or female.
This is the ever-focusing picture of John Roberts: a man who gives his pro bono time to support gays, who wrote brief after memo aggressively shooting down women's rights, who didn't marry until he was in his forties, who played Peppermint Patty in the school play. All that and he looks like Jeffrey Dahmer on Prozac. C'mon, this is a guy with skulls in his freezer and maybe a Gannon in his closet. And if they're found, the women-hating, gay-bashing right will teeter like an earthquake's hit it.
Is this a baseless pseudo-accusation? Is it a stretch of the facts to fit a predetermined enmity towards John Roberts? Fuckin' a, yeah, it is. And it's no worse than what the right is doing to Cindy Sheehan. And she ain't up for a lifetime appointment that'll affect us all for the rest of our lives.
Review Links Up Over There:
Reviews are linked to over at the site for The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely. Go. Enjoy. Comment.
Reviews are linked to over at the site for The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely. Go. Enjoy. Comment.
President Who-Gives-a-Shit (Part 3, Wherein President Who-Gives-a-Shit Reveals That He Is the Exact Same Kind of Selfish Baby Boomer His Party Accused Bill Clinton of Being):
Let us say, and why not, that you were elected President of, say, the United States of America. It's a big fuckin' country, essentially a Europe or Africa cobbled together into a single entity by its forefathers who were bent on greedily devouring as much land as possible. In essence, America itself is the last empire standing. And, more or less, it functions not too badly, even with its severely different regions, its severely conflicted populations. But it is, you know, a big fuckin' country, with lots of fuckin' problems, some of which are products of history and some of which are self-inflicted wounds. However, you're the President, and for four or eight years your job is to deal with those problems.
Now let's say that one of those problems showed up at your door step. Say a mother of a soldier who died in a war that you chose to fight, a war that the population of the country now believes is a clusterfuck at best, a horrid failure at worst. Say she showed up during your vacation, insisting that you meet with her, spend an hour, answer her questions. Now, if you were the President, you're telling yourself, of course you would meet with her. But you are you, and you are not George W. Bush (unless you are - in which case, let the Rude Pundit take this opportunity to say, "Dude. Seriously.").
Because George W. Bush actually said this about his job as leader of this cobbled-together, problem-ridden nation, with its dead soldiers' mothers demanding some feint at the truth, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life," and then added, "I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy." What this bag of douche doesn't seem to get is that being President ain't about his life. It's about ours, motherfucker. And, frankly, we don't give a single fly fart's worth of concern about his balance. Fuck, howzabout imbalancing a little, huh? And where did the President go after he said this? A local Little League game. Well, shit, maybe he could give the kids a wink-wink lecture on steroid use.
In other words, the President's defense about not meeting with Cindy Sheehan is the whiny new age pussy excuse of yuppies everywhere - a balanced life, exercise, moving on. (And let's not leave out the easy answer here, which is that Cindy Sheehan really can't go on with her life, let alone Casey.)
Meanwhile, outside the David Koresh-like compound Bush calls his vacation home, as more protesters gather with Cindy Sheehan, pro-Bush demonstrators are now part of the crowd, accusing Sheehan of being un-American. And monkeyfuck insane Michelle Malkin has made bashing Sheehan into her full-time job, although, you know, being monkeyfuck insane pretty much is Malkin's job. That and being the hot non-white conservative chick who oughta be scrawling on the rubber walls of Bedlam with her own shit.
Malkin said on Bill O'Reilly's Fox "News" show, "I can't imagine that Casey Sheehan would approve of such behavior, conduct, and rhetoric." Well, fuck, who really knows how Casey Sheehan might have felt. Even if he was rabidly pro-war before, he might have changed his mind after being gunned down.
Let us say, and why not, that you were elected President of, say, the United States of America. It's a big fuckin' country, essentially a Europe or Africa cobbled together into a single entity by its forefathers who were bent on greedily devouring as much land as possible. In essence, America itself is the last empire standing. And, more or less, it functions not too badly, even with its severely different regions, its severely conflicted populations. But it is, you know, a big fuckin' country, with lots of fuckin' problems, some of which are products of history and some of which are self-inflicted wounds. However, you're the President, and for four or eight years your job is to deal with those problems.
Now let's say that one of those problems showed up at your door step. Say a mother of a soldier who died in a war that you chose to fight, a war that the population of the country now believes is a clusterfuck at best, a horrid failure at worst. Say she showed up during your vacation, insisting that you meet with her, spend an hour, answer her questions. Now, if you were the President, you're telling yourself, of course you would meet with her. But you are you, and you are not George W. Bush (unless you are - in which case, let the Rude Pundit take this opportunity to say, "Dude. Seriously.").
