What I want ...

*Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

As this New Yorker waits for Governor Spitzer to be seated today, and the 110th Congress later this week, as I welcome 2007 in with hope it will be better than 2006, I just wanted to remind the people, the American citizens who continually voted to enable the thieving, lying, morally bankrupt administration and rubber stamp Congress that runs this nation, how they were played for sheep. There was a formula in place, devised by people far smarter than those using it now, and all of you fell for it. Thank you very much. It makes me wonder how many of you fall for the African 'get rich quick' email schemes that litter my Inbox.

The reason I'm bringing this up now, on the first day of a new year, this New Year, is because I'm tired. I'm battle fatigued fighting the 'Information Civil War'; at least that's what I call this situation between the reality-based folks and the Right Wing Noise Machine. I've been looking back through our archives this morning, randomly stopping at posts over the past 2 1/2 years and realizing that we (here and in Left Blogtopia [y!sctp!] in general) spent a lot of time rebutting untruths and spin shoveled in by the Right.

I'm fucking tired of you folks believing everything you hear on TV as gospel truth. Don't you question anything? Or don't you care because other people's kids are dying, or other families are the ones who can't make ends meet, or you won't be around when the environment finally succumbs to all the crap we've poured all over, in, and above the Earth? You don't care what goes on as long as you get your share. As long as you have your house, your SUV, your little urchins have their video games, and you can pay the bills, fuck everybody who can't. As long as your kids ain't dying in some misbegotten war, as long as you don't have to sacrifice for the nation, who gives a fuck what they do in Washington, right? I'm sick and tired of you sheep.

It was the sheep in Germany who allowed an evil group of men to take control of a proud nation and break it; only now, 60 years later can Germans begin to hold their heads up with national pride. It was the sheep in this country, those of you who thought the Chimp was somebody 'they wanted to have a beer with', who thought the Republicans would 'keep us safer', who believed all the spin, misdirection, and lies without the slightest iota of doubt, who willingly gave up their civil rights, and were willing to give up more of them, in a cowardly attempt to 'be safe'.

I'm sick of you fucking people.

You're the ones who are jumping on our bandwagon now. The 40-odd percent of Americans who now realize the mess they've allowed to be spread all over this country and now they're all pissed they've been fooled. Thing is, a couple years from now, you'll probably be fooled again. I've seriously lost faith in the intelligence and common sense of my fellow American over the past 6 years, because the situation we're in is your fault. Seriously, how many of you possess a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge?

I remember a time when being an American meant something good in other parts of the world. I remember, in the 60s and 70s, spending summers in Europe and being treated like a celebrity just because I was an American. I remember when people used to look to this nation as an institution to emulate, something to strive for in pursuit of personal liberties and freedoms, as a nation abiding by the Rule of Law and, while not perfect, a nation of people striving for fairness for all. It pains me to visit Europe now and see signs and grafitti saying "Fuck Bush" and comparing us to the more dastardly regimes of history. Thank you for making me feel unwelcome in my ancestral home, you sorry, cowardly sheep.

I also want all you armchair generals to shut the fuck up this year. Every day my ears and intelligence are assaulted by idiots who've 'had it with the Iraqis, after all we've done for them' and we should just 'bomb the shit out of them and get it over with'. We started this, you morons. The blood spilled already is on our hands. I'm truly sorry you never got to experience combat and your only connection with it has been through Hollywood offerings. I'm truly sorry that our children fighting and dying in some desert (or jungle) somewhere makes you more of a man (or woman) and satisfies your bloodlust. I'm sorry you're that insecure as a human being, but you make me sick. It sickens me that you have such little disregard for innocent human life, people who are more like you than different, just because their skin is a different color, or worship a different God, or speak a different language. Do something with your lives to give them validation instead of finding some sort of meaning in other people's sacrifice. It is you who are responsible for the carnage, no one else, for without your cooperation, your vote, your complacency, this would never have happened.

I hope you got your rocks off at Saddam's trial and subsequent lynching, because if you think any justce was done there you, as usual, are sadly misinformed. And for all of you who are of age to serve this nation, cheerleading from the homefront doesn't qualify. If you really support the occupation in Iraq, enlist and do your part. Because you hypocrites piss me off more than the regular sheep. Playing GI Joe at the paintball range or taking your AK-47 out to shoot up junk cars doesn't qualify, so refrain from telling me what you would do in Iraq. Enlist and show me how many ragheads you're gonna kill. Otherwise shut the fuck up because I've made a resolution to put you on your ass this year. There are now 3000 U.S. troops dead in the war you wanted, either put up or shut up.

