A short diary here.
The left is SO lame.
It had been SO crippled by the Ratpub hype machine that it is left to crow over a fucking hunting accident.
Check it out…and check YOURSELVES out as well.
Here’s the gist of the froth.
Ho ho ho and ha ha ha, Cheney shot another fat cat.
And it wasn’t reported immediately.
Maybe he was drunk. (Ya THINK!!!!???)
THIS IS A MAN WHO HAS THE BLOOD OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS ON HIS HANDS.
THIS IS ONE THE MAJOR ARCHITECTS OF THE DISMANTLING OF THIS SYSTEM, OF THIS CIVILIZATION ONCE KNOWN AS “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”.
And we are reduced to being upset that, like most other executive-type amateurs with a gun, he and his money buddy are incompetent asshole hunters who got in each other’s way after a couple of hits of whatever 12 year old single malt they were imbibing? To hold off the cold? Poor, doddering, medically altered old farts that they truly are.
The quote I read said something about how they had “just gotten out a a car” to shoot some quail.
Poor birds.
Isn’t there some sort of law about using SUVS to hunt animals?
If there isn’t, there oughta be.
But these motherfuckers aren’t ABOUT “sport”.
They are about WINNING.
And we…WE are about “LOSING”.
Even if this poor overaged business hustler DIES from this mistake it probably won’t do a damned thing to Cheney’s position. They will just create another “reality” and two weeks from now this story will go to sleep like the other two hundred or so much more important stories that R.I.P in the morgues of a thousand newspapers and other media chain gangs.
Or…they will retiire Cheney’s ass and get some NEW killer to run Butch for the duration of his lame duckness.
Back to work, folks…this story not only doesn’t have real legs…it hasn’t even got a TORSO.
Later…
AG
Here’s one from the rude pundit you might appreciate
Dick Cheney’s Soul Pays a Visit:
That was superb Rumi. Thanks for the link.
The problems of the war and the economy are to big to express in a single thought or a short discussion- even though at root they are about the reckless gluttony and mendacity of BushCo.
Cheney shooting his buddy in the face while doing drive-up shooting, possibly drunk, is likewise a story of reckless gluttony and mendacit- and one that everyone can understand. The coverage has been full of good ol’ boys who are clear as a bell that Cheney is a lying sack of shit. Once they understand this about him, you have an opportunity to get across the rest of the info about Iraq and other BushCo disasters.
Not to be too harsh but the tone and text of your diary are rather appropriate to an abuse victim who justifies their abuser by adopting the abusers pretextual justifications for the abuse.
Chill out and have some fun, nobody wants to join a no fun movement.
“The problems of the war and the economy are too big to express in a single thought or a short discussion- “???
I “beg to differ.”
They are NOT too big.
The mainstream American mind has become too small.
“Cheney shooting his buddy in the face while doing drive-up shooting, possibly drunk, is likewise a story of reckless gluttony and mendacit- and one that everyone can understand.”?
Listen…the fools who support BushCo will open aother beer and say “Shit happens…”
“Not to be too harsh but the tone and text of your diary are rather appropriate to an abuse victim who justifies their abuser by adopting the abusers pretextual justifications for the abuse.”???
What the FUCK does that tortured, piece of shit syntax have to do with ANYTHING real?
Go write a paper.
I am not “adopting” ANY abuser’s justifications for ANYTHING.
I am saying that this whole left wing brouhaha is a tempest in a teapot, and that the REAL crimes go unpunished while we jerk off over the generalized lameness of the ruling class.
I mean…is Kissinger in jail?
Game, set and match.
GODDAMN, I am sick of left wing intellectuals who can’t spell, use apostrophes correctly or put together a scannable sentence.
What is WRONG with you people?
Go write a paper.
“Abusers pretextual justifications” my ASS!!!
We are speaking of violent, bloody DEATH here.
Limbs blown off in the name of peace.
A Blood For Oil War.
FUCK Cheney’s hunting buddies.
That’s like arresting a serial killer for liittering.
In his own yard.
AG
P.S. Victor Paz, legendary Panamanian-born lead trumpet player and musical guru to several generations of NYC musicians of ALL races:
“Don’ watch the white people dance, bro’. It will fuck up your time…”
I am beginning to understand…
is a sure fire way to win an election. Do you have any suggestions about how to take power otherwise?
