Wondering - an Absolute Rant

Just the back of his head, I can't bear that face or voice anymore. Fakery all the way down to the lifts in his shoes.

I imagine many of us are. About where THIS is all going. The wee tiny planet I mean. This earth we walk on.

I try and stay away from the news these days, Most unlike me as I'm a bit of a news junkie. The Guardian, Morning Joe until he and Mika snivelled off down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of Orange Jesus (OJ). Many of the US papers which I once respected are now gone sideways as well, kowtowing like cowards in advance to what is to come.

We are extremely nervous in Canada too as our conservative top dog is a Heritage Foundation graduate and a worshipper of the OJ and could be our next PM as Trudeau just ain't got it according to most electors, see polls.

We know what all this will bring. Christian Fascism. Extreme. 

I mentioned I try and stay away from the news but I have to open one eye and check it out more often than I like. PBS, Irish Times. CBC - our national news has weirded out. No good insightful coverage anymore. 

OJ proceeds with his appalling and terrifying cabinet appointments. One more evil than the next. I don't often use that word but evil and indecent and criminal comes to mind from all surrounding OJ. And the outrage, though unsurprising, about Joe Biden pardoning his son was laughable. He would never have pardoned him only that OJ promised to incarcerate him forever on a retribution tour of revenge on the "enemies within". And that list is terrifying. Military tribunals, etc. All for the offence of disloyalty. Baby Bush set the precedent for torture and OJ would relish that. 

He WILL suspend future elections. He will encourage other countries to go far, far, right and suspend theirs. And plunder every treasury he can get those orange hands on. Women will live as in 1850 with no votes, no divorce, no health care and fair game for any predator - and there are many in the cabinet and elsewhere.

It shows the weakness in the whole farcical structure of government in the US when OJ can infest the Supreme Court and other judicial bodies with his briberies or blackmail and turn the whole shaky edifice on its head into an unrestrained oligarchy/autocracy. 

I am chillingly reminded of when Nazi Germany tried to "export" all the Jews and when that failed, resorted to prison camps, followed by death camps.

Wait and see as all these countries he asked to house them are now rejecting OJ's attempts to export his millions of emigrants. He is already talking of numbering them. Carefully following in the steps of his hero Hitler and Project 2025.

I so want to be wrong in all of the above. But alas and alack I don't think I am.

My heart is with my American friends. Just about breaking for them.

Come to Newfoundland, you would be welcome on this isolated rock that everyone seems to forget about. You'd love it here. 

We keep a very low profile.

Changing the Headlines

I have backed away from all US news. It does my head in. Yes, even the rah-rah speeches of the gleeful Dems, the pitiful tweets (now in rage CAPS) of the so-called leader of the free world. The knowledge, deep within, that the disregard for humanity, the endless "wars", the economy based on billionaires' investments in the military industrial complex and pharmaceuticals and yes, the awful underbellies of porn, drugs and trafficking, may never go away but may have a prettier coating depending on how educated and civil the new dear leader will be. I feel terrible for my USian friends, most of whom are as clear eyed as I am and just want to change the current fascist regime for one not so blatantly and appallingly racist, misogynistic and brutal in its murderous rampage on its own citizens. So I've switched off many of the news-feeds. Tuning out the insanity if you will.

I had a kind of dread shrouding me. Couldn't verbalize it until a fellow sufferer put a long post on FB last night as he tried to rise above his own cloud of anxiety.

And I remembered a long ago conversation with a shaman of my acquaintance. Long since passed now, I would think. I was very honoured to be accepted and loved by aboriginals of my acquaintance whose depth of knowledge continues to astound me. We have so much to learn.

I was going on about something or other, as I am wont to do, and she said "Change your daily headline."
I passed this on to my friend Larry last night. And we both resolved to do that. Change the headlines. He is currently completing a cabin in the woods. So his headlines will be about his progress in that.

So mine today are:

Exquisite Quilled Card Received from New York Friend with Eternal Love Professed Within!

(PS The owl is my spirit animal).

1960 Picture of High School Choir Unearthed and Mailed by Friend of 65 years!

77 Year Old Woman still grinds her dark roast coffee beans from scratch every morning!

What would your headlines today be?

Day 6

In these unbelievable times I'm cheered by, as Mr. Rogers so aptly called them many years ago, The Helpers.

The Uprisings everywhere. The humour in the face of unbelievable stupidity and racism. Lawyers coming together to defend the most vulnerable. (Does 45 even get the fact that these refugees are fleeing from a carnage his country created? Don't bother answering)

The Helpers are everywhere.

Our own Prime Minister tweeted this:

Yeah, the man can tweet.

