RantNRaven

2006-02-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

February 23, 2006...........DIRTY LAUNDRY... (or Why Can't the GOP Clean Up After Themselves?) Basically I think most of 'em couldn't even IF they wanted to. Their pile of Dirty Laundry is SO high by now they can't possibly see over or around it as it gets taller, broader and stinkier almost by the hour. Even the few who might be so inclined to cleanliness must be so overcome by the stench of it all that they have no energy to scale the heights of that Mucky Mountain and start from the top. And God Forbid they start yanking stuff from the bottom.
That aromatic avalanche would bury us all. No, I think they need help. Lots of it.

We can help clean up their mess but first we need to sort it out. Kind of pitch things into smaller piles. More manageable that way. And then we can take a look at what's before us that really needs cleaning and mending. Where to start? The beginning seems to be as good a place as any......

For brevity's sake, say the beginning was the 2000 election. Yep, that one's pretty ripe all right. Chads hanging out everywhere, uncounted votes, "malfunctioning machines", disenfranchised voters, and pocket editions of Florida's Governor and Secretary of State and the U.S. Supreme Court. Interesting. And then came the darkest day America ever witnessed. September 11, 2001. The Twin Towers. Innocent lives tragically lost and linked to a strange sounding name a lot of us had never heard heard before..... Osama bin Laden. We vowed as a nation to fight back and go after this guy hanging out in Afghanistan with his band of terrorists. We sent troops to the Middle East to find him. Seems we had him cornered at Tora Bora but the powers-that-be outsourced that operation and blew it Big Time. So how'd we end up in Iraq? Coincidence? Hardly. Think oil. Think corporate profits for Halliburton,... et al. Think......FREE TRADE. This will come up again.

Then comes the realization that this Administration shall we say "fabricated" prewar intelligence and "embellished" it with information that was dubious at best and outright lies at the worst. Why?? The chase after bin Laden was merely a smokescreen for its real agenda. Iraq. Oil. Government crony contracts. Permanent bases. Forget about bin Laden. Unneccessary loss of 2300+ American lives in Iraq and wounding of innumerable others. Loss of 100,000 Iraqi lives. Not enough armor for our troops. Iraq has only become a hotbed for terrorists since we invaded their country. And the Administration was warned prior to the invasion that it would lead to unrest and a civil war. Wouldn't listen, just like it wouldn't listen when it was warned about the real possibility of terrorists flying hijacked planes into government buildings. Must have been the cotton in their ears.

Well, here we find the infamous Campaign of 2004. Ohio. More election night fun. Better vote tallies through cyberspace! Sick voting machines. Misplaced ballots. Locked closets. And more GOP votes in one precinct than registered voters. What kind of magic was performed that night?

Hmmm. What else is in that big stinky pile of laundry? Well, Hurricane Katrina seems to be somewhere near the top of the pile. Here again Bush had vaccuumed up just about all available funding for his pet war so there hadn't been money for much else. Especially funds requested by the Army Corps of Engineers to repair or rebuild the levees around the Crescent City that held back the waters of Lake Ponchartrain. Repeatedly, warnings were reported that the levees would be breached if a strong hurricane were to hit, but this administration simply couldn't be bothered. The horror of the destruction was matched almost by the nations incredulousness when goverment response was so underwhelming. Botched that one big time as well. Heckavajob Brownie lived up to his name all right. And six monthe later the hurricane survivors are still no better off and the city is still in shambles. Confusion. Ineptitude. Stupidity. Unconcern. The poor do not fare well under this President. Only Corporate America does.

Digging down a little deeper we seem to find more dirty laundry in the form of..... black robes? Ah yes...the SCOTUS thing. First John Roberts who was bad enough, but not nearly so dangerous as the next one Sam Alito (better known in some circles as Scam Scalito). So now we have a Court which will likely set Jurisprudence back to the Stone Age and never mind the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Two hundred years must render it illegible. What Civil Liberties??