Because George W. Bush actually said this about his job as leader of this cobbled-together, problem-ridden nation, with its dead soldiers' mothers demanding some feint at the truth, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life," and then added, "I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy." What this bag of douche doesn't seem to get is that being President ain't about his life. It's about ours, motherfucker. And, frankly, we don't give a single fly fart's worth of concern about his balance. Fuck, howzabout imbalancing a little, huh? And where did the President go after he said this? A local Little League game. Well, shit, maybe he could give the kids a wink-wink lecture on steroid use.
In other words, the President's defense about not meeting with Cindy Sheehan is the whiny new age pussy excuse of yuppies everywhere - a balanced life, exercise, moving on. (And let's not leave out the easy answer here, which is that Cindy Sheehan really can't go on with her life, let alone Casey.)
Meanwhile, outside the David Koresh-like compound Bush calls his vacation home, as more protesters gather with Cindy Sheehan, pro-Bush demonstrators are now part of the crowd, accusing Sheehan of being un-American. And monkeyfuck insane Michelle Malkin has made bashing Sheehan into her full-time job, although, you know, being monkeyfuck insane pretty much is Malkin's job. That and being the hot non-white conservative chick who oughta be scrawling on the rubber walls of Bedlam with her own shit.
Malkin said on Bill O'Reilly's Fox "News" show, "I can't imagine that Casey Sheehan would approve of such behavior, conduct, and rhetoric." Well, fuck, who really knows how Casey Sheehan might have felt. Even if he was rabidly pro-war before, he might have changed his mind after being gunned down.
More Rude Pundit Live Stuff:
Over at the show site, there's info on the people involved, as well as a thread for audience members to review The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely. Long knives and tossed roses are all welcome.
Over at the show site, there's info on the people involved, as well as a thread for audience members to review The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely. Long knives and tossed roses are all welcome.
Justice Sunday II - Because So Many Plot Threads Were Left Dangling:
Goddamn, Justice Sunday II is comin' this weekend. On Sunday, in fact, just to demonstrate truth in advertising. And it'll be a big, sweaty helpin' o' Jesus lovin' and policy makin' and liberal mockin' and monkey fuck crazy rantin' from the likes of the insane former Watergate convict and popular bottom at the prison bunk room, Chuck Colson. The mad head of the National Association of Evangelicals (motto: "Move Outtatheway, Jewberg and Allahsalaam, We're Convertin' Here") Ted Haggard'll be tryin' to keep his Catholic hatin' Tourette's in check. Yep, all the bugfuck nutzoids'll be puttin' on the ol' hat o' rationality, like when yer psychotic aunt shows up at yer daughter's wedding, having been warned ahead of time to keep her tits out of the punch bowl and don't start shittin' on the bandstand. Sure, she'll keep it twitchily together, but, damn, she'll think, how her tits need a dunkin'.
There's gonna be entertainment, too, including demi-babe for Christ (although she's proudly abstinent, boys and girls) Rebecca St. James. 'Becca's full of God's love - in fact, God is like her Neptunes in the studio. Says 'Becca of her new album, "I'm very excited about what God is doing on this project," possibly meanin' that God's layerin' in the phat beats on her songs, like "Let My Words Be Few," with the creepy, co-dependent lyrics "You are God in Heaven/ And here I am on earth/ So I'll let my words be few/ Jesus, I am so in love with You," which sound more like an abused teenage girl datin' the cap'n of the football team than, you know, a prayer.
Then it's back to the bug-fuckery, with everyone's favorite Jed-Clampett-on-meth, Zell Miller, and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, who said that Bill Frist, who spoke by tape at Justice Sunday I, is "worse than Kerry" for the Majority Leader's support of funding stem cell research. And, of course, Tom DeLay will ooze out to talk to the crowd at the Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, praying for all he's worth that Jack Abramoff doesn't cut a deal.
Yep, Justice Sunday II'll show America what it means to be "Christian" in a way that'd make Christ say, "For this I awoke after three days? Anyone got any Bactine?"
Goddamn, Justice Sunday II is comin' this weekend. On Sunday, in fact, just to demonstrate truth in advertising. And it'll be a big, sweaty helpin' o' Jesus lovin' and policy makin' and liberal mockin' and monkey fuck crazy rantin' from the likes of the insane former Watergate convict and popular bottom at the prison bunk room, Chuck Colson. The mad head of the National Association of Evangelicals (motto: "Move Outtatheway, Jewberg and Allahsalaam, We're Convertin' Here") Ted Haggard'll be tryin' to keep his Catholic hatin' Tourette's in check. Yep, all the bugfuck nutzoids'll be puttin' on the ol' hat o' rationality, like when yer psychotic aunt shows up at yer daughter's wedding, having been warned ahead of time to keep her tits out of the punch bowl and don't start shittin' on the bandstand. Sure, she'll keep it twitchily together, but, damn, she'll think, how her tits need a dunkin'.
