Friday, October 28, 2005

The Real President reminds potential Rats...


...before I go down, you'll all sleep with the fishes.

Why this is So Fucking Bad – Part II

The underlying motives of the Modern GOP.

You and I, we live in a house built by giants.

Flawed giants to be sure – we’re all sinners here – but the men and women who made this place for us stood a full head taller than their times and looked to make us as fine a future as their magnificent, damaged vision could perceive.

The planks of the floor tongue-and-grooved together by Jefferson’s prose. The bricks laid straight and true by Washington. The kitchen kept tight and warm by Franklin. The Southern Wing fumigated by Sherman and made beautiful by Ms. Rosa Parks.

Everywhere the joins and seams are sealed against the elements by the blood of patriots who died at Omaha Beach, and Gettysburg, and Philidelphia, Mississippi to keep our house safe, or to force the landlords to keep their promise and make our house a home for all who live here.

It’s not a perfect house – it has always been a fixer-upper – but it’s our house, yours and mine, black and white, man and woman, conservative and liberal, rich and poor, new arrival or DAR.

And we work on the place, year after year. Some of us, sadly, have little or no interest in the basic duties of citizenship, and believe that the Democracy Fairy comes and snakes the pipes, weather-strips the doors and re-caulks the tub. Some of us involve ourselves in the running of the country with varying degrees of passion and duration because that's what we can afford. And some of our fellow citizens spend their lives at it because we understand that keeping up the Old Home Place is the slow work of lifetimes. A task that is incremental, blooms only rarely and usually lacks heroics.

It is rarely the lifers that militate for Revolution Now! because they well understand what is at stake and how hard it is to build and govern once the revolutionaries are done knocking it all down and dancing around the fires. No, it is usually the uninvolved -- the sleepy ones who have little or no understanding of how the political process works, how a bill becomes a law (Schoolhouse Rock, People!) or how a minority party has to fight with finesse and under the radar -- who come tumbling down from the attic full of drive-by advice on the futility of hard work and how the fact that everything isn't perfect yet proves that we need to burn it all down and start over.

Fine. As the boys and girls of Fireside Theater once said, "I Think We're all Bozos on This Bus." This experiment has been running for two-and-a-quarter centuries, and it has been every bit as much a Freak Carnival and Tijuana Donkey Show as it has been High Mass.

So what?

We all work in the dark and we all do what we can. That’s the social compact. That’s the deal, and from generation to generation our house gets little additions. New furnishings from Imperial to Populist to Early "Whip Inflation Now."

Sometimes we paint the place Red, and sometimes Blue, and sometimes what those colors mean changes completely, but the compact requires -- absolutely requires -- that we respect the house itself.

And it is in this signal betrayal that the Modern Republican Party is singularly infamous.

They are not remotely interested in changing the artwork or the crown molding; they're going after the walls, the floor and the brickwork. They're setting fire to the foundation stones themselves, and the indictment of Scooter Libby is only the latest link in the chain.

Consider just these few core samples taken from the anthracite soul of the Party of Darkness:

On Making War.

There is a proper way a modern Great Nation goes to war. When describing how a Great Nation undertook the gravest decision any country can make, the watchword damned well better have been "Deliberate". And Cautious. Reluctant. Even Sad. As a last, possible resort. The gravity a Great Nation must feel down to it's bones before going to war might best be summed up by Lincoln in his Second Inaugural:
"All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.

And the war came."
For sober-minded adults, the days of undertaking mass slaughter for martial glory and piqued pride disappeared in the trenches of World War I, and were permanently entombed under the rubble of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But instead, this Chickenhawk Administration came to the table iron-hard, leg-humpin', Priapistic for war. For the profit it would bring as well as the suppressing fire it would provide for its political agenda. War as Distraction. War as Photo-Op.

And to accomplish this end, they ate away at the decision-making apparatus itself. When, like this Administration, you see war as just another means to a profitable end -- and you have no ethics-bound limits on what you are prepared to do to advance your partisan agenda -- you end up lying lavishly because you no longer recognize Truth or Falsehood as points on a moral compass.

