Reich Wing Rant Rebuttal

I'm sure you've all seen these forwards clutter your inbox.

The radical right sure does love passing their rancid little clods of mental excrement around, don’t they? I was recently entertained by such a piece. Isn’t it rather quaint when they try to be imaginative? Let’s take a short trip through a narrow mind and see how the loyalists of the Reich think. Hold your noses if you must. We'll fumigate and sanitize later in my response.

***
The following 'speech' was written recently by an ordinary Maineiac [a resident of the People's Republic of Maine]. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. This is an excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living.

The speech George W. Bush might give:

Normally, I start these things out by saying 'My Fellow Americans.' Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.

I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people. I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners, including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners.

And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets.

Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this 'blood for oil' thing. If I were trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this 'Bush Lied; People Died' crap either. If I were the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.

Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you? Now some of you morons are considering another and more evil Clinton for president !!!! Go figure that one!! She wants to take your kids away and let the 'Whole Village' raise them! i.e. governmental indoctrination . Look this one up you dumb asses!

The rest of you morons want to be led by a junior senator with no understanding of foreign policy or economics, and this nitwit says we should attack Pakistan, a nucular ally. And then he wants to go to Iran and make peace with a terrorist who says he's going to destroy us. While he's doing that, he wants to give Iraq to al Qaeda, Afghanistan to the Taliban, Israel to the Palestinians, and your money to the IRS so the government can give welfare to illegal aliens, who he will make into citizens, so they can vote to reelect him. He also thinks it's okay for Iran to have nucular weapons, and we should stop our foreign aid to Israel.

Did you sleep through high school?You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to out spend and out-tech them.

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and the bastards are all over the globe.You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor.'Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, well, dang it, you might just as well FedEx a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.

In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times, USA Today, or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol or Dancing with Stars.I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient for years. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again.

Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars ofAmerica fall.Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi, Clinton, or Obama is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she or he does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.So that's it. God bless what's left of America.Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, kiss off.

PS - You might want to start learning Farsi, and buy a Koran.

***

Gosh, my feelings should be hurt. Am I a stupid moron or an idiot? Maybe. But, I AM amused.

Am I the only one who thinks the funny parts of this are not the "satire" he thinks it is?

There are plenty of authoritarian personality Neanderthals like this one. That’s why America is being bought and sold like cheap Chinese plastic ware, with the remaining desolation wasting away into the dark horror of a police state.

Some goose-stepping, illiterate fascist is worried about Iran using “nucular” weapons against us, and he’s calling US the morons. So was it Rush or Fox Propaganda that told him about the Iranian “terrorist who says he's going to destroy us”?

As long as blaming “faulty intelligence” is a good enough reason to go to war, he must be ready to invade Iran by now, and maybe Canada as well.

I suppose nobody told him that his hero has already bombed innocent, and maybe non-innocent, people in our “nucular ally” Pakistan.

He thinks homeowners with plummeting property values and soaring heating costs are enjoying a great economy.

He lectures the “whiners” about higher demand around the world causing the skyrocketing gas prices. Demand, unlike the cost per barrel, has NOT gone up 500% since 2000. Big Oil is sucking up record profits while controlling the supply in the US to keep prices where they want them, all while we the people give them even more tax breaks.

And speaking of “we the people”, how does some Bush-worshipping fool believe he comes off as more patriotic than real Americans who value the Bill of Rights?

I suppose it’s by the same vapid ignorance he displays when he tells “noisy idiots” that offshore and ANWAR drilling will solve our problems.

I don’t suppose he would listen to lifetime Republican T. Boone Pickens saying “I’ve been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of.”

He’s right about, “you actively support those who help the enemy,” but not in the way he thinks. The enemies of the Fourth Amendment are both Democrats and Republicans, who gave Bush and his corporate cronies the “legal” FISA cover-up for their crimes.

He and his fellow pathetic neocon koolaid drinkers are the real enemies of the Constitution, along with everything else our country was founded on.

No wonder he thinks being a good American means hating MOST other Americans.

Sieg heil, my small minded maniac. You’ve had your temporary victory over reason and freedom. But, watch out! They may try to sneak back up on you.

-Dave Dubya

Same Old, Same Old

Over a hundred years ago the United States decided to flex its ambitions for empire building. After decimating the native populations in near genocidal wars, Uncle Sam scanned the horizon for new conquests.