Oh yes, next I think I "spy" Plamegate...the deliberate outing of the covert CIA agent who husband failed to find any evidence of yellowcake uranium in Niger which was one of the Administration's reasons for invading Iraq. Seems the kids in the White House wanted retribution for hubby's letting that cat out of the bag, so Scooter Libby just dutifully fell on his sword, but the fat lady still hasn't sung. Pat Fitzgerald hasn't introduced her yet. And speaking of singing......convicted ex-lobbyist and K Street Dandy Jack Abramoff has been making like a bird lately and Capitol Hill is covering it's collective head. And Tom DeLay and Scooter both need folks to feed their Legal Defense Funds. Check online. This is gonna be a mighty interesting next few months.

We seem to be getting down to dirtier stuff now. Illegal stuff. Seems Big Brother has been listening, domestically speaking, without benefit of warrants despite the FISA 72 hour retroactive application process. POTUS doesn't need one apparently, since Congress... or somebody... said he has all the "power".....or maybe it just comes with the crown. But it's okay. Just trust him he said. He is protecting us from the terrorist behind every......burning bush?? But he can't talk about it. National Security. Top Secret. (Isn't everything????)

Shooey! It's getting smelly down here. Fishy. Oh, that just must be the major American Ports that are being sold down the river. Only nobody can seem to recall knowing anything about that takeover until last week. Evidently no one who was supposed to be attending the meeting will admit to it, so who authorized this impending deal? The Phantom Committee apparently. Seems that national security isn't that big a deal, not when a major FREE TRADE agreement is at stake. Pecuniary interests of corporate cronies seem to far outweigh Security ones.

Whew.....I am just before passing out from the stench of all this dirty laundry but the pile is only about half sorted. There is so much left to expose and untangle. Wait!! Here comes some more............oh noooooo.... this pile just keeps on getting bigger. We need reinforcements. Where's my cell phone?? "Hello, Congress?..................................911......911......911 !!!!!! "

2006-02-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

February 7, 2006................WAKE UP AMERICA!!!! MadRtist that I am, I just cannot control this sudden intermittent urge of late to Rant on about things re: the body politic. Guess I chose to exist for a few years in some sort of frosted glass soundproof orb merrily bouncing along the bubbly surface on the the River of DeNial. Big mistake. Occasionally I would hear a faint noise above the babble. Unidentifiable, but audible. Louder it grew until one day that bubble, so tossed about by flotsam just burst open dumping me into the drink. What a wake-up call! As I struggled to revive I noticed that many "things" had changed since I entered hibernation. After looking around a bit, I found myself in a society I did not recognize. Never would I shut myself away from the world again. Like the Raven, I quothed........ "Nevermore!" What had happened to the world I knew? The country was "at war"..........but with who?? With what?? And why, exactly? And there seem to be rumblings about yet another possible attack upon another nation or two. And I see the fear in the faces of most folks I talk to. They tell me they have been warned to be afraid. That mindset has been drummed into them until they are afraid to speak for fear they might be "disappeared" one day. Quite honestly I have been afraid myself. What has happened to our nation??? It has occurred so gradually that little by little with small insidious changes we have morphed into a nation of accepting sheeple. As a whole we have accepted whatever comes no matter how horrible it is because we have been told that it is for "the good of the country " and "to protect the people". Invoking the spirits of "9/11" usually sufficed to bring budding dissidents into line. And the "War on Terror" is just Administration hype to keep us fearful and dependent on them for Protection........ and also to get our minds OFF their myriad corrupt scandals. If there HAD been a real war on terror-ists, we would have captured bin Laden when we had him cornered. Instead of our troops capturing this REAL terrorist, we outsourced the job!! That worked about as well as the present greedy corporate policy of outsourcing of American jobs to other countries. Look where THAT got us! We have sold ourselves out! But no more. Look at the blatant corruption of this Administration.......the pure greed and avarice......and it is nationwide. We have no one to blame for this mess but our fearful selves. Wake up America!! And DO something about it!! Get informed! Do NOT depend upon the "mainstream media" to spoon feed the hard news of the day to you. All you will get is baby oatmeal thinned with milk. These people are in the pockets of the huge corporations which are most of the problem to begin with. Look at who OWNS the media today........giant corporations and holding companies. It is NOT in their best interest to provide fair and balanced reporting. Quite the contrary. Cronyism Reigns in all areas. They will not cut off all the hands that are feeding them. You will have to "dig" for the real news.......important things happen every day that are never reported by network or cable news.......things they would rather you would just not know. Truthout.org is a good place to start. They republish articles from newspapers that never make it to the small screen.....articles that you would probably never HAVE a chance to read if it were not for them. How many of us subscribe to the New York Times, or to the Washington Post, or to the L.A. Times???? I subscribed to Truthout's service....free of charge....and have found vital information in my inbox daily.......things that are not reported in the local papers or the local news channels or even in the network and cable news. These are current events that we NEED to know about. Things that are happening on Capitol Hill and in the White House......in state legislatures all over the nation, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, and behind closed doors. And there have been a lot of closed doors the past five years, this being the most closed and secretive of all Administrations ever. And the things that go on in those places affect our lives......every day. We need to inform ourselves because we will not get it any other way. It's up to us. If we want change in the disastrous direction we are heading we must work for it. They did. Behind our backs. Behind closed doors they worked. Hard work can pay off for us as well and we can return our nation to what our forefathers envisioned some 200 years ago. To REAL liberties and justice. IF we want it. Do we want it???????