Personally I don’t think most Americans’ minds have become too small (though my disagreement is with the use of become to suggest there was some past intellectual golden age- a misanthropic bigotry against the present that mirrors the right wing fundies nostalgia for the 1950s). If you want to tell people what they should do you have an obligation to speak to your audience in language they can understand instead of complaining about how there is some “them” that just can’t get it.
If there was ever a time when politics was dominated by reasoned discussion and thoughtful debate- it was because of limits on the franchise limiting participation to the professional, capital and leisure classes.
It is going to take a death of a thousand cuts to take down a machine like the one in the White House, this is one of them. But the goal is certainly to undermine support for BushCo until there is the political will to hold them to account, and this is a nice part of that. Plus it is morbidly hilarious, which is a plus.
Dream on.
Death of a thousand cuts?
There have already been a MILLION cuts, and this baby ain’t even bleeding.
Why?
Because it’s a MACHINE.
Machines don’t bleed.
They just get even.
Until it fails and is forcibly taken apart for an overhaul, which will happen only when there is some sort of serious collapse in the overall function of this society (YOU know, like an economic collapse or societal dysfunction brought about by acts of man and/or nature…say someone nuking Detroit or southern California falling into the ocean…something where the chosen middle class suddenly has to go hungry and/or the poor start to really starve in large and desperate numbers…), but until it fails, there will BE no real change.
Oh…maybe the Demrats will take over from the Ratpubs, but…it’ll be Lieberman and Biden, not Dean and Kucinich and Feingold.
BET on it.
AG
P.S. Read my sig.
There it is…
We do not DEMAND change.
We snigger about drunken hunters.
And we do not GET change as a result.
No we DEMAND change in CAPITAL letters and condescend to the pathetic fools that refuse to do the reading because they are foolishly living their lives without our divine guidance.
Because THEIR minds are SO SMALL we refuse to SINK TO THEIR MONKEY level and communicate in effective, media-friendly meme.
So we don’t get change.
But gosh we get to feel good about being smarter and more moral, by REFUSING TO LAUGH.
HA ha ha ha ha ha ha hha ha hha ha ha ha!!!
See???
I laugh a lot, bro’
Just not about murder or theft.
Or bone deep stupidity.
AG
What brought Nixon down? It was a hundred tiny things, each of which separated him from another tiny fraction of the electorate until the fear of his machine dissipated and he could be taken down for a “two bit burglary.”
Change can and does happen, though at an unsatisfyingly slow pace, but that is the way it is done unless through, as you point out- upheaval or collapse. I wouldn’t wish a depression or a nuking on anyone, and even suggesting that such a thing would be a catalyst for good is a sure-fire way to marginalize yourself politically.
Find me a quote from FDR saying something like ‘thank god for the depression, otherwise we’d have never driven the Taft machine out of power.’ and I’ll take back everything I’ve said.
“Personally I don’t think most Americans’ minds have become too small”
You may be right. But the capacity for outrage (and appropriate action in response) seems to have diminished substantially.
There was a time in this country when activists knew that enforcing and eliciting change was not going to be about “having fun”. No, no one wants to be part of a “no-fun” movement, but no one ever said getting rid of a didactor was going to be “fun.”
Was Kent state “fun”?
Watts?
The whole civil rights movement?
I don’t think MLK was in it for “fun”–if he had been, he might have outlived his wife.
When you can successfullyfrighten peopl, and when you can pander to their desire to be “special”, you can get them to toerate all maner of things as a matter of course, and often to commit atrocities they’d never dream of comitting if thay hadn’t bee terrorized by theirleaders in the first place.
I offer this not as an excuse but rather as a partial analysis of the dynamics involved in weaponizing ignorance on a mass9ve scale.
Apologies for the typos.
And Dr. King was, in fact, a really fun likable guy FWIW. He was also outraged and spoke truth to power, but if there’s an afterlife I’ll bet dollars to donuts Dr. King gets to give J. Edgar some serious grief about his lingerie collection.
Apparently, being the subject of news and speculation is not sitting well with Darth Cheney. Of course this story will only end up being a footnote to history, if it gets even that much treatment. No one is suggesting that it should be the main focus. But if it gives Darth even a few minutes of discomfort, then having the story out there is not totally without value. (I’m confident that you won’t agree, AG.) Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
We are so NOT lame.
Cheney’s hunting accident shows that he is
This is a powerful image that solidies the MEME.
This is the equivalent of Dukakis in a tank.