Sam saw a lot of Spaniards in juicy little foreign hot spots sitting ripe for resource exploitation.

All Sam needed was a good excuse to start up the new war for glory and empire. As luck would have it, in 1898 the battleship USS Maine happened to be anchored in port in Havana. Kaboom! There was a massive explosion and the ship went down, killing many American sailors.

The cause of the blast was later found to be accidental, but the Spanish were conveniently blamed.

The Hearst corporate media cheered, "Remember 9-11...er the Maine!"

And very much like our neo-con imperialists of today, who eagerly anticipated the 9-11 attacks to trigger their war for glory and empire, the budding military industrial complex urged President McKinley to declare war on Spain.

Interestingly, both triggers for the Iraq War and Spanish American War had nothing to do with the countries we attacked. We wanted war and that’s what we got. And since God is always on America’s side, who cares about the little details?

After we whipped the Spanish we moved in to occupy the newly “liberated” Philippines. Imagine our shock when we were not actually greeted as liberators. We occupied their country and began to impose our rule on them. Of course we generously offered to set up a friendly and compatible government that suited US interests.

Well, son of a gun, those Philippine ingrates went and started an insurrection against us. Soon over four thousand American troops were dead.

The American imperialists were shouting “Stay the course”, or whatever the equivalent phrase was a hundred years ago. It doesn’t take much imagination to infer that those Americans who didn’t share the enthusiasm for the counter-insurgency were probably called appeasers, or un-patriotic, or other applicable contemporary appellations.

But patriotism took another form, too.

There was a courageous American writer who stepped forward to fill the vital role of conscientious dissent.

That man was Samuel Clemons. Here is what Mark Twain had to say about this particular foreign misadventure.

“There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands -- but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.”

"A quagmire," he says! Why that..that LIBERAL!

We can imagine what Republicans would have to say to Mr. Clemens if he were here today. “They hated us for our freedom! We had to fight the Philippine Insurgents over there so we didn’t have to fight them over here in our towns and cities! Why do you hate America?”

It never ends.

Dear Senator Obama

Like many of you, my wife and I called both of our senators to plead for a no vote on Bush’s new FISA bill.

Mrs. Dubya also emailed the Obama people with the earnest request that the senator do the right thing.

Here is the reply from Obama and his campaign staff.

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Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting us and sharing your strong feelings about this important issue. Please find a statement from Senator Obama below.

We appreciate hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Obama for America,

----

Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.

It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses. Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.
-------


I had to respond with this open letter to Barack Obama.

******

Dear Senator Obama,

Thank you for wanting to protect our lives and liberty. As far as your support for the FISA bill is concerned, let me just say you've done a “heck of a job”.

There is nothing in the new FISA law that stops Bush from continuing everything he has been doing. It allows illegally obtained surveillance to be used as evidence against American citizens.

What you are saying is "Trust them. They will monitor themselves by their hand picked Inspectors". Yeah, that's the ticket.

Just like the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Justice Department has yet to catch one errant lawyer. And if it did find any misconduct, it would, of course, be their little secret. And their required annual report has just come for fiscal year 2005.

Yes, we can trust them... to do what they do.

And you are also saying "Trust me, I'll take care of the secret operation later as I see fit...if I am elected"

I have another idea. Let's trust the Bill of Rights.

Senator, few would argue that you are not a brilliant man. Voting for the FISA bill was a reasoned calculation and an intelligent political move. I think I understand the motivations for your vote. What I do not see is the wisdom of it.

You have allowed them to get away with crimes! Any time they, and you, Senator, speak of the rule of law; you will be tainted by the hypocrisy of your elitist double standards. No one else in America has the luxury of bending the law to fit their wrongful behavior.

Sadly, you have also lost the opportunity for desperately needed leadership in defending our Constitution.

The day will come when you may find yourself sharing the same sense of shame as Colin Powell feels for his pre-invasion war mongering at the UN. You will share the disgrace of abetting the crimes and rogue presidency of George W. Bush.

I had wished that you would not be reduced to selling your soul for the job you seek. I had once, briefly, held onto the hope that you would keep it.

You probably know that having a soul, or a conscience, is not necessary to be president. The current gang in the White House has proven that, at all our expense.