There's gonna be entertainment, too, including demi-babe for Christ (although she's proudly abstinent, boys and girls) Rebecca St. James. 'Becca's full of God's love - in fact, God is like her Neptunes in the studio. Says 'Becca of her new album, "I'm very excited about what God is doing on this project," possibly meanin' that God's layerin' in the phat beats on her songs, like "Let My Words Be Few," with the creepy, co-dependent lyrics "You are God in Heaven/ And here I am on earth/ So I'll let my words be few/ Jesus, I am so in love with You," which sound more like an abused teenage girl datin' the cap'n of the football team than, you know, a prayer.
Then it's back to the bug-fuckery, with everyone's favorite Jed-Clampett-on-meth, Zell Miller, and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, who said that Bill Frist, who spoke by tape at Justice Sunday I, is "worse than Kerry" for the Majority Leader's support of funding stem cell research. And, of course, Tom DeLay will ooze out to talk to the crowd at the Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, praying for all he's worth that Jack Abramoff doesn't cut a deal.
Yep, Justice Sunday II'll show America what it means to be "Christian" in a way that'd make Christ say, "For this I awoke after three days? Anyone got any Bactine?"
Green Day's Anti-Recruitment Video:
Anyone who's been paying attention to popular rock music over the last couple of years knows that Green Day's 2004 American Idiot album is one of the most kickass pieces of mainstream protest music to emerge from the era of Bush. From its title song, with its slamming sarcasm of "Well maybe I'm the faggot America/ I'm not a part of a redneck agenda," to singer Billie Joe Armstrong announcing, "Zieg Heil to the president gasman/ Bombs away is your punishment/ Pulverize the Eiffel towers/ Who criticize your government" in "Holiday," the effect of the music is to describe a nation gone mad and its effect on the individual young male. (And Armstrong's got his native California's back, too, on the b-side (well, what we used to call "b-side") song, "Governator.")
Now, in the video for the seemingly straightforward power ballad "Wake Me Up When September Ends," Green Day makes an answer to every Army-of-One bullshit ad. The video begins with a sappy teen love story, complete with the music low and the dialogue audible, until we see the weeping teenage girl going up to the teenage boy, begging to know if what she heard is true. The boy explodes that she doesn't understand, and then we see what they're talking about, with the boy going off in a bus, having his head shaved, being trained by the military, and sent to an urban battlefield that is presumably Iraq.
There, guitars peaking in the background, we watch as the boy's patrol comes under fire from an unseen enemy, with explosions and bullets all around them. As he watches his fellow soldiers being hit, we see the boy, scared, confused, hidden in one of the bombed out buildings. The thing is that it's filmed as if it is one of those Army or Marine ads, except it looks fucking scary. And then it ends with the teenage girl back at home, sitting on bleachers. We don't know if the boy lives or dies (perhaps there's a sequel in the offing?), but we know that the innocence of the early part has been compromised, and that there's no way that girl and that boy can ever connect again.
Simple. A bit sappy. And as effective as a mallet to the head. Or that bleeding heart grenade on the cover of the album itself.
We have entered the hottest part of the summer. Between this, a song on the Rolling Stones' new album, and Cindy Sheehan's vigil at Crawford, Texas, we've also entered a season of discontent and resistance. At last.
(Note: Rude Pundit tired. Rehearsing for Rude Pundit show. Opens tomorrow. See the show site for news.)
Anyone who's been paying attention to popular rock music over the last couple of years knows that Green Day's 2004 American Idiot album is one of the most kickass pieces of mainstream protest music to emerge from the era of Bush. From its title song, with its slamming sarcasm of "Well maybe I'm the faggot America/ I'm not a part of a redneck agenda," to singer Billie Joe Armstrong announcing, "Zieg Heil to the president gasman/ Bombs away is your punishment/ Pulverize the Eiffel towers/ Who criticize your government" in "Holiday," the effect of the music is to describe a nation gone mad and its effect on the individual young male. (And Armstrong's got his native California's back, too, on the b-side (well, what we used to call "b-side") song, "Governator.")
Now, in the video for the seemingly straightforward power ballad "Wake Me Up When September Ends," Green Day makes an answer to every Army-of-One bullshit ad. The video begins with a sappy teen love story, complete with the music low and the dialogue audible, until we see the weeping teenage girl going up to the teenage boy, begging to know if what she heard is true. The boy explodes that she doesn't understand, and then we see what they're talking about, with the boy going off in a bus, having his head shaved, being trained by the military, and sent to an urban battlefield that is presumably Iraq.