Bush did not seek to prove the case for war; instead he strove to destroy the very mechanism by which such decisions are made.

He did what he has done his whole life. He cheated, and his Party cheered, and in doing so he took a sledgehammer to the floorboards of democracy,


On Appointing Judges.

No big mystery here. When Harriet Miers got into choppy water over her utter lack of qualifications for the job to which Bush had nominated her, he casually played the Evangelical Card.

He didn't even encrypt it -- he just up and said that Harriet should be trusted because of her specific and rancid views on Christ. Period.

From Terri Schiavo, to Justice Sundays, to anointing John Ashcroft as Inquisitor General, to the whole "Torture? So what!" stance of the GOP, to veiled death threats against "activist judges", to Pat Robertson's psychotic and unrepudiated assertions that "liberal judges" are the greatest threat to American civilization in history, to James Dobson's flaunting his ownership of Bill Frist's testicles and reassurance that Dear Harriet would've voted the right way...the GOP has made it explicitly clear that they have no use for an independent judiciary. They have set an overt Christopath Evangelical Test for holding the gavel; a perversion that our Constitution was explicitly set up to guard against.

As is true in the Prosecution of War, in the Prosecution of Justice the GOP have no use for the mechanisms the Founders put in place. They don't make war on a given judge: They make war on the very idea of Justice.


On the Idea of the Commonweal.

Begin with two, filthy words: Grover Norquist.

Then comes Katrina, Barbara Bush, "Brownie" and showing our racism to the world.

"AARP's Gay!" attacks on Social Security, backed up by the likes of Brit Hume lying as loud and often as necessary to blowtorch the last line of defense between senior citizens and penury.

The Modern GOP rides to electoral victory on the stooped backs and sloped brows of ten million loyal bigots, segregationists, and American Swastika flyin' wannabe Klansmen. It's not that they object to this program or that; they loathe the very idea that the government should be in the business of helping its citizens at all, especially "those people."

Understanding racists is really not that difficult: For these degenerates, the Government Is the Problem because it takes their tax money and gives it to Mud People, fags and Furriners. Period. And on that basis, they are completely cool with the idea of gutting government itself. And as they have made crystal clear, if they can't milk what they want from their conservative manques and stalking horses, these types are perfectly willing to go back to blowing up Federal Buildings and Family Planning Clinics.


On the Primacy of Reason.


First and foremost, we Americans are the Children of the Enlightenment.

We were born during the rise of the Rational against the the dark tide of Superstition and Fear. It was because of our willingness to swear fealty to Reason even though it might doom some of our sacred cows to the slaughter line that we truly were a light unto the world; and it is this primary, prenatal fact of our origins that is most despised and conspicuously ignored by the current crop of Fundy "Originalists" who only want to ram the Ten Commandments down our throats and send all those scarily emancipated women back to purdah.

So again we see the perversity of the GOP on a cellular level.

Because it affronts the sensibilities of its loyal swine, the Republican party is actually willing to wage war on Evolution; a science whose fundamentals have been settled beyond any serious debate across an entire, global community of literate, learned humans for over a century.

Except here.

Except with the panderers that run the Republican Party who, for sordid electoral wages, are more than happy to run three centuries of Enlightenment through the wood chipper. Who cheerfully retard our children -- that face a future of fierce, technological competition -- by forcing the schools to teach that the ignorant superstitions of snake handlers are every bit as 'scientifically" valid as the results of a century and a half of careful observation, exploration and experimentation.

And because it might impinge on the bottom lines of their corporate overlords, these same illiterate, innumerate whores are quite willing to rewrite the laws of physics and meteorology in Crayola, and pretend that Global Warming is just the kooky notion of a handful of addled intellectuals, even as one "storm of the century" after another beats the coastal United States to splinters, and sheets of polar ice the size of states continue to "melt, thaw, and resolve themselves into a dew."

Again, it is not a particular decision or theory against which the GOP has set themselves, but the entire idea of Man using Reason to make decisions against which they have set themselves.

They make war on the idea of Enlightenment itself.

How much more of an enemy of Democracy could they possibly be?

And now...Scooter Libby.