These guys are incompetent and dangerous.
We are LAME if we DON’T use it.
Take a communications class. Put down the policy analysis manual.
I guess what I don’t get is, if the illegal invasion of Iraq was too “complicated” to demonstrate these points, Katrina, with its “a picture is worth a thousand words”-simplicity should have demonstrated, beyond a shadow of doubt that this entire administration is:
What I don’t get is how here, in the case of carelessness with the life of one rich, fat cat republican on the part of one other fatcat republican, this suddenly becomes a big deal.
In the case of Katrina, we were shown–half-dead and in living color–how the entire administration was careless with lives, incompetent, and just a bunch of fat cats on vacation when the country was hurting.
Even more baffling is the fact that, as yet, there is no death involved in the Texas Quail Hunt Massacre.
W Katrina, ‘conservative’ (i.e. completely falsified) estimates put the death count at around 1,300; hundreds of thousands have been left homeless, billions of dollars in damages (w contracts for rebuilding going to the fatrats on vacation);
What makes this story so much more ‘effective’ in demonstrating those points than Katrina shouldawouldacoulda been?
I just don’t get it.
It just is.
The Quailhunt story has many components to it.
First of all, it does not involve national security. Just two days ago I talked to a Bush supporter about the NSA and Bush more generally. He said, “The man is keeping us safe and nothing you can say will change my mind.”
Because of that mindset, many people are willing to overlook no-WMD, torture, renderings, secret prisons, illegal wiretapping and more. And they aren’t open for discussion.
Katrina was a natural disaster or act-of-God depending on your point of view. And it involved not only FEMA but the Democratic Mayor and Governor. It was possible to shift blame to more than the administration, like to God for example.
But no one can shift blame for blasting your friend in the heart and head with a shotgun. Only as asshole does that. And then to blame the victim and characterize his wounds as bruises and getting knocked silly?
This is a HUGE story. It is not a distraction from other stories that have more impact. This has impact.
OK.
As I’ve always said, Boo, any and every angle is good. This BushCo beast cannot be bagged using just one “net” (that’s why we have the interNet*s*, right? ;-).
But that doesn’t help me to understand the American mindset. I will never understand it. Never.
Because I believe it is incomprehensible, not only to me, but–judging from 20 yrs of conversations on the subject in three languages and on three continents–to most of the rest of the world, “civilized” or otherwise.
I just hope that someday, when I travel to other parts of the world, I won’t be forced any more to make excuses for my people, for my country…I won’t have to try and explain, yes but, yes but, you must understand this about the American people, or that about the American people….I just hope someday, some precious day, I will no longer have to be ashamed to be an American, as I have been for at least the last 20 yrs, if not the last 40. (cf. Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize Speech; cf. also “Lies My Teacher Told Me”) because I have run out of plausible “excuses” in defense of my country.
Far as I’m concerned, milk the Texas Quail Hunt Massacre for all its worth. Blam!
But the fact that this story is “more milkable” than all the rest is just mind-boggling to me because of what it says about where we as a country are at.
I don’t think there is anyone now living who will live long enough to see a rehabilitation of the image of “America” anywhere in the world. The Bush/Cheney regime has guaranteed that will not happen in our lifetimes, and the “American Empire will collapse under the weight of it’s own unsustainability long before such rehab would be possible anyway.
History shows us that it is almost always the citizens of Empire who are the last to realize that their entire way of life is collapsing right before their eyes and that by the time they do realize it it’s so far past the point of no return that any hope of repairing things is simply more delusion.
I think is his name, won a gold medal, and announced that he would be giving his prize money to an org that goes around the world doing sports programs for poor children and he was specifying that his go to sending them to the camps in Darfur.
Watching some young people in their Olympic televiewing, there were some Americans among them, and when the anthem was played for Johnny Cheek and the flag raised, the American kids’ faces had strange expressions. (it should be noted that these particular American kids have been raised in an extremely diverse environment by parents who do not support US policies)
Wow said one of them, it is so weird to feel proud when there is an American on TV and you know everybody in the world is looking.
Yes, agreed the other one, I wish there was a different flag they could raise for him.
Booman.
You wrote (Less than a week ago!!!):
“This is a HUGE story. It is not a distraction from other stories that have more impact. This has impact.”
Google News front page, 12:17 AM, EST, Tuesday, February 21st.
Zero.
Zilch.
Nada.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a bigger story.