There, guitars peaking in the background, we watch as the boy's patrol comes under fire from an unseen enemy, with explosions and bullets all around them. As he watches his fellow soldiers being hit, we see the boy, scared, confused, hidden in one of the bombed out buildings. The thing is that it's filmed as if it is one of those Army or Marine ads, except it looks fucking scary. And then it ends with the teenage girl back at home, sitting on bleachers. We don't know if the boy lives or dies (perhaps there's a sequel in the offing?), but we know that the innocence of the early part has been compromised, and that there's no way that girl and that boy can ever connect again.
Simple. A bit sappy. And as effective as a mallet to the head. Or that bleeding heart grenade on the cover of the album itself.
We have entered the hottest part of the summer. Between this, a song on the Rolling Stones' new album, and Cindy Sheehan's vigil at Crawford, Texas, we've also entered a season of discontent and resistance. At last.
(Note: Rude Pundit tired. Rehearsing for Rude Pundit show. Opens tomorrow. See the show site for news.)
President Who-Gives-a-Shit (Part 2):
All around Left Blogsylvania you can read articles about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, a soldier who died in Iraq, fighting in Sadr City back in April 2004, shot in the head. Cindy Sheehan has become one of the leading voices of families of soldiers opposing the war. She now sits a few miles outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, along with other anti-war protesters, waiting to speak to her son's Commander-in-Chief, to tell him to bring the soldiers home. She wants to speak directly to Bush, not to his lackeys and handlers. Cindy Sheehan's nation didn't elect Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser, who did talk to Sheehan for 45 minutes this week. No, Bush is the President of citizens of a republic and, as such, in an ideal republic, is merely the equal of each and every one of those citizens. She has met with Bush before and came away from the occasion sickened by it.
All over Right Blogsylvania, the creeping nutzoids are looking for any way to attack and discredit Cindy Sheehan, for, like for so many non-violent protesters before her, the reaction to her silent disobedience shows the true face of those who oppose and wish to silence her.
Let us ponder for a moment the sensibility of a man, our President, who refuses to give Cindy Sheehan the time of day. Trent Duffy, speaking to the sweaty press in Crawford, declared that Bush met with her in July 2004, "and he was glad to meet with her at that time," as if Cindy Sheehan had her one shot and the President doesn't need to give the time of day to her anymore. Maybe if she donated $100,000 to the Republican National Committee, he'd find some more time.
Public relations-wise, this is an easy one, isn't it? If you're the President, you meet with Sheehan. You invite her in. You give her some lemonade. You listen. You say you're sorry. And then you let her go back out. PR problem over, no? Fuck, while she's talkin', you can have monkeys dancin' in your head. But doesn't this seem like a no-brainer?
Unless, of course, you don't give a shit. Unless, of course, you think of yourself as unquestionably right and, frankly, you couldn't give a happy monkey fuck what the opposition says. And, of course, Bush doesn't.
So often symbols of protest are created by the power of the opposition. Right now, Bush is making Cindy Sheehan into a more powerful figure than he could ever imagine. Than he could ever wish for himself. In the end, if Sheehan indeed becomes a new Rosa Parks, then, like the war itself, the President will only have himself to blame.
All around Left Blogsylvania you can read articles about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, a soldier who died in Iraq, fighting in Sadr City back in April 2004, shot in the head. Cindy Sheehan has become one of the leading voices of families of soldiers opposing the war. She now sits a few miles outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, along with other anti-war protesters, waiting to speak to her son's Commander-in-Chief, to tell him to bring the soldiers home. She wants to speak directly to Bush, not to his lackeys and handlers. Cindy Sheehan's nation didn't elect Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser, who did talk to Sheehan for 45 minutes this week. No, Bush is the President of citizens of a republic and, as such, in an ideal republic, is merely the equal of each and every one of those citizens. She has met with Bush before and came away from the occasion sickened by it.
All over Right Blogsylvania, the creeping nutzoids are looking for any way to attack and discredit Cindy Sheehan, for, like for so many non-violent protesters before her, the reaction to her silent disobedience shows the true face of those who oppose and wish to silence her.
Let us ponder for a moment the sensibility of a man, our President, who refuses to give Cindy Sheehan the time of day. Trent Duffy, speaking to the sweaty press in Crawford, declared that Bush met with her in July 2004, "and he was glad to meet with her at that time," as if Cindy Sheehan had her one shot and the President doesn't need to give the time of day to her anymore. Maybe if she donated $100,000 to the Republican National Committee, he'd find some more time.
Public relations-wise, this is an easy one, isn't it? If you're the President, you meet with Sheehan. You invite her in. You give her some lemonade. You listen. You say you're sorry. And then you let her go back out. PR problem over, no? Fuck, while she's talkin', you can have monkeys dancin' in your head. But doesn't this seem like a no-brainer?