So, for 2007, I have one request for the sheep. Stay out of the fucking way. The choice to elect our representatives is not American Idol or Survivor, it is serious business for an informed public. If you're not serious about your freedoms, rights, and privileges that come from being American, stay the fuck home on Election Day. The choice of who leads the world's only superpower is not a game, not a fucking reality show. Our representatives' decisions affect not just the lives of a third of a billion people in this nation, but the lives of six billion others who don't have the right to vote in America. If you can't take it seriously, if you can't inform yourself and rely on the dog and pony show in our so-called 'free press', just stay out of it and go about your business. If you've learned anything over the past 6 years, it should be that qualification for elected office, especially the Presidency, has nothing to do with a candidate's personality.

You've made our job, those of us who actually care what happens to this nation and the world now and in the long-term, that much more difficult. We'll deal with the hardcore morons and Kool-Aid drinkers, the 18% of socio- and psycopaths, the racists who want to turn this nation into Germany 1933, but it's you sheep that give them relevance and credibilty through your inaction and apathy. We're leading, either follow or get out of the way.

The Republican Party is a criminal organization and you sheep are just passive foot soldiers. They couldn't have created this mess without you as accomplices. Make up for it this year and actually pay attention to what's happening around you and stop parroting the horseshit you hear on Fox News. We're just beginning to straighten out the mess, let us do it.

*Great thanks to our pal Ed Encho for the Hermann Göring quote.

'07

12:00AM OWT* 1 January 2007. 27°F., waxing gibbous Moon, partly cloudy, scattered gunfire, fireworks, sirens, sober as a judge.

Ho-Hum. Another trip around the Sun begins. Or the non-stop one continues. BFD.

Happy New Year, everyone.

*Out West Time

Happy fucking New Year

3000. Guess what 'Happy New Year' will mean to his family from here on.

2006 has been that kind of year...

Barnes & Barnes: Fish Heads

I should issue a not intended for the faint-hearted warning. You've been warned.



Guess who the Fish Heads are? So let's hope, pray, demand, mobilise, write, work and anything else we can think of to make the promise of Nov. 06 become a force for good in 2007. Happy New Year to all and to all a good night.

Dead men tell no tales...

Robert Parry sums it up nicely.

Like a blue-blood version of a Mob family with global reach, the Bushes have eliminated one more key witness to the important historical events that led the U.S. military into a bloody stalemate in Iraq and pushed the Middle East to the brink of calamity.

Some observers think that Bush simply wanted the personal satisfaction of seeing Hussein hanged, which would not have happened if he had been sent to the Hague. As Texas governor, Bush sometimes took what appeared to be perverse pleasure at his power to execute prisoners.

But a more powerful motive was always Hussein's potential threat to the Bush Family legacy if he ever had a forum where he could offer detailed testimony about the historic events of the past several decades.

When there is a potential rupture of valuable information, the Bushes intervene, turning to influential friends to discredit some witness or relying on the U.S. military to make the threat go away. The Bushes have been helped immeasurably, too, by the credulity and cowardice of the modern U.S. news media and the Democratic Party.

With the Democrats taking control of Congress on Jan. 4, 2007, there could finally be an opportunity to force out more of the full story, assuming the Democrats don't opt for their usual course of putting "bipartisanship" ahead of oversight and truth.

The American people also could demand that the surviving members of Hussein's regime be fully debriefed on their historical knowledge before their voices also fall silent either from natural causes or additional executions.

But the singular figure who could have put the era in its fullest perspective - and provided the most damning evidence about the Bush Family's role - has been silenced for good, dropped through a trap door of a gallows and made to twitch at the end of a noose fashioned from hemp.

That's a good point: the Bushes, and many others, deserve the finest. No sisal or synthetic ropes for them.

We better start growing hemp. We're gonna need a lot of it when justice comes to them.

Well, another year shot to Hell ...

Oy, what a year and I'm glad it's over*. Too much personal shit went on this year, too many friends and relatives (and my wife) with health issues, too much craziness at the shop, and too much in general.

We did, however, have a great vacation, Mrs. F got through her health issues without complication, and what can we say about the Election Day win. Hopefully, 2007 will bring a further curtailing of the Chimp's power and see our kids home from Iraq.

I hope 2007 is good for all our readers and commenters. Thanks for all you've done for us (as I've said in the past, without you the Brain would just be grafitti). We fought the good fight this year and scored a major victory. Celebrate safely, remind those who are close to you that you love them, and make a resolution to make a difference.