And what did I say, again ?
“Even if this poor overaged business hustler DIES from this mistake it probably won’t do a damned thing to Cheney’s position. They will just create another “reality” and two weeks from now this story will go to sleep like the other two hundred or so much more important stories that R.I.P in the morgues of a thousand newspapers and other media chain gangs.”
Sorry.
I was wrong.
It didn’t even take two weeks.
They sent Mary Matalin out there and she took care of it all by her lonesome.
With the kind help of the media “New Reality” machine.
Which, among other things, led your co-conspirator here on this BooMachine Susanhu to opine:
Not just the post-9/11 Americans who get spooked everytime Bush somberly warns about them “terr’rists.” You and me too: We’re habituated now to mocking Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Condi et al, and decrying the ignorant Americans who just don’t know, so ignorant are they. We howl, we snarl, we mock, we scoff. And not just against the Bush administration and its patsies. As if that weren’t enough, we howl, snarl, mock, and scoff at each other.
“Conceit, arrogance, and egotism”: That also describes my attitude last night as I mocked the disgusting rhetoric of Mary Matalin and Ari Fleischer on the Sunday talk shows.
But the problem with my mocking is that it only satisfies you habitués here, who of course will agree with me. (Let me dare reveal that it was a safe story to write; nobody’ll get angry with me here for mashing Mary and Ari. Now, if I’d posted that at Free Republic, well. …)
However, my mockery does not go towards piercing the heavy veil of rapturous fear-induced stupor in which most Americans pass each day as they exhalt patriotism and never doubt that the evildoers are out to get us. They won’t be receptive to my tone, my words, my “attitude.”
Yup.
And then, almost as if she needed to PROVE how “habituated” she is, she copped an attitude when I congratulated her on beginning to wake up.
Sorry. This dog don’t hunt.
This left wing dog is too lame to even RUN.
Deep.
“I got yer ‘new reality’ right HERE!!!”, says Mary Matalin.
And by God…it WORKS!!!
Deep.
Mary Magdalene…errrr, Matalin.
Who’s married to…to whom, again?
James Jesus Anglestun…errr, Carville.
The DEMOCRATIC spinner.
Deep.
Bread into fishes ain’t SHIT for THESE hustlers.
They make muderers into victims!!!
And you think that things are going to CHANGE!!!???
Deep.
Wake the fuck up.
Too deep for me.
I quit trying.
Digusting.
AG
nor stupid. They are, like most people, products of their culture.
They are trained from birth that they are an exceptional master race, that America is always the good guy, because America has the most bombs and weapons of any other country, and if America does it, it cannot, by definition, be wrong. America is the owner and ruler of the earth and all it contains. America owns the heavens, the seas, and the oil beneath the earth, and the people whose feet walk that earth.
Thus, even those who disagree with the invasion of Iraq will tell you that it was wrong because Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction.
Those who today oppose the expansion of the crusade to Iran will tell you it is because they do not believe that Iran has or is close to making a nuclear bomb.
The question that only the US can have weapons, that possessing or obtaining these weapons is, like self-defense itself, a privilege only the US can bestow.
Those who resist US invasion of their countries are considered “terrorists,” “insurgents,” “extremists.”
And this terminology is used even by those who claim to oppose the crusade!
Yes, it is absurd, but it is not a question of stupidity. They cannot conceive of some things that might appear quite basic and obvious because that is the way they have been conditioned.
The conditioning does not always “take,” however, or take completely, and you can see that even within the tough outer membrane of their conditioning, their intelligence shows through. Something in them tells them that it is wrong to invade other countries, and so they look for some validation for that, and the only place they can look is in what they have been taught. So they say it is because the Niger documents were forged.
And also remember that any American who opposes US policies, even if they do so based on the far-fetched false logic that is the tool they were given, puts himself or herself in a very dangerous position, they risk everything from social ostracism and the loss of friends, to job loss, to physical violence, to being kidnapped and hauled off to torture camp.
As with any such situation, the key to modernization and advancement is education, and education within the context of attempting to understand the beliefs, the toughness of that membrane, and encouaging them to continue their interest in current events, to read history, and not just from American sources, to take advantage of the opportunity they have to get to know people from other places, other cultures, to learn that there are other, “reality-based” ways to view the world, and the US itself.
These are the kinds of measures that might even help you to one day confront the painful reality that Hilary Clinton is not secretly operating as a mole for the Revolution.