Unless, of course, you don't give a shit. Unless, of course, you think of yourself as unquestionably right and, frankly, you couldn't give a happy monkey fuck what the opposition says. And, of course, Bush doesn't.
So often symbols of protest are created by the power of the opposition. Right now, Bush is making Cindy Sheehan into a more powerful figure than he could ever imagine. Than he could ever wish for himself. In the end, if Sheehan indeed becomes a new Rosa Parks, then, like the war itself, the President will only have himself to blame.
President Who-Gives-a-Shit (Part 1):
If President Bush was a reflective man who spent any time wondering why an increasing majority of Americans don't like him, don't trust him, don't approve of him, and don't really understand how he was re-elected, maybe he'd do well to look at his statement on the death of Peter Jennings. Bush said that Jennings was a journalist who "covered many important events, events that helped define the world as we know it today," which is a bit like saying that "Marilyn Monroe was an actress who fucked many important men, men who helped define the world." Bush added, "A lot of Americans relied upon Peter Jennings for their news. He became a part of the lives of a lot of our fellow citizens, and he will be missed," before bringin' it all back home to the big guy: "May God bless his soul."
Yes, a reflective man might have used a superlative or two to discuss Peter Jennings (who, in a lesson to us all, ended his incredible career with a special hour on whether or not UFOs exist), but, as we consistently learn from the President, reflection is for pussies and there is only the future. Honoring the dead is for the weak. They are useless and should merely become the sod under his feet on the path to places unknown.
President Bush simply can't be bothered to give a shit about such matters like dead anchormen or the mothers of dead soldiers. More on that tomorrow.
If President Bush was a reflective man who spent any time wondering why an increasing majority of Americans don't like him, don't trust him, don't approve of him, and don't really understand how he was re-elected, maybe he'd do well to look at his statement on the death of Peter Jennings. Bush said that Jennings was a journalist who "covered many important events, events that helped define the world as we know it today," which is a bit like saying that "Marilyn Monroe was an actress who fucked many important men, men who helped define the world." Bush added, "A lot of Americans relied upon Peter Jennings for their news. He became a part of the lives of a lot of our fellow citizens, and he will be missed," before bringin' it all back home to the big guy: "May God bless his soul."
Yes, a reflective man might have used a superlative or two to discuss Peter Jennings (who, in a lesson to us all, ended his incredible career with a special hour on whether or not UFOs exist), but, as we consistently learn from the President, reflection is for pussies and there is only the future. Honoring the dead is for the weak. They are useless and should merely become the sod under his feet on the path to places unknown.
President Bush simply can't be bothered to give a shit about such matters like dead anchormen or the mothers of dead soldiers. More on that tomorrow.
Rude Pundit Show Almost Sold Out:
Tickets are going fast for The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely at the New York International Fringe Festival. Several performances are already sold out, and the rest are nearly sold out. Go to the Fringe Festival website to buy tickets before they're gone, daddy, gone.
Tickets are going fast for The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely at the New York International Fringe Festival. Several performances are already sold out, and the rest are nearly sold out. Go to the Fringe Festival website to buy tickets before they're gone, daddy, gone.
Why Bill O'Reilly Needs To Be Sodomized With a Microphone, Part 907 of a Continuing Series:
When one watches Bill O'Reilly, Fox "news" host and depraved, ranting saint of spittle, one understands part of the unmitigated dementia of the man is his ability to state the most monkeyfuck insane ideas as if they are the most rational things any human ever thought of. O'Reilly, in his "Talking Points Memo" at the top of every show, looks straight at his audience and states, simply, directly, the crazed delusions of the psychotic. He could say, "Eating members of the ACLU, that's the topic of tonight's Talking Points Memo. You know, the ACLU hates America so it is every real American's patriotic duty to find out who their local terrorist-supporting ACLU members are, round them up, string them upside down, slit open their body cavities, letting the steaming guts spill onto the pavement, and barbecue their meat for the neighborhood. The great thing about these granola-eaters is that they're probably organic and good for you. In fact, many of them are probably kosher. And if you have to, well, you might just have to tackle them, rip their hearts out, and eat the still beating organs in front of the quickly dying wacko-liberal. And that's tonight's Memo. Now, here for me to fling shit at and then eat is ACLU member Jewey Pinheadstein."
And his fuckin' audience'll gobble it up, thinkin', "Goddamn, that's a sane man talkin' sense." Then the sweet smell of grilled liberals will be wafting through the lawns of suburbia.
So, on Tuesday, when O'Reilly bloviated in support of President Bush's belief that "intelligent design" ought to be taught in public school classrooms alongside evolution, calling the National Academy of Sciences' belief that science ought to be taught in science classrooms "fascism," he sounded like one of Chairman Mao's spokesmen announcing the placement of dunce caps on intellectuals back in the good ol' days of the Cultural Revolution.