Undermining the Fourth Amendment is the kind of change George Bush believes in.

Removing the corporate foxes from the public’s henhouse is the kind of change most Americans believe in.

I continue to hope that it is your desire and goal that the United States will once again have a government of laws and not of men

Hopefully yours,

Dave Dubya
******

Who Cares?

Has anybody noticed what's in the news today? Or should I say, what's NOT in the news today? Neither of today's online editions of the New York Times nor the Washington Post had an article on Bush's new FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) victory. Yesterday most of the same people who swore to protect, defend and uphold the Constitution overwhelmingly betrayed it.

The Bush Administration and its corporate telecom buddies have succeeded in snatching their get out of jail free card from Congress.

It's the new American way. Break the law, and then bully your way to make it legal retroactively.

This is troubling in many ways.

It is more than possible that a significant number of the surveillance targets of the Administration are Democrats. J. Edgar Hoover proved this to be a useful tool of the American Reich. That could account for such a massive rollover.

And of course, there's all that telecom money going into the politicians' re-election funds.

Maybe the American people learned about this travesty by watching the news on television.

Or more likely they did not.

Corporate media TV hardly covered this destruction of the Fourth Amendment any better. They found an old story about a murdered white girl to be more important and vital to the nation's interest. The same formula works every time. Isn't America better off now that we know who didn't kill that little girl?

The FISA capitulation is a sad indication of what Obama would do if he somehow wins the election. (I still believe the fascists will steal the presidency again.) Obama would be pressured by his own party to stay on the corporatist reservation. He will be pressured by the Reich wing to continue expanding the police state. If Obama is elected and wants to keep his job, he will have to be a company man. He will be a corporatist or face consequences.

The corporate media will be the pit bulls dogging him to comply with their masters.

We can only hope Obama can delay the fascist bastards. I don't know how he can reverse the damage, especially if the Bush Administration's crimes are not called out as crimes. The new FISA is all about covering up and "legalizing" Bush's crimes of illegal wiretapping. And congress is covering up its own complicity as well.

You say FISA is only about snooping on foreigners? So we can trust them, right?

THEY ARE CROOKS!

The best case I see is revocation of some of Bush's worst directives, and maybe appointing moderate Supreme Court nominees. This is, now more than ever, of crucial importance.

The creeping fascism is becoming institutionalized and will follow its track unless it is disclosed and checked.

Bush's cronies illegally hired only loyal right wingers into the Department of Justice. US Attorneys were fired for not following the Reich wing political agenda. The Justice Department is dragging their feet when it comes to Rove, Meirs, and others' contempt of Congress. It is corrupted for a long time and we cannot expect much "justice" from them.

Loyalty and unaccountability are apparently their only rules.

It's bleak when 90% of the Republicans and 50% of the Dems are going along with the police state agenda.

It's only more difficult when the corporate media are in cahoots with the corporate government. They will suppress the obvious truth of the criminal behavior. With their "fair and balanced" style they give the lie as much time as the truth. Then they suggest that the truth must be "somewhere in the middle". Journalism is dying under the thumb of right wing corporatism. Propaganda is now their business.

The media NEVER say Bush committed crimes. As if his bloody eternal war is not evidence of his war crimes...

The indifferent lack of reporting on the FISA sham only helps prove that big media are also in bed with the telecoms. And big business is in bed with the government. There you have it. Combine this power with aggressive militarism and that's fascism, by definition.

And do American citizens even care?

Are we too stupid, intimidated and complacent as a population?

Are Americans no different than the “Good Germans” of the 1930's?
*****
Update:

The Washington Post earlier featured a FISA article, but was buried away from the headlines. Stories were posted later at both the New York Times and Washington Post.

But again, who cares?

Glug, Glug, Glug

Is anyone paying attention to what’s been happening?

Will Bush and Cheney ever be held accountable for anything?

Will justice never tie the bloody hands of the corrupt Regime

As their crimes of nascent fascism destroy what we hold dear?

While they wage illegal war for power and profit,

You want to blame the Democrats for that $5 gallon of gas?

Appeasing neo-con imperialism was the Democrats’ real failure.

Helping the Republican’s shred the Bill Of Rights is their shame.

The cost of willful and media-fed mass ignorance is coming due.

Americans finally have the government their stupidity deserves.

