Saturday, June 25, 2005

Dean's Big Mouth

Don't worry about Dean's big mouth.

That he called Republicans a "white, Christian party" is nothing more than the mirror image of the snide, coarse stuff that comes from the mouths of Republican pit bulls.

Too many Democrats are too enlightened to really like what Dean does, but think about it: when right-winger musclemen get bellicose, it energizes the base.

Dean's point -- and everybody knows this -- is that "Christian" doesn't really mean "follower of Christ" anymore. It has an entire political and cultural, even literary identity, and the quicksilver truth of Christ's benevolent lessons are buried deep, deep in the muck of their anger and accusations.

This type of so-called Christian is the one who can wrap their anxieties into a identity that serves them almost as an ethnic group. "Christian bashing is the last form of accepted bigotry" read one bumper sticker that I saw. What kind of self-absorbed boob would trumpet such a message on their vehicle but someone who actually LOVES the persecution, who LOVES self-pity, and -- as it turns out -- is smug about being "saved."

Give me the Christianity that lives in the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, who said, "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words."

Live THAT, and Howard Dean ain't talkin' about YOU.

Bush Trying to Boost Sales

June 25, 2005 WASHINGTON - As public support for his Iraq policy declines, President Bush is working to convince wary Americans he has a military and political strategy for success in the war in which 1,730 U.S. troops have been killed.

Also in the news today was a story about how Nicole Kidman studied Elizabeth Montgomery in order to replicate the role of Samantha Steven in the movie version of "Bewitched" which starred Montgomery in the 1960s.

My guess is that Kidman put more thought into her role than did the Bush administration in there foreign policy decision to make war in Iraq.

I'm not saying this merely to be snide (although any recognition of my snideness is appreciated.) What I see in today's news bulletin is, blown up on a grand scale, the boy who cried wolf. If the five year history of the Bush administration is any indication of how he will proceed to "convince" America that we should trust his decision making, then we are in store for the following:

  • A return to color-coded terrorist alerts, which will illustrate to us how we are in danger, how we should be afraid, and how we should put on the back burner any critical judgment of the Bush administration, ie, not worry our pretty little heads about our safety and put that safety into the hands of our benevolent, paternalistic leaders, Bush and Cheney.
  • An increased hostility, tainting and sneering, as well as smear campaigns, against anyone who raises questions about the wisdom of the decisions of the Bush administration. I predict that before the summer is out, Dick Cheney or another high level Republican figure will be caught "off the record" calling Democrats something as coarse -- and as appealing to their base -- as "big pussies."
  • A mantra, even among those who supported the ill-conceived Iraq campaign, that "we're in Iraq now, and now we have to make good of it." (To this I respond, "Of course we are deeply enmeshed in Iraq -- that is a fact -- but shall we continue to throw our money into the bad investment of Misguided Leadership from the Bush Administration? Our way to solve the Iraq mess isn't to keep on board the CEO who made the horrible investment INTO Iraq in the first place. That leaves impeachment -- which won't happen, even though impeachable offenses can be counted on two hands -- but instead, more strident opposition to what, hitherto, has been carte blanche approval of the Bush Administration's maniacal policies.)
America is learning a tough lesson right now. We have an undisciplined, careless, reckless leadership who has been extremely lucky in being backed by Congressional numbers that have given the administration and their all-but-brown-shirted base nearly dictatorial control over the nation. Their wildness of policies, akin to an out-of-control teenager ruffian, has finally pushed us against the wall, forcing us to take stock, and exhausted, draw the line and put an end to it.

They will not be tamed without shrill, violent thrashings. The violence will come in their smear campaigns, their continual lies (just check out much of what comes out of Dick Cheney's mouth on any given day,) and their cloaking themselves in the flag and declaring themselves God's chosen messengers. That latter point, that they are privy to God's will, and will carry it out, is the most enlightening, for they give us a crystal-clear illustration who are today's New Testament Pharisees.

Just watch President Bush pitch this inane campaign to his fellow citizens. Watch what dime-a-dozen saleman's techniques he tries putting past us. Watch his baits-and-switches, his non-sequiters, his inability and unwillingness to be forthright about mature discussions of how we should proceed with this policy to fix the mess we made in Iraq, and proceed with the long-term neutralization of the terrorist threat that springs from the radicals who bastardize Islam.

And once you watch the President be less than candid, and shirk responsibility, and feign blamelessness, and oversimplify, and condescend to us as if we are five-year-olds, remember that he is just the hand-picked figurehead of a larger movement that has seized it's oversized piece of the pie by being organized, committed, loud -- not to mention vicious, cunning, and dishonest.

If they can do it, intelligent liberals who can bring to bloom the potential of the U.S. Constitution as it was meant to be, not as it has been warped by angry, unhappy, frightened and vindictive conservatives.

He'll be out doing sales calls, this president of ours, who had he been born with a different name might have been the assistant sales director of some fledgling manufacturing firm where back-slapping and mano-a-mano winks gets you halfway to closing the deal.