What is the Scoot Man charged with?
Blow away the smoke and just listen to the sturdy poetry of the indictment itself to understand what is at stake here.

When all is said and done, what Libby tried to do was no less than attempt to destroy the instrumentality by which the truth itself could be found.

On a matter of National Security.

During a time of war.

He did it as cooly and deliberately as a suicide bomber going after a troop carrier, which is treason to the bone, and only a traitor would defend it or spin it as anything less.

And the best either the Real President and the Potemkin President could choke out were a few words of non-specific regret, padded out with praise for all the Goodness Scooter had ladled over the Constitution.

Conclusion:

In the end, there is always room in our raucous, national chorus for voices of discontent, dissent and disputation. That's how our house was built; that's exactly what its checks and balances and tightly toleranced acoustics are designed to modulate.

What cannot be tolerated are those whose goal is the razing of Liberty's Temple.

Those who carefully nurture ignorance, deliberately foster bigotry and fear, and take up arms against the muscle and sinew of Enlightenment itself.

The vermin that dare to call themselves "Republicans" while working day and night to cripple and kill the Republic.

The termites in the joists and tenons of Democracy's home.

70 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Freak Carnival" WBAGNFARB!

As often happens, Master Driftglass, I stand in awe of your monkey-style feng shui. You rock.

Anonymous said...

Damn, that's one of the most Patriotic pieces of writing I've ever read.

Anonymous said...

Drifty, you are one eloquent bastard. I sit here, one ear on the "Today" show, not to get **news** of course - none of that to be found on the airwaves these days, but to help try to gauge where we are heading. Looking desperately for some piling on of the press that might help drag us out of this morass that is sucking us down like the sloths at LaBrea. Forcing myself to admit that the EU and New Zealand probably are not lobbying hard for the emigration of pushing 50 ladies who can't afford to heat their houses... I keep myself in the "afraid to hope" mode so I don't keep getting dashed on the rocks, and coming here every AM helps fight that. It's proof positive that there is stil some intelligent life left in this frightening place our country has become. Thanks.

Maybe Scooter will roll over and show his soft white underbelly. It's not like there is any honor among these thieves...

Anonymous said...

DG, once again, your passionate words leave me in awe, moved beyond measure. It is time for a new enlightenment.

Jake

Anonymous said...

a truly magnificent post---

Anonymous said...

Stunning, stunning post. Thank you so much.

And thanks for the Bozos on the Bus reference. Made me feel 20 again!

Anonymous said...

With the perennial FF-in-chief?.

Anonymous said...

FireSIGN Theatre. You're thinking of FDR's FireSIDE Chats. Both were highpoints of our failing democratic experiment. We need to start doing more than rearranging the deck chairs. Blogs like this give me hope.

Anonymous said...

Superb, Drift.

Just-fucking-superb.

And punkster, you nailed it, on the dog-pile that's needed.

I read on Gilliard's that Chris Matthews waxed lovingly eloquent on Fitz, post indictment.

I'd like to view that as a harbinger of things to come.

But we all know what a kissass frontrunner Matthews is. If the wind changes, he'll blow whomever's dick is pointing the "right" way.

Anonymous said...

Damn Driftie, this is like being in church. Preach Brother Man!! Preach!!

jurassicpork said...

TS Eliot once said of poets: "The job of the poet is not in telling us what we didn't already know but in making that truth more fully real to us."

This is DG's genius, to tell us what we've already read and heard but to remind us, and render it in cohesive and memorable terms that make these self-evident truths "more fully real to us."

One of the more patriotic things I've read all year since becoming a blogger this January. Bravo, Drifty. Bravo.

Anonymous said...

I just heard a good one on SNL: "According to a recent poll, 66% of Americans believe President Bush is doing a poor job in Iraq. The other 34% believe Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church."---IBW

Anonymous said...

Word!

Thanks DG, again with the Sunday Sermon (saturday, anyday, yeah!)

Careful - someday you might end up getting Canonized for driving out all these damn snakes!

I'm going to name my First fer ye.
My first batch of Fall home brew, that is. Driftglass Stout. Unless Fitzy can land Karl without 'im slippin off the hook, then Indictment Ale is up on deck. Bitterness never tasted better.