Excuse me, this ranting is making me thirsty.

Thank you, let me drink some of that kool ade.

(Glug, Glug, Glug)

Wait, what am I saying?? What kind of American am I?

(Glug, Glug, Glug)

Ahh. Now I'm feelin better. My brain aint so crowded no more.

Hey, ya know what? Bush never lied. An them librools sure are dum.

Rush was right all along. They aint real Amurakins at all,

Now I’m a true believin born again ditto head.

Now I know just about everthin that I ever gotta know.

I know we gotta vote fer Johnny Bomb Bomb I-Ran McCain.

Johnny knows them I-Ranians are trainin Al Kida.

He'll teach them I-Ranians fer goin nukular, or not, even.

Just like Bush gave them I-Raqis payback for 9-11.

Since them I-Ranians wanna attack us an all,

I reckon we kin afford us another little war.

Specially since we don't ever hafta pay fer it.

Cause we know taxes is bad, an killin fer freedom is good.

Hey! Gimme another glassa that kool ade.

(Glug, Glug, Glug)

An don't fergit, they aint no ignernce like Amurakin ignernce.

You know, the self-reich-us ignernce what makes us proud.

An cause they’s both Republican war heroes,

In Bush we trust, an in McCain we believe.

So fill that glass an let’s drink to another long good war.

Then let’s keep on drinkin to victory, even if it takes ferever.

(Glug, Glug, Glug)

The New Center

Once upon a time the system of government we lived under was called a liberal democracy. Liberal democracy. Both words ring hollow these days, since our government has been bought and/or seized by the military industrial complex and other corporate entities. Can anyone remember when the last real liberal legislation was passed in Washington DC? You might have to go back to the 60’s to find it.

There may have been a few environmental measures passed in the 70’s, but there is nothing really liberal about conservation, is there? Oh, that’s right, conservatism hates conservation. It’s too much like that dirty word, environmentalism. And environmentalism is the enemy of conservative corporate interests; at least the short term interests. After all, short term bottom line profits are their primary interests.

Remember when the rule used to be that the pendulum would always swing back and forth between the left and the right? Anyone paying attention now would see that the pendulum swings to the far right and back to the moderate right. It does not go to the left anymore.

I can’t see it even going to the center. It’s broken. Democracy is broken. Every branch of the US government is now beholden to the Big Money corporate interests.

Congress is bought and paid for by Big Money.

The White House is in service to Big Money.

The Judiciary is now voicing the final word for Big Money.

And did I mention that Big Money is not liberal?

Politically speaking, the left is out of the picture in US politics. But where is the center?

This is the question that came to me when I was reading the New York Times today. I was in luck. I read a couple articles that cleared that up for me.

The first article was about Obama’s flip on the FISA bill. He has decided that Fourth Amendment protection does not apply to communications between an American at home and someone outside the US. He also believes that telecom corporations deserve immunity for their actions that violate those protections.

I learned that these Constitutional rights are no longer of interest to the right wing. The Fourth Amendment is now a leftist liberal concept.

Here is what I read in the “liberal” New York Times today.

Senator Barack Obama’s decision to support legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants has led to an intense backlash among some of his most ardent supporters…. They are calling on Mr. Obama to reverse his decision to endorse legislation supported by President Bush to expand the government’s domestic spying powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunication companies that worked with the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Wiretapping without warrants” is illegal, you know. Well, it WAS illegal under the Constitution. But that was back when the Bill of Rights was not some wacko liberal document.

Now we learn that those quaint notions are leftist ideology.

Several activists and bloggers predicted that Mr. Obama’s move toward the center on some issues could sharply reduce the intensity of support he has enjoyed from liberal activists.

See. Now the Fourth Amendment is not even at the center anymore. The center now allows the president to tell Big Money telecoms to violate the Fourth Amendment, to spy on Americans without a warrant.

And that’s not all. Another New York Times article today explains the center even further to me. The center is now all about faith based government programs. Yup. Obama has now embraced the centrist idea of giving tax dollars to religious organizations.

Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms.

“The challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Mr. Obama said outside a community center here. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach”.

Here is how Obama explains how our tax dollars go to the centrist churches.

“If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion,” Mr. Obama said. “Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.”

Well, there you go. Churches would never preach their views to the poor desperate souls seeking aid, would they?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"