Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Fat Karl


finishes the job.

These are surely the times that try men’s souls…

…unless of course you are a Republican, in which case your soul will stonewall and shred documents until it is hauled away by the FBI, at which point Bush’ll pardon it out of federal custody. Which is why in his Soul, a Conservative can lounge and giggle and pray to his Deathgod while every good thing about his country bursts into flames all around him.

Because, in the end, this is what they REALLY wanted. I mean, they must want to live in a nation that is divided and weak, broken and despised. A place with an alcoholic buffoon for a leader and liars. Traitors and thieves as his Praetorian Guard.

Think about it.

I live in a city that remade itself after a gotham-killing fire into something much greater and grander than it had ever been before. A city that reversed the flow of a major river before the invention of the internal combustion engine because if it wanted to grow (and not have raw waste backing up into the drinking water), it had to.

Sure, after a year it needed some tweaking…

We have landed American citizens on the Moon, and it seems like we lob a new set of tinkertoys at the outer planets every other week.

Those are endeavors that took genuine, sustained effort.

The price of D-Day was real blood and real tears, and island hopping in the Pacific wasn’t for the timid and the weak. As Edward R. Murrow famously said, “We are not descended from fearful men.”

Except the Republican Senate.

They are sickening cowards, one and all.

Because right now, our nation is trapped in a dreadful and unnecessary and ruinous war, visited on us by bad men with depraved motives. Those are the bare-bones of it: the only theory of the crime that even remotely fits the facts.

But hey, I might be wrong!

There might be some completely benign explanation as to why George Bush has been catastrophically wrong about every single fucking detail about this war. And as to why everyone who tried to warn him got horse-headed. Why everyone complicit in this historic meta-uber-clusterfuck has been awarded medals and pensioned off. And why every fuckup breaks in the direction of making Dick Cheney’s gang of looters vastly richer than the dreams of Croesus.

Maybe there’s some OTHER explanation for why they outed a spy and then smashed the equipment necessary to find out why they outed the spy.

Maybe it’s all just a merry mixup. Maybe Ricky will finally let Lucy join the band and we’ll all finally live lives of perfect harmony.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…but why isn’t it at least worth checking into?

Treason? Plunder? Negligent homicide in an illegal war? Secret prisons? Torture?

What we need to remember is the obvious – what Harry Reid reminded us of, and what many Dems have been militating for even though the cameras refuse to point in their direction. The question of, “Why isn’t this important to the GOP Senate? Why doesn’t John McCain care about torture? Why doesn’t Lincoln Chafee care about blowing a spy’s cover? Why doesn’t Arlen Specter care about treason?”

What is not clear is the exact depth and breadth of the crimes against humanity and the Constitution that the Bush WH has committed. What is beyond dispute is something has gone horribly wrong in this country, and the GOP are bending every oar and spending every nickel not on finding and fixing the problem, but by denying, denigrating and distracting.

What is also beyond dispute is the level of effort that would be required to get the ball rolling. The GOP Senate would not have to reverse a mighty river, or rebuild a major city, or split the atom.

Six of them – one tenth of them – mere have to stand up and insist that these are serious matters that need immediate investigation.

That’s all. Stand up on principle and firmly demand that events of this magnitude certainly rise to the same level of gravity as Clinton peccadilloes? Of steroids in baseball?

They choose not to act because they are cowards, and by their cowardice they tell the world that the GOP senate says Yes! to torture and lies, to treason and theft.

There is no “good” angle or cross-eyed 3-D, pixel puzzle from which to this Administration can any longer be viewed as anything but a disaster. No special loge or balcony or Indiana Jones map room in which, on a certain day, from a specific line-of-sight, the tragedy which the Bush White House inflicts on our country every single day suddenly jumps into a wholly new perspective that makes their treason and criminality make any kind of sense.

It no longer matters which end of the telescope you look down. Close-up, the GOP is a virus – a Constitutional Wasting Disease -- that gets stronger and happier the more it hobbles and weakens or Nation. From far away, they are a headless thing blaring and rampaging across the moral landscape, stomping compassion and integrity and intelligence to shards and splinters in the name of God.

But the day will come in a year or two or five when this will all be hauled out into the open air, because the simple atmospheric pressure of Reality itself will not abide it being kept buried beneath the bodies of dead soldiers forever.