One imagines O'Reilly, a man to whom "irony" is what Reagan burbled in his last lucid moments, didn't see the contradiction in the fact that, later in the same show, he called for the mass execution of every detainee at Guantanamo without trial, without any evidence against them. Spewed O'Reilly, "I don't give the Bill of Rights protection or the Constitution protection or the Geneva Convention to people not in uniform slaughtering...civilians. I don't give them any protection. I don't feel sorry for them. In fact I probably would have ordered their execution if I had the power."
Earlier in his interview with author Pierce O'Donnell, O'Reilly had said that he wasn't including the Taliban in his denial of rights: "There are very few Taliban over there. They let the Afghans handle them. And you know how they handled them; they shot them in the head. So I don't know if that's the -- they would be better off in Gitmo than shot in the head." So, in other words, O'Reilly is saying that he would like Afghan "justice" for the detainees. Such a rational man, Bill is.
Ahh, fascism. Such a fun word. Would that Mussolini had only wanted to teach children science.
When one watches Bill O'Reilly, Fox "news" host and depraved, ranting saint of spittle, one understands part of the unmitigated dementia of the man is his ability to state the most monkeyfuck insane ideas as if they are the most rational things any human ever thought of. O'Reilly, in his "Talking Points Memo" at the top of every show, looks straight at his audience and states, simply, directly, the crazed delusions of the psychotic. He could say, "Eating members of the ACLU, that's the topic of tonight's Talking Points Memo. You know, the ACLU hates America so it is every real American's patriotic duty to find out who their local terrorist-supporting ACLU members are, round them up, string them upside down, slit open their body cavities, letting the steaming guts spill onto the pavement, and barbecue their meat for the neighborhood. The great thing about these granola-eaters is that they're probably organic and good for you. In fact, many of them are probably kosher. And if you have to, well, you might just have to tackle them, rip their hearts out, and eat the still beating organs in front of the quickly dying wacko-liberal. And that's tonight's Memo. Now, here for me to fling shit at and then eat is ACLU member Jewey Pinheadstein."
And his fuckin' audience'll gobble it up, thinkin', "Goddamn, that's a sane man talkin' sense." Then the sweet smell of grilled liberals will be wafting through the lawns of suburbia.
So, on Tuesday, when O'Reilly bloviated in support of President Bush's belief that "intelligent design" ought to be taught in public school classrooms alongside evolution, calling the National Academy of Sciences' belief that science ought to be taught in science classrooms "fascism," he sounded like one of Chairman Mao's spokesmen announcing the placement of dunce caps on intellectuals back in the good ol' days of the Cultural Revolution.
One imagines O'Reilly, a man to whom "irony" is what Reagan burbled in his last lucid moments, didn't see the contradiction in the fact that, later in the same show, he called for the mass execution of every detainee at Guantanamo without trial, without any evidence against them. Spewed O'Reilly, "I don't give the Bill of Rights protection or the Constitution protection or the Geneva Convention to people not in uniform slaughtering...civilians. I don't give them any protection. I don't feel sorry for them. In fact I probably would have ordered their execution if I had the power."
Earlier in his interview with author Pierce O'Donnell, O'Reilly had said that he wasn't including the Taliban in his denial of rights: "There are very few Taliban over there. They let the Afghans handle them. And you know how they handled them; they shot them in the head. So I don't know if that's the -- they would be better off in Gitmo than shot in the head." So, in other words, O'Reilly is saying that he would like Afghan "justice" for the detainees. Such a rational man, Bill is.
Ahh, fascism. Such a fun word. Would that Mussolini had only wanted to teach children science.
Four Points in Ohio:
Last night, Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman demanded that Jeff Gannon fuck him harder as he watched the results coming in from the Ohio Second Congressional District race for the House between Republican Jean "Crazy Fuckin' Eyes Means Crazy Fuckin' Mind" Schmidt and Democrat Paul "I'm an Iraq War Vet - C'mon, Fuck With Me" Hackett. Sweet mercies, Mehlman cried as Gannon did as he was being paid to do, fuck the ass of the RNC chair harder or gentler depending on the numbers. Schmidt behind? Slam that meat home with all the force of a rocket-propelled grenade nailing a gerbil. Schmidt ahead? Do the smooth moves, the quiet ooh and ahh of the in and out. Of course, the further ahead, the nicer the fucking.