Happy New Year!

*The reason I'm putting this up now is that New Year's is a special holiday in the Fixer household, very hedonistic in terms of food, drink, and ... other stuff. Don't know if I'll have much coherent to say over the next couple days (though that would be assuming I've said something coherent over the past 2 1/2 years. Heh ...) See yas next year.

Saturday night's all right ...

To blogwhore. Chapter 12 of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press.

"...there's nothing else this president can get right."

Josh Marshall has a few thoughts about Saddam and Bush's failure in Iraq:

This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.

Marty Peretz, with some sort of projection, calls any attempt to rain on this parade "prissy and finicky." Myself, I just find it embarrassing. This is what we're reduced to, what the president has reduced us to. This is the best we can do. Hang Saddam Hussein because there's nothing else this president can get right.

Bush has always been good at executing people. What a talent.

Hanging's Too Good For Us

The three-year charade is over. Saddam Hussein is dead. The Rude One weighed in just prior to the Big Drop:

And once he hangs, as he will any time now, once he's videoed pissing himself while dangling from the noose, maybe even a close-up on his last hard-on, then it's time to go to work. Cut that fucker's head off his corpse and graft it onto George W. Bush's right shoulder, so that it rots away next to him just like Iraq, so the President can watch the decay every time he looks in the mirror and smell it constantly. Rip out Hussein's bones and shove them up the asses of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, and more and more - Saddam's got two hundred something bones, so line up a bunch of neocons and warmongering whores, bend 'em over, and give 'em a souvenir. Dry Saddam's organs and grind them into a powder and pour it into the water supply of the United States so we can each consume a little bit of the man who so drove our leaders crazy that they destroyed our economy, our military, our morality to topple him, yes, let us all drink that in, toasting the hanging of Saddam Hussein as a demonstration of what great and noble and righteous and merciful humans we are. Send his cock to Tony Blair so he can go fuck himself.

There's more.

I would like to study at that man's knee.

The witch is dead ...

Calling all wingnuts, Saddam is dead so now Iraq will turn into this great, shining, peaceful democracy on the hill. Congratulations, you were successful. Saddam will no longer be a threat to Middle East peace and all is right with the world.

So let's look back on 2006 and see all the good works you've wrought in the last year, since the eeeeeevil madman was captured:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.
9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

Indeed. Look at all you've done for these people by ridding them of the tyrant, and now they should be even more ecstatic he is dead. Good job, wingnuts. Once again you've proven the Republicans are truly the ones equipped to run this nation and the world.

The 110th Congress will be seated in less than a week and not a minute too soon.

Quote of the Day

Commander Huber on the hanging of Saddam Hussein:

Stand by for things to go ape.

Things are looking up!

Brother Lurch comments on the lessening of his pessimism about the plans of this administration:

I used to figure Messers Bu$h, Cheney and their horse-holders had the most malign plans, and that there might well be a national emergency during the late Summer, 2008 that would require draconian measures, including a temporary suspension of the elections. I think the foreign policy circumstances are too dire now, and with a slight Democratic majority and what seems to be the majority of the Army with rifles in Iraq by then, I'm no longer that pessimistic. Let's face it - you can't impose martial law with an evangelized tactical Air Force.

Good point! Hallelujah!

Idiotic comment of the day

TPMmuckraker

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is still at large -- but that's not a failure of White House policy, says Frances Fragos Townsend. As she explained to CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

I feel a lot better now. I guess that little scene I've envisioned with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Charlize Theron, and me is a 'success that hasn't occurred yet' as well. Not a failure. Wow, that's a load off!

VA/DoD meet Gilgamesh

From BoingBoing:

In the vein of inappropriate/unexpected graphic adaptations of literature... my father, a psychiatrist with the Veterans Administration, alerted me to a new training video on the VA website that describes post-deployment health evaluation procedure... as an adaptation of GILGAMESH. What genius government employee came up with that one, eh?

There are some odd (though not necessarily helpful) synchronicities: Gilgamesh was the King of Uruk (now in Iraq). In the vid, his friend comes home from battle with Gulf War Syndrome (I'm guessing), and he with PTSD.

Go see. Takes about fifteen minutes.

One would think that health-care professionals wouldn't need silly shit like this to be advised as to how to diagnose things like PTSD or Gulf War Syndrome, but if it helps them get the message...

God help our Veterans.