And on that day, the GOP Senate will be called to answer for why it conspicuously abdicated its most basic, Constitutional duty. Why a mere six of them didn’t have to balls to stand up for the Truth. Why they let Liberty be taken into the alley by the Bush gang to be beaten and raped while in the next room they debated athletes shooting themselves in their asses with chemical cocktails that help them hit a little ball 30 feet further.

Act now, and maybe save yourself and your GOP. Act now, because you and you alone have the power to act. The sworn duty to act.

Refuse, and you tell the world that this it the nation you really want. Refuse, and you actively choose to keep us a nation that is divided and weak, broken and despised. A place with an alcoholic buffoon for a leader and liars. Traitors and thieves as his Praetorian Guard.

Refuse, and be branded forever what half of us already know you to be: party of crave, wormy, bitches. Moral Pygmies who clawed and cheated and sucked a lot of Klansman and Christopath dick for 40 years to cobble together a majority, and once they got it, categorically refused to even look into the most catastrophic disaster in modern American history.

Refuse, and in five years, the question candidates are going to be dodging like Bush avoiding military service will be this:

“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Republican Party?”

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow.

Well spoken.

I likee and applaud you as a word meister extraordinare.

:-)

Keep speaking from your soul, Drifty - It does my wounded heart GOOD.

Anonymous said...

Awesome!

I have a question: How come the right wing trolls haven't infested your blog the way they have Steve Gilliard's?

Anonymous said...

Drifty, tell it brother!

But, you are assuming the American people will awaken from their torpor of cheese doodles and all-night DVD porn long enough to care. You'ra assuming a degree of civic virtue that maybe has never existed in a nation eviscerated from the beginning by a racism, greed, and violence endemic to the real American story.

Listening to fellow 'Murkens here at work, I'm not so sure there is any of this virtue. To paraphrase paleoconservative scold James Howard Kunstler, "We are a wicked people who deserve to be punished."

Mister Roboto said...

To paraphrase paleoconservative scold James Howard Kunstler, "We are a wicked people who deserve to be punished."

JHK is actually a liberal Democrat, he just comes off as a paleocon simply because he's such a scold.

And as much as pains my New Ager heart to agree with what he said, the more I look around and think about what has been happening, the more inclined I am to do so. :-(

An Angry Old Broad said...

Consistantly Brilliant Drifty,as always.Thanks.

missy said...

We need mass emails of this post to all the GOP senators, but especially McCain, Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Chuck Hagel.

Anonymous said...

What that Kielbasa King Karl Rove?......Ala Howard Stern's Kielbasa Queen????????????.

Zappatero said...

Smashing, old chap!

How come the right wing trolls haven't infested your blog the way they have Steve Gilliard's? - they can only take one smackdown per day. Steve and Drifty would have their ears bleeding and snot running out of their eyes within a minute.

Anonymous said...

eeeeeeeeeYYYYYYESSS! Thanks again DG

jurassicpork said...

Good closing line, I hafta admit. It's getting tough just keeping up with you, old chap.

I guess Gillaird's arrived and Drifty and I haven't. I did get one troll today who accused me of being liberally "biased."

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and walk away.

Anonymous said...

Quality rant, old boy. Tally ho.

Anonymous said...

Drifty -

Rage on, I'm with ya. But, do you think any Republicans read this? I don't even care if they think about it, and I'd never even expect them to engage in omphalskepsis over an article like this, but is it even possible for them to just hear something outside of their comfort zone?

Well, you feel better for asking (even if no one hears) and I feel better listening, so I guess this isn't a wasted effort.

- yam

Anonymous said...

well jurassicpork you should count your blessings, Steve's blog is totally infested with trolls. He's going to need a REALLY big can of Troll-B-Gone.

Driftglass is truly awesome, such a wicked way with words. ;)

jurassicpork said...

Actually, Vet, I kinda welcome them. I love skewering them like I skewer my Top 10 Assclowns every sunday night.

Like the troll I skewered this afternoon...

Anonymous said...