Oh yeah - lá Breithe shona dhuit!
cheers

Anonymous said...

and yet things wouldn't be so bad were it not for the utter spinelessness of the D.C. Democrats

does anyone doubt that at least 22 Democratic senators will be voting for Nero's next Supreme Court nominee?

a lot of this crap would never have happened is the Democratic senators had blocked Ashcroft from becoming attorney general, that would have been a shot across Bush's bow that he was a "president" with NO mandate

Anonymous said...

whoops, "never would have happened IF"

Anonymous said...

I found you from Gilliard's blog. Your writing's great.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Mr. Natural said...

Driftie, we love ya! This post is among the best from a blog that is among the best.

Jill said...

I'm speechless.

Drifty, you're nothing short of amazing.

Why people like Ann Coulter get paid for their writing, and you crank out stuff like this day after day -- for free -- I have no idea.

Anonymous said...

66% are correct......

Charles Perez said...

This would get my vote for The Perfect Political Post, 2005.

Hands down.

Anonymous said...

Somebody nominate this for a Koufax.
Seriously.

Anonymous said...

What you said!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that. Something like this post is welling up in a lot of us, but it took DG to actually pen it. Props.

Anonymous said...

Read it again, Drift.

Shitfire, you rock!

You ARE Capone with a baseball bat, but it's the Louisville Slugger of the English Language. :o)

driftglass said...

I have no idea how to answer such kind words from so many kind people other than to say "Thank You" loud and clear, and to let you know how much your feedback means to me.

Peace

Anonymous said...

Looking for info on fantasy baseball player ranking then browse around.

teh l4m3 said...

Magnificent!

Anonymous said...

At least she's no long-winded.
backup cell phone

Anonymous said...

Ik las een andere blog vroeger, en ik wens dit ik hier eerst was gekomen.Genuinely, Muoi manhattan abdominoplasty for men

Anonymous said...

Tambi�n tengo un sitio en la mcallen plastic surgery no tambi�n puestos junto como el tuyo.Byebye, Pierre mcallen plastic surgery

Anonymous said...

Ich habe auch einen Aufstellungsort auf abdominoplasty ny, aber sein nicht au�erdem zusammengef�gt als Ihr.With Compliments, Max abdominoplasty ny

Anonymous said...

It's time to take charge of your future and independence by having your own business!

Anonymous said...

It is about time I finally starting looking at blogs for information. It definitely gives you a more personal take on the information.

Enjoyed your post.

legit work at home business

Anonymous said...

Mold or Mildew... I would like you to know about black mold toxic. If you are getting sick often. Visit ..http://moldinfo4u.com . If You see black powder looking dust on your walls or floors that could be the black mold toxic I'm Talking about.. This can be cleaned with bleach most of the time but beware of how you clean and dispose of the paper towel that you use.

Anonymous said...

Do I Need A MOLD TEST KIT...I would like you to know about symptoms of toxic mold syndrome. If you are getting sick often. Visit ..http://moldinfo4u.com . If You see black powder looking dust on your walls or floors that could be the symptoms of toxic mold syndrome I'm Talking about.. This can be cleaned with bleach most of the time but beware of how you clean and dispose of the paper towel that you use.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, was looking at your blog and was pretty interesting stuff.

Anonymous said...

Great Blog,

Thanks for the read.

Keep it up.

Regards

Make and Sell DVD's

Anonymous said...

Hello,

Navigating around your site was a treat. Well done for producing such a nice place to surf!

Thanks,
money online fast make

Anonymous said...

Hey Blogger,

The graphics/information/navigation on your site made my visit a worthwhile and pleasant one. I hate too much scrolling down pages and pages of information before I find what I am looking for but your site was easy to read and also very, very useful. Please keep up the good work!

Regards,
make online fast money

Anonymous said...

Hi blogger bud, I enjoyed reading about what you are interested in.

Thank You,

professional dog trainer

Anonymous said...

Hi,

It is a pleasure to read some of your archives or posts... This web blog has some valuable information that you must have spend some time in creating...

I hope you keep adding relative content and other useful information...