And this, this, made me lol/sob:


And got me thinking of how it really must be in 45's Orange House.

The Masters of the Universe have never been more visible.

I watched Noam Chomsky's doc again last night. Wow, prescient. I highly recommend.

Bang Bang

Now and again my head explodes with the devastation inflicted on our little planet. By the greed for money. And the secrecy behind the money.

Seems like in Harperland (our country's not even recognizable as Canada anymore due to the arrogance and criminality of our prime minister, Stephen Harper) spends $16,000,000 of tax payer funds promoting filthy oil extraction and shaky dangerous pipelines. Oh yeah, he also rigged the voting last election. Prosecution? Are you joking? And bailed out one of our senators, a Mister Mike Duffy, from his false expense reporting. To the tune of $90,000, hiding behind the skirts of the House Speaker. I could go on. You get the picture of our emperor.

Then for good measure I read, from reputable sources - now, what is reputable you might well ask in this shoddy world we've created - that the devastating effects of the Fukushima blowout are being withheld from us simple peasants. 14,000 in North America and Canada already dead, foetal abnormalities and child cancers to come, not to mention the mortality and cancers of the Japanese people. Business as usual, of course.

And do you, like me, wonder if the pensions held in trust by our governments are already plundered and gone, one thread connecting to another in the economic melting pot that our governments dip into like it's the candy jar? And no accountability. I always beware when I hear the word "transparency" tossed around by these yokes. It never, ever is. My friend, R.J. Adams sums it all up quite beautifully in his post.

And that the Koch Brothers, those stellar saintly profiteers, the archest of arch conservatives they, are buying up USian Newspapers, something to do with their own rightwing agendas you think?

I needed to rant. It's good for the gas build-up in my brain needing the release of words. I'm sparing you the 100 other pages of derring-do that nest in my skull. This is enough for now.

As a counter balance to all of that, I bring you the view from my deck this morning, fog lifting like a curtain. All is well, just for today. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Do we still have free speech? Have they redefined "freedoms" while my back was turned? They did? Well, I never....

Blog Jam

Mitt Romney scares me. As he should everyone. Along with his cohort Paul Ryan.

As does Stephen Harper, he of the glacial blue eyes and hidden agendas.

Isn't it odd how these men are so goodlooking in a mannequinish kind of way?

Then again, so was Ted Bundy.

It's funny that. How we expect the ogres of our time to look like monsters out of fairy-tales. When they're always so good-looking. This is how they access their victims. We should teach our children to beware of the good looking ones with the excellent teeth and perfect hair.

I am reading quite a wonderful book at the moment called Ghost Written by David Mitchell.  It is full of luscious lines like:

"The mountains toss and turn and then lie down until the grasslands begin."

and

          "Sometimes language can't even read the music of meaning."

Books can elevate us out of the mundane. Act like balm to the soul. Fill our imagination to over-flowing. Replace thoughts of bills and work and hunkering down for winter.

I was inspired by the autumnal red in my wee trees out back, even on this dullish day. And sadly, beside the glow of the crimson there is Mabel, all chopped up and drying out to keep me warm through next winter.

Meanwhile in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

There was born the wisest and the most brilliant of all men.

His name was Todd Akin.

And he was the saviour of women everywhere.

But especially of women who were raped, or incested, or molested.

And he even changed the word "rape" to "one of those things."

I think that should become rape victims' theme song, don't you? - "Oh, it was just one of those things"

Because he had a formula, a magic potion.

And this elixir when used, but only in the way, he, Oracle Todd specified, would determine if a rape was genuine or not.

And if real and genuine, this magical liquid would not allow a female to get pregnant from said rape.

Thank you Mr. Akin. And Fox News for allowing him to speak for us.

You are the hero of us womenz everywhere.

We pronounce you blessed.

Blog Jam and 9/11

Well from Friday on I got worse and worse, to the point when having dinner with a friend I couldn't finish it (you'd have to know me to know I never go off my feed). Every bone in my body ached, my glands were swollen, my head was stuffed. Daughter said I must be the canary in the coalmine. By Sunday, after a couple of sleepless nights I decided to pack up and leave. Quickly.

Thanks for all the support on this. I have researched smog in Toronto and even though hundreds (maybe thousands?) die of it each year, there is very little research as to symptoms and long term effects. It is scary. I am reminded of my naturopathic doctor who, about a decade ago, performed research on behalf of the government into the pollution in Toronto and presented her papers in Ottawa and promptly moved far away telling me before she left that it was one of the most toxic cities on the planet.