For a while there, as Hackett pulled ahead for a bit, Mehlman didn't think his asshole could take it. Hell, Gannon didn't think his cock could keep going without snapping like a burnt frankfurter. But soon, all was presumptively well, as, in one of the safest Republican districts in the nation, Schmidt won. By four points. In a district that is 70% Republican that was last won by 44 points by the Republican incumbent. In a district that has counties that in 2004 broke down this way: Adams County - 64% Bush, 36% Kerry; Brown County - 64% Bush, 36% Kerry; Clermont County - 70% Bush; 29% Kerry; Pike County - 52% Bush, 48% Kerry. The other counties are only partially represented by the district, but Bush won those by between 4 and 28 points.
This morning, when Mehlman said he was shitting blood, Gannon apologized, saying he was only doing what Mehlman wanted. No, Mehlman explained. It wasn't the hard fucking, dear man-whore. It was Ohio. Goddamned Ohio. And if the nation as a whole makes only half the shift that Ohio-02 made, then, Mehlman said, weeping, we're fucked harder than you could ever manage.
(Note: Again, the abbreviated entries are due to the exhausting regime of rehearsals to get ready for the Rude Pundit live in NYC.)
Last night, Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman demanded that Jeff Gannon fuck him harder as he watched the results coming in from the Ohio Second Congressional District race for the House between Republican Jean "Crazy Fuckin' Eyes Means Crazy Fuckin' Mind" Schmidt and Democrat Paul "I'm an Iraq War Vet - C'mon, Fuck With Me" Hackett. Sweet mercies, Mehlman cried as Gannon did as he was being paid to do, fuck the ass of the RNC chair harder or gentler depending on the numbers. Schmidt behind? Slam that meat home with all the force of a rocket-propelled grenade nailing a gerbil. Schmidt ahead? Do the smooth moves, the quiet ooh and ahh of the in and out. Of course, the further ahead, the nicer the fucking.
For a while there, as Hackett pulled ahead for a bit, Mehlman didn't think his asshole could take it. Hell, Gannon didn't think his cock could keep going without snapping like a burnt frankfurter. But soon, all was presumptively well, as, in one of the safest Republican districts in the nation, Schmidt won. By four points. In a district that is 70% Republican that was last won by 44 points by the Republican incumbent. In a district that has counties that in 2004 broke down this way: Adams County - 64% Bush, 36% Kerry; Brown County - 64% Bush, 36% Kerry; Clermont County - 70% Bush; 29% Kerry; Pike County - 52% Bush, 48% Kerry. The other counties are only partially represented by the district, but Bush won those by between 4 and 28 points.
This morning, when Mehlman said he was shitting blood, Gannon apologized, saying he was only doing what Mehlman wanted. No, Mehlman explained. It wasn't the hard fucking, dear man-whore. It was Ohio. Goddamned Ohio. And if the nation as a whole makes only half the shift that Ohio-02 made, then, Mehlman said, weeping, we're fucked harder than you could ever manage.
(Note: Again, the abbreviated entries are due to the exhausting regime of rehearsals to get ready for the Rude Pundit live in NYC.)
The Stupiding of America:
George W. Bush wants America to be stupid. When he said in an interview with Texas newspaper reporters that "intelligent design" (also known as the theory that "the earth and everything on it was made by a magical sky wizard when that big fucker snapped his fingers and thus created humans, buzzards, ebola, and rats") ought to be taught along with evolution in public schools, the President of the United States may as well have said, "I want all American children to be stupid, so fuckin' stupid and desperate and superstitious that the Republican party and its fundamentalist crotch-sniffers can manipulate them into dicking themselves over more often than Ron Jeremy fucking himself."
Bush, trying to look "rational" about forcing the Christian bible into the classroom, said, "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." Which is not unlike telling your girlfriend that it's not that you necessarily believe that it'd be fun if your old frat brother fucked you in the ass while you were eating her out, but everyone should be exposed to different ideas. In other words, it's bullshit cover. And it equates science with mythology. And the whole fuckin' debate is just a bigger cover to distract ever-stupider Americans from the real shit that's goin' down.
The stupiding continued with the appointment of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador, a position that already had a temp in it, only to be replaced by another temp (just like in the real world of Bush's economy). And what does it say to the children that you can be the biggest asshole who abuses and threatens powerless people, intimidates into silence people above you, goes around your boss to the higher-ups, and just generally is a motherfucker of boundless energy? What does it say to the children?
Like creationism, it says do not question the power of those above you, children, do not dare question their decisions. Just stay stupid and let higher powers show you the way.
(Note: As the Rude Pundit prepares for his live show in NYC, posts will continue to be daily, but briefer. (Link fuck-up corrected.))