2006-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

February 6, 2006......Who Removed the word "Balance" from Webster's Unabridged and Why was MY Head in the Sand during the Robbery???............. I must say that I am hanging that head in total embarrassment at having ever been a card-carrying member of the Republican Party. But that was back in the 60's and 70's when BOTH parties were, shall we say, a little more "balanced" than they are today. Back in those AnteDiluvian Days both parties had a left wing, a right wing and the body of the party was of the more moderate persuasion. Yes, those wings were constantly flapping and slapping at one another, but eventually (usually before an election) positions were decided and the hatchet was buried (at times not too deep, but buried nonetheless). The resulting manuscripts were Party Platforms that were built on the word "compromise". Not everyone was happy about every plank, but most folks kissed and made up and figured that their day was coming. So no biggie. The Pendulum would always swing back. Kept things in Balance more or less. Even during and after the tumultuous days of Vietnam, the protests , and the Hippie-Dippie Weatherman that pendulum swung. For example after the discovery of the widespread domestic spying in that era, the pendulum swung again. Legislation was enacted to cut off the domestic ears of Big Brother and make him adhere to certain rules if it ever became truly necessary. Back and forth. Balance. But over the past twenty years someone has grabbed that pendulum, gradually shortened the rope, and finally swagged it over to the far right where it remains stationary, stagnant, unmoving. And that is just where the country is stuck today, only that rope is slipping and is close to giving us a collective concussion when it falls on our heads. We must get that pendulum swinging again. These are dangerous times. Never in the history of America have we been so close to losing forever what each of us holds dear.....our liberty. Our security ( and no, it has nothing to do with bin Laden or 9/11). Our Constitution. Our very Bill of Rights is threatened. Insideously, little by little, our rights as citizens have been trampled so softly that we have barely even felt it. Miracle of miracles, however, we are just beginning to feel the effects. People are waking up all over America. We must take action. Now, before it is too late.

2006-02-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

February 5, 2005........Who Stole the Anchor and Where Are We Drifting??? Well, we KNOW who stole the anchor, and we also know in which direction we have been headed for the past five years. Only we are not merely drifting. Our Ship of State has been shoved hard to the right.....faaarrr to the right into the dangerous waters of the proverbial Devil's Triangle. And we are listing and taking on water. Someone radio the Coast Guard!! The Navy! The Marines? Is anybody out there?? Oh yeah, I forgot......they're probably in Iraq and can't pick up the radio signal. We're gonna have to save ourselves this time. And we can do it if we will all wake up and grab an oar.