I think it’s the kind of treason gold engenders. History is rife with those who chose remuneration over ideology. One rather famous example involved thirty pieces of silver. They don't see it that way, though – to them its simply business – so they only pretend to believe when it suits their purpose. I cannot imagine living such an empty life.

driftglass said...

gay veteran,
Honestly, because Gilly is an A-list, asskicker who does this full-time with panache, and has for years. I'd guess he pulls at least ten times the daily traffic I do on a good day, so with a high profile comes the tp-ing by lesser life forms. I'm a boutique shop, and I most often write these missives out while sprinting from one job to another (and am always a little stunned when I pop the hood on the hitcounter and see hom many people have stopped by.)

karen/molly, nyc/angry old broad,
Shucks, ma'am. Just doin' my duty ;-)

brian miller/yam,
Who knows? I write what I write to get it off my chest, and it seems to help friends and fellow-travelers feel a little less alone. And if any one of us can turn a phrase or develop a line of attack that someone else, somewhere else can use as ammo to defend themselves, or to flip a single, vacillating Republican, then good for us. Also I don;t worry about convincing "the American people" about anything. That's too big a job for one person or one lifetime. I'm focused on a few hundred thousand voters and a few people in the press; get just a handful of people to re-examine thier choices and things will begin to change for the better.

sdymond,
Thanks, but no. MLK's channelled a great and benevolent power in the face of constant danger. He and Churchill and a few others are in a whole other league from anyone else, playing in a whole other ballpark.

vinluvr, stupidbaby, zappatero,
Many thanks.

slim,
Feel free.

vicbastard said...

Bravo. Outstanding.

They are monsters.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Why doesn’t John McCain care about torture?

Er... What? You can say what you like about him on any other topic, and you'll probably be right. The same goes for the other 89 senators that voted for McCain's anti-torture ammendment.

Charles Perez said...

Brilliant.

Actually, although it's beginning to change, the real question that keeps me awake at night in a cold sweat is why more people aren't in an outrage over all of this. I'm not sure that "most people" are even aware of most of what's going on.

It sometimes makes me wonder if this will not all be the subject of some future "Darwin Award" given to the entire USofA. Something along the lines of "You Get the [Last] Government you Deserve."

driftglass said...

You can say what you like about him on any other topic, and you'll probably be right.

A Republican Senator can sponsor as many laws as he wishes, and that is a fine thing thing.

But if he refuses to get get off his fat ass and demand that the people that have broken the law already in a manner that has led to torture, plunder, treason etc. -- when you have both the authority and Constitutional responsibility to do so -- then he has become complicit.

charles2,
That has kept me awake nce or twice too. But when fighting a life-threatening disease, pragmatic optimism is very important, and pessimism is no friend to anyone except the disease.

Anonymous said...

FUCK!

jurassicpork said...

Still, DG, you have to admire his stand against Cheney all this time, especially during that closed-door meeting between Vice President Cyborg and the GOP Senate.

That's a start, anyway, and one has to give him props for opposing Cheney on this torture thingie. He's making amends, I think, for voting for Alberto Gonzo.

driftglass said...

jp,
And there's the heart of the problem; he doesn't hang in the fight.
He gets shithammered by the Bush Machine, and then crawls up his ass.
He'll pony up -- esp on the talks, where he's very good -- but won't put any skin in the game. He backs away when the fight gets real.
He want's to stay a Company Man in the clinches, but keep a Maverick reputation without taking the gloves off.

I always held out hope for McCain, but the simple arithmatic of the situation requires serious GOP leadership. If he ever steps up hard, I'll write nice things about him, but right now he's just another loyalista who sometimes says snarky things under his breath.

jurassicpork said...

Well, so far, he's making the right moves and one has to hope that such an influential voice in the GOP Senate is embarking on a roll. It's not unreasonable to speculate that the Democrats are the only faction that's circling the sinking boat of the administration. The moderate conservatives may be secretly jockeying for position, too.

Mr. Natural said...

I am a 59 year old veteran and I used to have great respect for Mccain. Then he let the Rove machine slime him and he stood mute much as Kerry did. How can you trust someone who has THOSE credentials and lets that shitbucket machine dump shit over thier head?

"And if any one of us can turn a phrase or develop a line of attack that someone else, somewhere else can use as ammo to defend themselves, or to flip a single, vacillating Republican, then good for us."

AMEN AND GOOD ON YA DRIFTIE! FORWARD!

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