George W. Bush wants America to be stupid. When he said in an interview with Texas newspaper reporters that "intelligent design" (also known as the theory that "the earth and everything on it was made by a magical sky wizard when that big fucker snapped his fingers and thus created humans, buzzards, ebola, and rats") ought to be taught along with evolution in public schools, the President of the United States may as well have said, "I want all American children to be stupid, so fuckin' stupid and desperate and superstitious that the Republican party and its fundamentalist crotch-sniffers can manipulate them into dicking themselves over more often than Ron Jeremy fucking himself."
Bush, trying to look "rational" about forcing the Christian bible into the classroom, said, "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." Which is not unlike telling your girlfriend that it's not that you necessarily believe that it'd be fun if your old frat brother fucked you in the ass while you were eating her out, but everyone should be exposed to different ideas. In other words, it's bullshit cover. And it equates science with mythology. And the whole fuckin' debate is just a bigger cover to distract ever-stupider Americans from the real shit that's goin' down.
The stupiding continued with the appointment of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador, a position that already had a temp in it, only to be replaced by another temp (just like in the real world of Bush's economy). And what does it say to the children that you can be the biggest asshole who abuses and threatens powerless people, intimidates into silence people above you, goes around your boss to the higher-ups, and just generally is a motherfucker of boundless energy? What does it say to the children?
Like creationism, it says do not question the power of those above you, children, do not dare question their decisions. Just stay stupid and let higher powers show you the way.
(Note: As the Rude Pundit prepares for his live show in NYC, posts will continue to be daily, but briefer. (Link fuck-up corrected.))
Ticket Update For The Rude Pundit in The Year of Living Rudely:
Damn. The Rude Pundit is feeling something unfamiliar, rather akin to humbleness: Opening night of the Rude Pundit live is sold out. There's still tix available for the other six performances. For now. Click away and buy early.
Damn. The Rude Pundit is feeling something unfamiliar, rather akin to humbleness: Opening night of the Rude Pundit live is sold out. There's still tix available for the other six performances. For now. Click away and buy early.
Boy Scouts For Baghdad:
So the President of the United States went to talk to the thousands upon thousands of Boy Scouts gathered in Virginia for their annual jamboree/death march. There, he praised them for being just like most Americans (or, at least, most Americans who get a month-long vacation from their jobs) by saying, "You also understand that freedom must be defended, and I appreciate the Scouts' long tradition of supporting the men and women of the United States military." Yep - wave yer little flags and say you support the war; that's all ya need to do, children. And while he gave them the suggestion of joining the USA Freedom Corps (even droppin' a URL in there to look all hip and shit), he missed an amazing opportunity.
Why not recruit those little patriotic fuckers for our declining Army and Army reserves? Hell, we know the scouts are not gay - at least if no one's askin', no one's tellin' - and we know that a vast majority of them can handle the Iraqi heat, even if the President himself punked out on going to speak outdoors at Fort A.P. Hill until it was more temperate. Shit, the event was at an Army base - you wouldn't even have to pay travel expenses.
Of course, the speech was a bit embarassing when the President talked about how he got a deferment from his camping duties when he was a scout so he could run a classmate's campaign for Student Council at Andover. (No, that's a joke. George W. Bush was way too much of a pussy to be a Boy Scout, although he did love snorting coke off a friend's Cub Scout pocket knife.)
Note: The Rude Pundit will be on a reduced writing schedule for the next two weeks as he prepares for his upcoming very rude show in New York City. There will still be daily postings here, but they will be mucho shorter.
So the President of the United States went to talk to the thousands upon thousands of Boy Scouts gathered in Virginia for their annual jamboree/death march. There, he praised them for being just like most Americans (or, at least, most Americans who get a month-long vacation from their jobs) by saying, "You also understand that freedom must be defended, and I appreciate the Scouts' long tradition of supporting the men and women of the United States military." Yep - wave yer little flags and say you support the war; that's all ya need to do, children. And while he gave them the suggestion of joining the USA Freedom Corps (even droppin' a URL in there to look all hip and shit), he missed an amazing opportunity.
Why not recruit those little patriotic fuckers for our declining Army and Army reserves? Hell, we know the scouts are not gay - at least if no one's askin', no one's tellin' - and we know that a vast majority of them can handle the Iraqi heat, even if the President himself punked out on going to speak outdoors at Fort A.P. Hill until it was more temperate. Shit, the event was at an Army base - you wouldn't even have to pay travel expenses.
Of course, the speech was a bit embarassing when the President talked about how he got a deferment from his camping duties when he was a scout so he could run a classmate's campaign for Student Council at Andover. (No, that's a joke. George W. Bush was way too much of a pussy to be a Boy Scout, although he did love snorting coke off a friend's Cub Scout pocket knife.)
Note: The Rude Pundit will be on a reduced writing schedule for the next two weeks as he prepares for his upcoming very rude show in New York City. There will still be daily postings here, but they will be mucho shorter.
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