Utopia 2025I expected “World Trade Center” to recreate the shock, the disbelief, the horror and the fury of a nation gut-punched by the shattering realization it has been attacked and is at war.
To rewrite a Righteous Brothers lyric, we’ve lost that warlike feelin’.
-Stu Bykofsky, Philly.com
If you don’t think these fucking bastards are not going to rest until the entire world is in flames, you’re not paying attention.
Beyond striking a blow against the Iraq war and the neoconservatives who are responsible for it, a Lamont victory would deal a hard blow to the power of incumbency and the entitlement mindset it has spawned. It would be seen, rightfully so, as a repudiation of the Beltway pundit and political classes that, from the start and with virtual unanimity, viewed the Lamont challenge with scorn, as a distasteful rebellion by the crazed, dirty, unenlightened masses. The most important impact of a Lamont win is that it would shake the foundations of a self-contained Beltway political structure that is as unresponsive as it is corrupt at its core.
-Glenn Greenwald, Salon’s War Room
For a long time now, I’ve been saying that the Onion’s days as a humor magazine are numbered. When you can’t tell the difference between reality and an Onion article, is it even funny anymore?
Bush Grants Self Permission to Grant More Power to Self
And let’s not forget the headline that started it all. Still gives me chills, the same way watching the “Greatest American Hero” theme song played over Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt does in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
“You better believe we’re going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration,” said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. “Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?”
Oh. my. god.
Bringing “Democracy” to the Middle East:
A Play in One Act
NEOCON: That hornet’s nest is interfering with my enjoyment of our tree. Let’s poke it and get all those hornets out.
LIBERAL A: What, are you crazy?
NEOCON: No, it’s a great plan. I have my hornet-poking stick, and it’s still got a few good pokes left in it. Here goes!
[frenzied poking]
[swarm of hornets emerge, stinging both NEOCON and LIBERAL A]
NEOCON: Damn you, Liberal A! You didn’t help me poke! This is all your fault.
[THE WORLD EXPLODES]
Finis.
Glenn Greenwald hits it out of the park, again.
That really is the essence of neoconservativsm. It’s nothing more noble or complex than a base belief that we have to wage as many wars as possible and kill as many people as possible until people are sufficiently fearful of the U.S. that they will comply with our mandates…
To neconservatives, everything that made the U.S. a respected superpower over the last six decades is all obsolete and worthless. To them, foreign policy experts from both political parties are responsible for 9/11 and the rise of Islamic extremism because they believe too much in diplomacy and restraint. They didn’t wage enough wars and the wars they did wage weren’t ferocious enough… People around the world need to know that they either comply with our instructions or fire and brimstone will rain upon their heads…
[Neoconservatism] is opposed to every guiding principle of American foreign policy under both political parties, and seeks to transform the U.S. into a rogue state which operates with no moral limits or ethical constraints, and for which unrestrained war is always the preferred option. All failures can be and are explained away by the fact that we just haven’t killed enough people yet. It is homicidal madness, real derangement, masquerading as some sort of serious philosophy, and it is a true indictment of our political life that its advocates are taken seriously at all, let alone often listened to at the highest levels of our government.
There’s lots more, but this is a start. I’ll add them as I think of them.
Hey! Now I’m as informative as Fox News!
That wasn’t hard.
Apparently, any portrayal of 9/11 that doesn’t emphasize rage against Muslims is not good enough for crapweasel right-wingers like John Podhoretz, who wrote this about Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center”:
It is undeniably powerful, an immensely affecting and well-meaning real-life tale of two Port Authority policemen trapped in the rubble underneath the collapsed concourse between the North and South Towers.
Nonetheless, because “World Trade Center” tells a story of joyous survival rather than a story of death, it is a fundamental falsification of the meaning of 9/11 – even though the story it tells is true.
Just when you think they can’t get any lower, they grab a shovel.
Oh and guess what he thought of “United 93”? He loved it, because the movie “showed it all – the monstrous terrorists, the confused responders and the unimaginable heroics.” I for one am so fucking sick of right-wing crapweasels telling me what I should think about 9/11. How dare they.
After the whole “looking forward to the pig” incident in Germany before the G8 summit, why should we be surprised that President Bush decided to give German Chancellor Angela Merkel an impromptu massage? Something like this would probably be considered wildly inappropriate at, say, a school board meeting. But for the leader of the free world, it’s just a sign of the carefree fratboy insouciance we all love so much, right?
Gak.
Maybe on the way home, he can stop over in London and grab the Queen’s boobs or something. Now that would make for some great TV. (Maybe he can make a honking noise at the same time. No, that’s just too much to hope for.)
Let’s face it, about 25 percent of the American electorate would have cheered Bush on if he had slashed Merkel’s throat on live TV. That’s just the world we’re living in, folks. Enjoy.
UPDATE: As a commenter on Oliver Willis’ site said, imagine the right-wing reaction if, say, Jacques Chirac had done something similar to Condi Rice.
I took a look at Joe Wilson’s “Who’s Who” entry, and I found this:
(Shamelessly stolen from Democratic Underground)