Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Demolished Man


(Apologies to Alfred Bester)

"You say you want a revolution.
Well, you know…
We all want to change the world." -- John Lennon

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” -- Isaac Asimov

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” -- Samuel Johnson.

“The Future Perfect Tense is the last refuge of the incompetent scoundrel.” – driftglass


More and more the degenerates who currently run this country are hanging on the future like a drunk hangs on a parking meter. Playing out the final innings of their long and blood-dimmed game of Kick the Accountability Can down the road 30-50 years and then asserting that History will prove them to have been right.

Ah the Future Perfect tense; that patron saint of bad ideologies. With it, exoneration – like the cavalry in every B-Western – is always just over the horizon, riding hell for leather towards the final reel.

And if you strain your ears enough you can juuuust make out its sweet, redemptive bugle sounding the charge.

But in this case, Dubya’s Vindicating Future apparently had to slingshot around a Type B star at the heart of the Clusterfuck Nebula to get up to speed, but a fatal navigational error whipped it around so hard that its now traveling at Relativistic speeds.

And – what with Heisenburg Compensaters still years away from commercial production – the Vindicating Future is beginning to get bitchslapped around by Einstein, Dirac and Hawkings.

Vindication is getting shorter, and massier. The amount of energy necessary to propel it into the Here and Now is approaching infinity (which is why we need all of those oil reserves that all those undeserving ay-rabs now sit on.) The flow of time within the Vindication Bubble is falling out of synch with rest of us here in Newtonville (a great place to raise up your kids) and whole crops of humans will be born, grow old and die before Dubya can land it, hop off, and save Edith Keeler from the Dirty Hippies.

Or something.

Like the Arrow of Zeno’s Paradox, it never quite gets here.

Like “Tomorrow”, it’s always a day – or friedman -- away.

But since the degenerates have kicked the door open on taking Enron-style, Mark-to-Marketing to Exciting New Teleological Levels, why should they be the only ones having fun speculating about what generations unborn will be talking about as they gavotte about Dubya Square at the intersection of Cheney Way and Bremer Boulevard in downtown Baghdad.


I think what they might say is that like, say, the 1860s, the 1930s, the 1960s, the America of the early 21st was a nation in full-tilt revolution. But like the crushing of Nixon’s squalid little putch, this revolution was not primarily marked by hundreds of thousands on the Washington Mall (although they were there) or tens of thousands in soldier’s graves (we pray) so much as it was measured by how successfully the forces of genuine, traditional American Democracy rose up and revivified moribund institutions to cope with an enemy with our own perimeter.

Like an anaconda swallowing a goat, our revolution will be remembered by how we consumed and, finally, excreted the mortal threat from the Right, because the Enemy Within does not seize control of teevee stations by force or pour armor into the streets.

Instead they move briskly in the shadows, always, always moving to roll power ever upwards into the fewest possible hands. Always moving relentlessly to create greater zones of opacity around the Imperial Few. Feverishly exploiting every opportunity to weaken democratic institutions. Proudly ripping out the wiring of checks and balances and accountability and carrying it aloft -- along with their contempt for the law, for justice and for civil liberties -- like a trophy.

Democracy requires light and fresh air, but the machinery of democracy also requires zones of concealment. There are numerous, legitimate areas where public disclosure of, for example, military secrets or covert methods and sources would cause massive damage to the nation.

We allow for privileged communications for those matters, as well as for interactions between attorneys and clients, journalists and sources.

At each step along the way into the abyss we are solemnly told that our very lives depend on handing more and more unchecked power over to the Party of Small Gummit.

At each step along the road to Hell we are told that is terribly dangerous – even treasonous – to demand accountability from the Leaders of the Party of Personal Responsibility.

And then along came the Patriot Act to massively expand what can be done in the dark.

But as night falls we notice in that all those swords the smirking fascists are wielding are all pointed inward. Pointed at us. Because the Modern Conservative is a creature most at home in a murky, twilight despotism. A beast which thrives best in hate and shadow. They are democracy’s retrovirus, and it is exactly these indispensable nodes of secrecy that Conservatives have worked tirelessly to invade, infect and pervert.

The quick litmus test for telling friend from foe -- for whiffing out the spoor of the Enemy -- is His ceaseless, escalating demands for ever more secrecy. Ever less accountability. You will know Him by the blinds he sets, by the way He tirelessly pits the landscape of democracy with new sunless, extra-Constitutional grottos where His eggs can be laid and kindred can breed and prosper.

You will know Him because you have been warned about his coming since childhood.

You know Him by his stink, because every characteristic our Founders warned us to guard against as the harbinger of tyranny is now clear and present all around us: Not tastefully rouged and swaddled away like genital warts on Lady Liberty’s bikini area, but on proud, raging display as GOP foundational values.