"...ve haff vays of making you..."

John Dean poses answers to the burning question:

What Should Congressional Democrats Do, When the Bush Administration Stonewalls Their Efforts To Undertake Oversight?

The site is "legal news and commentary", so pack a lunch and put on yer fishin' waders.

"We see a war coming on Capitol Hill," a well-connected Republican attorney based in Washington recently told me, as I reported in my last column on the subject. The clash is not surprising, because Vice President Dick Cheney -- who is at the center of many of the subjects the Democratic Congress will be investigating -- is strongly opposed to Congress's inquiring into these areas. He believes the power of the presidency is at stake. Accordingly, as I noted earlier, he has made it quite clear that he is not going to cooperate with these investigations.

Before the conflict develops, it might seem helpful to go over the rules of the game -- to appreciate who is on solid ground, who is on shaky ground, and why this is the case. But as it happens, there are no rules!

Of course, there are precedents, and even U.S. Supreme Court rulings, in this area. But they have virtually no applicability when the contest involves Congress and the White House. Also, while forests have doubtless been consumed to publish copious learned treatises, essays, articles, and reports on this subject, at bottom, this is a matter not of law, but purely of politics. There is, however, evidence regarding this matter that can be drawn from history.

I'm glad he's a lawyer and not a dentist. He 'draws evidence from history' like a dentist would extract teeth through your ass, but he gets the job done, I think.

Thus, if the 110th Congress, controlled by the Democrats, fails to get the information it needs -- and the public wants -- about the workings of the Bush/Cheney presidency, it will not be because it does not have the tools with which to obtain that information. Rather, it will be because it lacks the will to use those tools.

When Congress plays hardball, it gets the information it wants from the president. The Congressional Reference Service (CRS) has prepared a complete manual on oversight, which they updated recently. In the manual, CRS has laid out all Congress needs to know to crack any stonewall Bush and Cheney may erect to block their oversight efforts.

Lou Fisher, one of the authors of the CRS manual, catalogued a number of the methods available to Congress in his essay: "Congressional Access To Information: Using Legislative Will And Leverage." Drawing on historical examples, Fisher shows that Congress has a host of tools, of various size and shape and depending on the situation, to "extract information from the President."

When it comes to ways to "extract information from the president", I lean towards the old burning bamboo slivers under the foreskin whilst the unit is clamped tightly in an ice-cold vise method, but then I'm old-fashioned.

This is good 'process' stuff and you should go familiarize yourself with it, but it makes no difference if one-ten ain't got the sack to do it. Pray for Congressional balls.

Park Service stifles godless liberal commie geologists

This one is pretty much just for laughs, although it's indicative of a trend we've noticed the last few years to downplay reality and facts in favor of ideological fantasy.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.' "

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.

"As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan," Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book. "We sincerely hope that the new Director of the Park Service now has the autonomy to do her job."

The funny part, to me, is the administration's continued pandering to an increasingly irrelevant group of prominent Repuglican fundie supporters by giving moral equivalence to what is essentially a Chick tract.

Everywhere you go in Grand Canyon National Park there are posters, plaques, signboards, etc. showing the various layers of the Canyon with their geologic age right next to them. The Park Service has been doing this shit for many years and it can't be undone by bureaucratic bias.

I found this and this in less than a minute, just f'rinstance.

6000 years, 550 million years, 5 billion years, mox nix. Makes no difference to the Creator, only to a buncha wingnut fundie idiots with access to your tax money.

Our government needs to get out of the slide to the Dark Ages in general, but this one's just funny in an unfunny kinda way.

See what I mean ...

When this whole Duke Lacrosse Team rape case came up, I cautioned bloggers not to jump the gun until all the facts were in. Sex crime allegations, even if proven false, can haunt someone forever. A lot of people had a lot to say about these boys back then, two of them from my area, and now I hear nothing. Now these boys will have this stigma follow them throughout their lives. I believe quite a few of us owe them an apology, not silence, especially since the District Attorney who filed the case is now up against an ethics charge.

I hope the D.A. and Duke University get their asses sued off.

You know you suck when ...

You poll lower than the Devil ... by a lot.

Decency

Gord's post yesterday quoted that dipshit and paragon of morality and decency Bill Bennett:

You're a former President Mr. Ford, show a little more decency to the incumbent who is in a very, very tough place and trying to do the right thing....you may recall those days and positions yourself.

Yeah, you know, like St. Ronnie of Ray Gun.

The Silence of Section 60

Please go read this.