Wednesday, July 19, 2017

How Long Has This Been Going On?


Here is a piquant little number I bottled over a decade ago as part of a Sunday Morning Comin' Down post (yes, I have been running that feature here for a very long time.)

Other than a few name changes, see if you think it still rings true?

From March 19, 2007:


Sunday Morning Comin’ Down



...
[Richard] Perle and [Tom] DeLay are interesting to watch not for their arguments – which are ridiculous – or their McCarthyesque pronouncement – which are trifling lies – but rather for the anthropological experience of seeing two perfect specimens of utterly failed, utterly corrupted wastes of meat and skin go thought their paces, gibbering and smiling away, completely impervious to reason or conscience.

Two moral corpses walking among the living, still raving out the same lies they have told for years. Lies that have caused the death and suffering of untold hundreds of thousand. Lies each now told as onelongjammedtogetheronrushingsentence. Each lie now just noise; a feverish, talismanic incantations – ritually enacted these days like Stations of the Neocon Cross, rather than spoken.

As if their old power to simply shut down reason and truth by bellowing “Traitor!” at anyone who looks at ‘em cross-eyed were still a hot and lively weapon in their clammy hands.

But those days are gone, and these true Enemies Within are now seen for what they are, naked and toothless in the noonday sun.

Because now, at last, the specific gravity of the sheer dead weight of the layer upon layer upon layer of bloodsoaked lies on which this Administration stands – centrifuged by time and events and simple facts -- has at least temporarily stratified the political world into divisions as distinct as the Permian-Triassic boundary.

On one side, Good and Light…

On the other, DeLay and Perle. Two slabs of ambulatory cultural cancer that are about as wholly, unsalvageably vile as creatures get who don’t literally burst into flames in direct sunlight or need to bathe in the blood of virgins to stay perky.

As I said, at one level, a simple exchange.

It was, at another level, quite remarkable. Like watched Ebola virus squirm and breed, and then storm and destroy healthy tissue under a microscope. Perle – who radiates the aura of something fangy and hairy and partially undigested that Dick Cheney had to have chiseled out of colon with a steam hammer -- belongs in perp-orange in a glass cage at the Hague.

DeLay, who belongs in non-remunerated Federal custody, continues to serve as a valuable, Poster Child-reminder that there are still millions of our fellow citizens who, every two years, yank themselves out of their sister’s bung long enough to jump fireman-style into their overalls and shitkickers and slouch off to the polls to vote straight fascist ticket.

Perhaps “Ta piss off the naygers”. Perhaps “Ta show them fags whose country this is!” Perhaps because, if they don’t, sweet baby Jebus will fuss and cry and cross them off the Champaign Room list in Heaven.

Their specific motives are irrelevant. They are simply Bad Americans – democracy’s failed men -- and they need to be loudly reminded at every opportunity that they are -- personally and specifically -- what is wrong with this country.
...
Ten years ago, saying such things about the leadership and the base of the Republican Party was enough to get a fella permanently and unemployably ostracized from polite company.

Ten years later and whole lot of the clowns who made a living calling us traitors for even suggesting such things have now smoothly transitioned to making a fine living saying things about the leadership and the base of the Republican Party that are as bad or worse.

Funny old world.

Behold, a Tip Jar!




7 comments:

Tom Shefchik said...

Wow, Richard Perle. Now that's a blast, or rather fart, from the past. One of so many GOPers I had hoped were dead.

karen said...

It has been going on since 1979 at the very least. Thanks for the video and the post.

e.a.f. said...

that really is one nice piece of writing. Nothing has changed, no that is not true, its worse to day then 10 years ago.

Habitat Vic said...

Karen,

The late 70s certainly seemed to be the setup (Powell Memorandum, conservative think tanks, political activation of evangelicals, etc) with Ronnie then really driving our democracy into the ditch. Up to where we are today with a wannabe King/Fuhrer in the White House.

That said, I can only think of 3 Republican presidents that weren't totally in bed with the wealthy/corporations. Lincoln - back when Repubs weren't around long enough to get captured by the wealthy. Teddy Roosevelt, who was a "mistake" and got driven out of the Republican party for his breaking up big corporations & starting National Parks. Maybe Eisenhower was somewhat OK, though the people of Iran, Hungary & Lebanon would have differed. Every other Republican president was a toady for the wealthy and/or placeholders that pardoned the previous administrations (Ford & Bush the Elder).

Like Ben Franklin said in response to "What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?": A republic - if we can keep it.

bowtiejack said...

Check out :
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America – by Nancy MacLean

Yeah, they really have had a plan all along.
It's always nostalgie de la boue with these people and the dream of a return to feudalism.

Unknown said...

In the scramble for place in the global economy, how will individuals fare against nation states?

Robt said...

We can all cite the historical failures of Treason in the past Disgusting men today that wrap themselves in the flag and their slave dragging their cross for them.

The inheritance patriot during the Bush years who floundered around like a three toed sloth questioning people's patriotism, he felt were not republican like him. Accusing others of his own void of lacking.

That patriot inheritance brats idol Trump) who only 10 years later worships stench carcass of a man who owns 4 deferments for a bad foot he cannot recall which. Declares he has no use for a soldier who gets captured.

(R) Rep. Kevin Mcarthy (of HRC select investigation committee formed, on Hannity fame). Saying Besides Trump, Rep.Dana Rohrabacker is owned by Putin.
--He knows and does nothing but speaks out of jealousy/

Speaker Ryan deploring the Senate to pass "anything" to repeal and replace health care.
'anything" like the House passed. Ryan pleaded out lout and in public view.

all the disturbing ugly behaviors of the figures of virtue they relish and point to as wise sages. Rush, OReilly, Ailes, Rove, Cruz, Alex jonesy, White Supremacists in general.

The list is long and prayers for redemption absent.

They will tell us (out of context) that Jefferson said, "from time to time the tree of liberty need watered with blood of patriots and tyrants".
Which I will leave this question;
Was the ball park shooter just in his attack? Did the shooter decide scalise was being tyrannical and decided to be the patriot and water the tree? Did the security team that took down the shooter perform an act to further Scalise's tyrannical rule?

How does that get decided? On an individual case by case basis?

This is just one festering sliver of many that requires addressed today.