Good Luck,
work at home make money

Anonymous said...

a great opportunity, no selling, no phoning, no recruiting PERIOD!

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting blog you have. I'm going to bookmark you and come back, because I'm actually searching for information on how to shoot and edit videos. I've found a site where they have a great video course on DVD's, but I'm looking for something a little more within my budget

Regards
Tony video to dvd transfer

Anonymous said...

Hey, I 110% agree with the last few comments. This blog has great opinions and this is why I continue to visit, thanks! Ms. San Diego lasik eye surgery

Anonymous said...

nice information

Anonymous said...

I was searching blogspots on Google and found yours. Good blogsite with some intersting comments!

Message is from http://www.surveyearn.biz/MysteryShopper/Mystery_Shopper.html which is refers to work at home careers

Anonymous said...

Great blogsite you have here! Interesting information. Please come and visit mine sometime genuine work from home jobs

Anonymous said...

If I ever get my house to where I want it to be I'll be out of work!

Thanks.
home made dog treats

Anonymous said...

Seems like when I get home late at nite, kick the wife and yell at the dog, my house is finally in order.

Good info here. thanks.

dog food recipe secrets

Anonymous said...

doing the Google search found your site. Some content here is very thought provoking. Not sure i agrere with all but hey this is a democratic society - generally speaking!!

Take care, from David at http://www.surveyearn.biz/PaidSurveys/Work_at_home.html which is about work At Home Business

Anonymous said...

I like this blog you created

http://www.amt-ch.com/

Computer Based Training Tool Box Software

Anonymous said...

My dogs keep me hopping and my house messy when I let them in.

Found a couple of good ideas here on how to get my "house" in order.

I appreciate it.
best dog food recipes

Anonymous said...

Well made blog you have here! - Interesting information. Please come and visit mine sometime http://www.surveyearn.biz/PaidSurveys/Work_at_home.html-at home work

Anonymous said...

work at home job - This is the way a blog site should be! Nice work. David

Anonymous said...

Splendid blogsite you have here! Interesting information. Please come and visit mine sometime at home work

Anonymous said...

Tremendous information found on this blog. Keep up the good work.

I have a site that you are welcome to see at http://www.surveyearn.biz/PaidSurveys/Work_at_home.html it is about work at home job

Anonymous said...

Great blogsite you have here! Interesting information. Please come and visit mine sometime top ranking web site design

Anonymous said...

Some thought provoking and interesting comments I would say.

Anyways, if you like I have an interesting site to visit at http://www.small-business-web-design.ssr.be. All about web ecommerce design

Anonymous said...

best web design company - Did you know that receiving lots and lots of blogger comments increases your page rank! Resulting in a more popular blogsite.

Anonymous said...

Well said!

DP - http://www.small-business-web-design.ssr.be - small business web design

Anonymous said...

I appreciate the time you have taken on your blog, thank you for the nice read.

Regards,

work at home

Anonymous said...

Well said!

DP - http://www.small-business-web-design.ssr.be - top ranking web design

Anonymous said...

Good information. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Charles Cowan
charlie cowan
http://www.etowahrealty.com

Anonymous said...

Hi Friend! You have a great blog over here!
Please accept my compliments and wishes for your happiness and success!
If you have a moment, please take a look at my training dog collars site.
Have a great day!

Anonymous said...

Hi Fellow! I was just searching blogs,and I found yours! I like it!
If you have a moment, please visit my austin lease properties site.
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Bloggers

Looking for house painting contractor dfw at http://doityourselfpro.com/. Well I recomend This Site. Maybe your asking who am I

Anonymous said...

Bloggers

Looking for requirements for general contractors license for georgia at http://doityourselfpro.com/. Well I recomend This Site. Maybe your asking who am I

Anonymous said...

Can basement mold Cause Health Problems. Mold Usually has to grow in a damp spot of your home. If you have a water leak from a pipe or roof leaks you can haveproblems with basement mold. If you have black stuff on your carpet or walls you might have a mold problem. Go to this web site I found Very Helpful http://moldnhouse.com/

Anonymous said...

home photos to help with home building ideas