Utopia 2025Over at Rosemary Esmay’s site is a fascinating “debate” about how, apparently, John Kerry, Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, the “Jersey Girls” and a host of other liberal standard-bearers (!) were “given a pass” and made untouchable by their (veteran/victim) status. Of course, that argument is ludicrous. But in a world where George W. Bush is a cowboy and Bill O’Reilly is a populist, nothing’s impossible.
This side of the looking glass is a scary place. Send me back, please.
Word of the day: supercilious
Was Rush Limbaugh so supercilious that he didn’t think that as a man on probation for doctor-shopping Oxycontin, his bags wouldn’t be searched by customs on his return from sex tourism hotspot the Dominican Republic?
Answer: Yes.
On his radio show Tuesday, Limbaugh said, “I had a great time in the Dominican Republic. Wish I could tell you about it.”
Ick. No. Please.
From Glenn Greenwald again:
For anyone who is accusing the Times of “treason,” or claiming that they harmed national security, what is the answer to this question:
What, specifically, would a terrorist have been willing to do on June 22 [the day before the banking story was published] that he would not do on June 23 as a result of the Times’ article?
The same question has been repeatedly asked, but never answered, with regard to the “treasonous” Times disclosure of the warrantless eavesdropping program:
What, specifically, would a terrorist have been willing to do on December 15 [the day before the NSA story was published] that he would not do on December 16 as a result of the Times article?
Prior to the “treasonous” Times articles, The Terrorists already knew that we were eavesdropping on their international calls and monitoring their banking transactions — because that information was previously, and repeatedly, put into the public domain, often by the Bush administration and President Bush himself. What the Times revealed is the lack of oversight and checks on these intelligence-gathering activities, not the existence of the activities themselves, which were already well known.
Oh, and a message to Brit Hume (from me, not Glenn): Go fuck yourself.
My good friend Jason recently convinced me to take another look at Terry Gilliam’s dystopian movie “Brazil.” I saw it once in college, and it left me feeling so depressed and hopeless that I vowed never to see it again. But it’s important to face up to your demons, so I gave it another try.
This isn’t a movie review site, so I’ll just say that it was just as depressing and hopeless as I’d remembered, but it may have been blunted a bit this time by just how insane things are now in the real world. Terrorism is only one of Gilliam’s targets in the movie, but whatever he trains his lens on gets a devastating blow.
Jill: Doesn’t it bother you the sort of things you do at Information Retrieval?
Sam: What? I suppose you’d rather have terrorists?
Jill: How many terrorists have you met, Sam? Actual terrorists?
Sam (dumbfounded): Actual terrorists?
Jill: Yeah.
Sam: Well, it’s only my first day.
As prescient as the “you’d rather have terrorists” line is — it could be coming out of a host of mouths: Coulter, Hannity, Malkin et al. — the biggest OMG moment for me came when the Dick-Cheney-like Helpmann is being interviewed on TV at the beginning of the film:
Helpmann: We’re fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I’d say they’re nearly out of the game.
Interviewer: How do you account for the fact that the bombing campaign has been going on for thirteen years?
Helpmann: Beginners’ luck.
Freaky.
“I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.”
-Kent Brockman, “Deep Space Homer,” The Simpsons
Glenn Greenwald, outdoing himself yet again, has a fantastic rundown on the “New York Times is a traitor” story currently raging across the airwaves. I certainly couldn’t do better.
The Bush Administration now has the power to monitor your bank records and phone calls. They can designate you an illegal combattant and imprison you indefinitely without charges, and without access to counsel. While in custody, you can be tortured for information you may or may not have. (And by “you” I don’t mean some abstract person. I mean YOU.) They can bypass the federal court system whenever they determine it’s necessary. Now, they are seriously flirting with imprisoning journalists who attempt to expose the adminstration’s power grabs.
The clear rationale underlying the arguments of Bush supporters needs to be highlighted. They believe that the Bush administration ought to be allowed to act in complete secrecy, with no oversight of any kind. George Bush is Good and the administration wants nothing other than to stop The Terrorists from killing us. There is no need for oversight over what they are doing because we can trust our political officials to do good on their own. We don’t need any courts or any Congress or any media serving as a “watchdog” over the Bush administration. There is no reason to distrust what they do. We should — and must — let them act in total secrecy for our own good, for our protection. And anyone who prevents them from acting in total secrecy is not merely an enemy of the Bush administration, but of the United States, i.e., is a traitor.
The defining ethos of our country is a distrust of government power — or at least it always used to be. The entirety of the Constitution is devoted to imposing safeguards against government abuses because our country was founded upon the principle that we do not place blind faith in political officials to act properly. But the argument being peddled now is that we can place blind trust in the Bush administration and we need not worry ourselves about anything. At the very least, such a dramatic reversal of how we think about our government ought to be the subject of debate.
I think it’s time to pick a side. And if you pick the administration’s side, I think you ought to be able to answer a simple question: what more are you willing to give up in the name of fighting terrorism? Where is the line? Because up to now, the President himself has been able to define that ever-shifting line for all of us.
Pick a side.
Don Goldwater, candidate for Arizona governor and nephew of Barry Goldwater, put forth his plan last week to put undocumented Mexicans into forced labor camps to build – wait for it – the giant wall between Mexico and the U.S.
Sure, John McCain objected. But I wonder what Peter King and Tom Tancredo think of this idea. I have a feeling I know what Michelle Malkin might think.
My friend John M. used to joke with me about the number of times I linked to Salon stories on my old site. Well today I read a beautifully-written review of Ron Suskind’s new book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” by Gary Kamiya. And I just have to link to it.
My honest assessment is that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld (at least) should be not only removed from office, but imprisoned. The damage they’ve done to American society, goverment and culture is nearly incalculable, and will take at least a generation to repair, if it can be done at all.
Meanwhile, we sleep.
A group of House Republicans today successfully blocked (for now) the renewal of the Voting Rights Act.
Seriously. The fucking Voting Rights Act.
Still think there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans?
I’ve had a major change of heart recently. I now enthusiastically support every far-right-wing social program. I think it’s time we really gave these things a shot:
I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff – if I am, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it. But I think the time for this stuff has come. Let’s give it a whirl. It’s what we want, right?