You will know Him because each time he erects a new baffle to screen His crimes, He tells us that the lives of our children are in danger if we don’t let him steal a little more of our freedom.

You will know Him because each and every time anyone dares to execrcise the single most fundamental right of every citizen in a democracy -- calling some facet of His swaggering, brownshirt imbecility into question -- we hear magpie shrieks of “Traitor” from his squirmy minions.

And now that is ending, and the revolution is at hand.

Not tomorrow. Not someday. Today. Right here.

And it starts so humbly.

With an election and a trial.

Imagine that?

Somewhere, Frank Capra must be laughing his ass off. 50 years from now the histories will say that the beginning of the end of America’s latest fling with fascism began with those most cornball, Rockwellian of democratic traditions: an election and a trial.

The indictment and trial of Scooter Libby showed how the First Amendment had been invaded and ransacked by its enemies.

First, just by how the trial was effectively embargoed and dismissed by the MSM, we could all see just how deeply unAmerican wingnut propagandists like Fox News had been allowed to get. We could all see clearly exactly how the MSM has destroyed “journalism” as a Fourth Estate and made “journalism” into a safe-house for Fifth Columnists.

Second, we could seen how the White House traded access for favorable treatment, (and along a parallel track, made a science of slapping a Press Badge on any Gannon with a keyboard and an ass for rent,) and created an entire myrmidon army of liars and leakees who could be relied on to catapult the propaganda. How they were able to shop their lies around through formerly reputable media outlets, and then turn right around and cite their own leaked stories as evidence of the credibility of their positions.

And then, in the most perverse turn of all, try to bury their lies and crimes behind the protections of the First Amendment. A maneuver that shall ever more be known as The Judith Goat.

The election – which took place, oh, about five minutes ago – has already yielded results.

Like the shameful Walter Reed scandal, it seems no matter where inside Dear Leader’s cavernous Imperial Honeypot the Congress now throws a light they find rot and mold and rats and Republican cronies -- grown fat and slow on no-bid contracts and six years of GOP Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell "Congressional oversight" -- scuttling through the filth they have created. Scampering over the misery of soldiers and citizens and into deeper corners.

The GOP’s double-secret Imperial Edict that let the Dear Leader wiretap Americans without a warrant? We were told, “Trust us. We would never abuse our new, secret, unchecked powers.”

We were told, “We need this secret unchecked power to keep you safe.”

We were told, “Any investigation of our use of our secret unchecked power will put lives at risk!”

And what did we find?

That this White House had abused its secret unchecked power hundreds -- Perhaps thousands? Perhaps hundreds of thousands? Who knows?-- of times.

Of course they did. Lying is what liars do.

In the dark of night, the GOP slipped in a special provision to allow the President to secretly sack US Attorneys General and appoint new ones with no Congressional oversight. But that was OK, because Abu Gonzales swore – passionately and under oath -- that:
“… I feel a special obligation, maybe an additional burden coming from the White House to reassure the career people at the department, and to reassure the American people that that I'm not going to politicize the Department of Justice.”


And
“…
Senator, what you're asking the counsel to do is to interject himself and direct the Department of Justice, who is supposed to be free of any kind of political influence in reaching a legal interpretation of the law passed by Congress.”


And
“I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons, or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation."


And yet that is exactly what this White House did – premeditatedly and with malice – because lying is what liars do.

And when the people have finally had enough and, through their votes, voices and elected representatives, demand answers, this President -- the man whose first oath is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution – tells the people to just fuck right off.

50 years from now, once the millstone of history has ground out all memory of Anna Nicole Smith and Wild Hogs, 2007 will be remembered as the year the gloves came quietly off.

The year the Congress finally began to methodically deprive the malevolent cult that runs the GOP of safe places to hide their treachery, and secure high ground from which to shriek their lies.

The year when the collapse of the Bush Presidency hit its critical mass and became irreversible. When the final late-winter figleafs dried up and blew away forcing the cowardly GOP Base into the light.

Forcing them to confess to the world that the reason they love their Party, the Leader, their Fox and their Rush beyond all reason is simply that they despise our democratic ideals, our Constitution and our magnificent dream of the tolerant and magnanimous nation we may someday grow into.

24 comments:

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

The cult that confiscated the GOP and perverted it into the Royalist Party we know and loathe today does believe in "freedom", but the trouble is that they define "freedom" as freedom for themselves and ONLY themselves, and including the freedom to loot. They lust to make the rest of us, inside and outside the USA, slaves of one degree or another, except for those of us for whom they have no use at all; the cult lusts to exterminate the "useless" ones. They see themselves as the special favorites of the Almighty--literally, in the case of the Dominionists--and the rest of us as so many subhumans He put on Earth for the use of His special favorites. To the cultists, the rest of us are livestock if we are somehow useful to them, and vermin if we are not.

