When I was thinking of starting this blog I sat down and had a conversation with my mother and father. I explained the concept, the frog, the whole thing. They didn’t know a thing about blogging, but they knew I could write and they were supportive. The one thing my mother wanted to know was whether I was going to embarrass them by writing crazy stuff. I looked at her and said, “Well, I’m going to call the members of this administration and Congress criminals each and every day because that is what they are.” Now, my mother is a Democrat and has never trusted the Bush Family. But this was a little much for her to hear. A look of terror overtook her face. I smiled at her knowingly and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll see. They are.”
It’s now a little over a year later. I just got off the phone with her. I made her a little list. The President’s deputy chief of staff is about to be indicted, the Vice-President’s chief of staff is indicted, the number one and three people at the CIA have resigned over corruption, the majority leader of the House is indicted, Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham in indicted (and 12 other congresspeople are rumored to be at risk in that investigation), Bob Ney is likely to be indicted, the national security advisor is at risk of indictment, rumors are swirling about Richard Armitage getting indicted (I don’t believe these), numerous congressional staffers have been indicted, the Pentagon’s procurement officer has been indicted, the number one Republican lobbyist has been indicted. And we have finally discovered that it was Dick Cheney himself that instigated the whole Plame Affair. This isn’t even an exhaustive list. And if the Justice Department were not in the hands of Alberto Gonzales and the GOP Congress conducted even a modicum of oversight, the list would quadruple.
My mother’s look of terror is not reserved for me anymore. She long ago realized I was right. Our government is being run by crooks. Incompetent, theiving, whoring crooks. And that is more terrifying than anything I might write on this blog.
You know, when I think of all of the lies and deceptions, scandals and deep seated corruption that is being exposed day after day within this administration, I think of a house of cards. The cards are falling one by one and it’s to the point where I’m amazed the house is still standing. I have mixed feelings. I want the house to be demolished, but I’m also having a lot of fun watching it cave in in this slow-motion way.
My 80 y/o Mom has been calling this administration fascist since early 2002. And growing up in the 30’s and 40’s – she would know. She’s a moderate, devout Mormon that is pro-choice, anti-this-war, fiscal conservative that is registered to vote as an independent.
She just wants to know why the Democrats aren’t doing anything….and I have no answers.
What do you tell her?
You forgot Larry Franklin and the AIPAC spy ring. Tom Delay, Enron – the list gets longer by the day.
Can you convince her to share her pie crust recipe? As one might expect of the mother of a great patriot, BooMom makes the best apple pie I’ve ever had.
I got that secret out of her a few years ago. The secret ingredient is…wait for it…Crisco!!
Lard baby!! You should have known.
My Mom’s yummy pie crust uses Crisco, too.
It can’t be the Crisco
That’s my mom’s secret too!
OK- what this blog has achieved is a opportunity for the “common folk” to share commentaries and recieve shared ideas and you have done brilliantly. Now tragically, I have just about reached the end of my very limitted comments. I will possibly continue to check in from time to time but given the obvious lack of willingness on the part of the dems to openly respond to the disgrace called the gop, I find that at 68, I just need to step back and watch. I hear that Ms Garafalo is also cutting way back or even possibly leaving AA and so I step back in the company of one hell of a person. I do have a feeling that there are alot more of us folks that will be stepping back from the battle. Call us quitters or whatever, but ya simply can’t fight if your side refuses to fight.
Good luck, I will still bewatching and from time to time look for a comment or two.
billjpa
What does it mean?
I posted a comment yesterday about what a progressive should have done if he/she was living in Germany in 1938, and what similarity would that be to today in America for a progressive. Your comments are truly scary, but I must agree that the tendency is to withdraw rather than fight what seems to be overwhelming odds! What is going on??????????????????????????????
I’m scared too, no one in a position of power seems to recognize publicly how extreme this administration. However, the major difference between where we are now and 1938 Nazi Germany is that their government was extremely effective (especially Schacht’s Economics ministry) and popular because they had just pulled Germany out of a depression, whereas Bush’s government is the most incompetent I can ever remember reading about and extremely unpopular as a result of that.
There don’t seem to be any historical parallels for the position American is in now.
I realized that the Hayden confirmation was just deja vu. We’ve seen the script before with Roberts and Alito. Nothing has changed that I can see, which is by far the scariest part. You would think, with the rumbling out of PA dumping incumbents, that both repusses and dems would smell the coming of the storm. I can feel the wind of the brooms coming now, sort of like the smell after a rain has come and washed things clean. But I digress into wishful thinking. The script is the same. The dems have no power and no wish to express any power. The repusses are just talking talking talking talking points points points. No end in sight as yet.
with the rumbling out of PA dumping incumbents
Grandma,
Be careful with this one. Most of the incumbents that lost were losing in their own Repub party primaries to more conservative candidates. Yes, more conservative! Therefore, I am not sure this is such a good thing for progessive ideology!
BREAKING NEWS: CT DEM CONVENTION
over at FDL, it’s just up
Ned Lamont has forced a primary
Poor Joe, all that lavish spending.
Yeah!
Effing excellent :o)
The only way we’re going to get the DLC Democrats to listen to us is if we put forward folks of our own…and support them with time, talent and treasure.
Will be sending Lamont some green shortly… 🙂
I second the sending of the green!
CT is my birthplace, and where my parents and my sister and her family live, along with several relatives… Whoo-hoo!! And holy shit! What a margin… GACK!!! How sweet!
Holy shit-that’s great!
I especially love the 33%. I read the other day that Lieberman was predicting Lamont would get 30%, thus trying to raise expectations so high it would cripple Lamont’s campaign when he couldn’t even get the 15% necessary to force a primary. It’s always nice to see that kind of douchebaggery backfire.
Especially love Ned’s jab line in his speech,
“Lieberman should spend less time in Baghdad and more time in Connecticut.”
Hi, Mom! Don’t worry, we’re looking after your son.
I remember the “you’re crazy” look my mother (also a lifelong Democrat who “erred” in voting for Eisenhower the first time) gave me when I told her in the early 1980s that the CIA had sold Asian heroin in the U.S. to finance secret wars in Laos and Cambodia. She came to understand that I might not be so crazy after all.
I went to Nicaragua 3 times in 1984 and 1985. At my prodding my mother began to question the nature of the U.S.-backed Contra war and wrote our Congressman of her concern. Of course, she got a stock letter in response (which she didn’t realize until I received the same one and showed it to her).
My mother died in 1986, but she had already begun to question the government line that we are feed. She was years ahead of others who still have not had this revelation, and were she alive today, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive warfare would be anathema to her genuine Christian convictions.
You call them crooks, they think of themselves as nobility, immune from laws the peasants must follow. Crooks is far too kind, they are the epitome of evil narcissism run amok.
Murderous tyrants.
I’m with Mom, Boo – Be safe, be not so famous and inspirational.
Here’s the last thing I learned from John Lennon – Don’t let the bastards know where you live.
Booman, make us proud. Do something to at least cause the bastards to sit around in a backroom and comtemplate whether or not they think they can get away with offing you!