I hope the huge bloc of non-voters have learned from the Dubya years that THIS IS WHY THEY HAVE TO GET OFF THEIR SORRY, LAZY ASSES AND REGISTER AND THEN GET OFF THEM AGAIN AND ACTUALLY GET THE FUCK OUT THERE AND VOTE. Selah.

Beckylooo said...

Thank you. That was beautiful. I hope you're right.

Anonymous said...

Best writing on the web! I'm getting a real kick out of Tom Delay's book tour these days. He's a great face for the wingnuts. Did you hear him on NPR explaining why Democrats don't get to have a voice in government? Classy guy. Keep 'em coming Tommy Boy!

BitterHarvest said...

Those three quotes from Torquemada are precious, D. Hopefully that craven little s*** will lose his job.

Anonymous said...

Driftglass, thank you.

Batocchio said...

Driftglass, nice post!

As an aside, Bester has long been one of my favorite sci-fi authors. (Of course, unlike the Bushies, even Bester's character Ben Reich had a conscience, however suppressed.)

I suspect you've seen this quotation, but if not, I imagine it'll be up your alley:

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
— Arthur C. Clarke

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

Sorry to be late, folks, but I posted a longer comment down on the Wallace-picture thread, if anyone cares. :)

Mister Roboto said...

Karma's a bitch when you're an asshole or an asshole-enabler. Just ask the neo-cons and their fucktard supporters! :-D

Anonymous said...

driftglass = True American Patriot

Anonymous said...

By their foulness shall ye know them. -- Abd al-Azrad in the Necronomicon

Anonymous said...

drift,
i admire all your posts, but this one is truly the stuff of sustained, outraged genius.

be well, stay focused. and don't ever doubt that you and essays like this make a real difference.

Unknown said...

Man, that was brilliant.

I don't think W would be interested in Edith Keeler. Too idealistic. Too thought-y. He strikes me as more like the drunk bum who steals McCoy's phase and blows himself up playing with it.

Actually, he's a lot like Khan if Khan had been part of a titanic effort to create the perfect stoopid.
"For eight years, this dumbass ruled one quarter of your Earth. He was the last of the stoopid tyrants to be overthrown..."

Unknown said...

"Dr McCoy's phaser", I mean.

Anonymous said...

You're so right. They do despise our democratic ideals; the thought that just anybody can vote, the notion the people of color are actually just as good as the rest of us rankles them to their very core.

Another fantastic post Driftglass.

Natasha said...

Drifty, you should know that physics and demonology always make me swoon. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Driftglass R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn!

"Study demonology with an enemy this Sunday." - The Principia Discordia

Natasha said...

Oh yes, another classic piece of political demonology (don't miss the comments) over an atrocity of management that should have all of us doublechecking our warding spells.

Anonymous said...

..Dubya’s Vindicating Future apparently had to slingshot around a Type B star at the heart of the Clusterfuck Nebula to get up to speed, but a fatal navigational error whipped it around so hard that its now traveling at Relativistic speeds..

OMG. I'm all trembly inside just picturing this..

Anonymous said...

Most of us are content to have our subjects and predicates agree. With driftglass, they end up drunkenly screwing on the balcony, and then they gather up their clothes and play ding-dong-ditch on Pundit Street.

Okay, that sucked, but we're well past the point where "Hey, you're a pretty good writer" is gonna cut it.

Anonymous said...

breaking news: Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Sought in Texas

http://www.examiner.com/a-638033~Ivory_Billed_Woodpecker_Sought_in_Texas.html

HopeSpringsATurtle said...

Actually drifty, wasn't Edith Keeler,"a dirty hippie"? Depthy post, thanks.

Anonymous said...

Dryyy Cracker - I think that was a great summary!

Man, I'm jonezing for the next driftglass installment

With so much schadenfreudenGoppen (happiness drived from the misery of republicans) happening, I can't even begin to put it all into perspective. It's like.. the nite before Fitzmas, but everyday! (or if you prefer, Fitzanukah, except you get these totally awsome Subpoenas instead of just socks and candles)

-skunqesh

driftglass said...

Thx all.
Very tired and very job-laden.

More later.

Frank said...

Driftglass- We miss you, come back.

Anonymous said...

Stunning commentary. Drifty, you've left me speechless in Chicago.

I'd be honored to buy you a (cheap) brew or two sometime.
We're in the same neighborhood.

Mark Ganzer