I am taking it easy driving myself and Ansa across the country (it's an amble, maybe a final one) and feel so much better already, my bones no longer ache, my head is clearing, my mind is not in panic attack mode. I think Daughter is correct. The air is so clean in Newfoundland that the shock of Toronto smog is unbearable to my system. I am now about 450K into a 2100K trip to the ferry.

I was over at Nick's - please go read his post on 9/11 - and composed quite a lengthy comment and to my utter frustration it vapourized, so I'm assembling my thoughts on this again.

I was out with a friend for dinner and she was discussing all the endless hooplah around the 10 year anniversary when I suddenly threw at her:

"But the terrorists have won, haven't they?"

And she leaped up in joy and said:

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No one has said this are they all blind, deaf and dumb?"

We discussed this at length, the trillions in treasure spent on illegal invasions and "homeland security", money which could have been spent on universal health care and child poverty, infant and elder mortality (one of the highest in the "first" world) - how many more million children need to be on foodstamps and without basic healthcare - the soaring unemployment rate, the homelessness of the once middle class citizens (millions again at last count). If it was Osama Bin Laden who instigated the tragedy of 9/11 (and believe me I am totally sympathetic to the victims and their families) he must have been rubbing his hands in glee at the bankruptcy he has created in his hated USA. Mission accomplished indeed.

And speaking of Bin Laden, whatever goodwill was left for the US after these catastrophic "wars on terror", the tortures and renditions of many innocent "foreigners" along with millions massacred as "collateral damage" - half estimated to be young children - the final nail in the coffin of moral high ground was the manner in which he and his wife were murdered in cold blood, in a country they had no permission to be in, without trial, and the bodies thrown out at sea. Justice. Frontier style. Government as lynch mob.

I am enraged for my many American friends and those who read my blog who have my total respect and admiration and who are witnesses to their country being so thoroughly trashed in the decade since 9/11 with their treasure stolen for the oligarchs in fruitless foreign invasions and massacres.

The opportunity for continued world peace was wasted and the continuing global economic havoc and instability will not be over in my lifetime, if ever.

Separation of Church & State Much?

Moral high ground=Roman Catholic Church and it's now putting all its considerable bullying power into ensuring the citizens of the US are not all treated equally.

Well, Catholic laymen are treated equally as long as they’re heterosexual of course. The males of the cloth can be of either persuasion. Mainly homosexual as it appears that a higher than average percentage of them died from AIDS in the eighties. 4 times higher than the general population as a matter of fact. But lay Catholic homosexuals or LGBTs are not entitled to marriage or child adoptions or child fostering.

And as to female Catholics? Don’t get me started on the second class citizens who can’t participate fully in its machinations with not even rights to their own bodies. Whatsoever. Particularly when it comes to breeding. No matter how brutal and reprehensible the inpregnation or the age of the female. And the piece de resistance was the church’s threat of excommunication for all involved in supporting an abortion following the rape of a nine year old girl by her stepfather. It seems their hypocritical advocacy for the rights of children ceases when the child exits the birth canal.

And I haven’t even touched on the consistent and pernicious paedophilia which has been rampant in their ranks for centuries and is only now seeing the light of day.

By its very nature the church attracts the sexually dysfunctional and deviant. Who call the shots. Who hold sway over the legislation of the US government.

And no one is calling them out on it.

No, instead they wield enough influence to affect health care coverage for those deemed not quite human or equal. The poorest, most marginalized and most needy.

Whatever happened to “the meek shall inherit the earth’?

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?

And hark! that faint, oh so faint whisper of "liberty and justice for all"?

PS I have previously posted on the Catholic Church here in these posts.

Q.E.D.

H/T Bartcop

Yes We Can: 100 Days of Same Old, Same Old...

Lots of hoopla about; though the obstinate bleating of Hope! Change! are dying down a little, n’est pas?


I can't shrug off this feeling of unease I have, deep in the old gut. That the very worst hasn’t remotely happened yet. That none of the real issues are being dealt with. Everywhere in North America infrastructure is being touted as the saviour of the economy. More roads, more lanes, more construction. To what Happy McMansion with what Happy McCar?

Yeah, the daughters are cute, the wife brilliant, the dog adorable but the 100 Day record is now standing bleakly by itself, like a shrine to his predecessor.

However, the brilliant John Pilger says it so much better than I can:

In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush’s gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice. On 24 April, his lawyers won an appeal that ruled Guantanamo Bay prisoners were not “persons”, and therefore had no right not to be tortured. His national intelligence director, Admiral Dennis Blair, says he believes torture works. One of his senior US intelligence officials in Latin America is accused of covering up the torture of an American nun in Guatemala in 1989; another is a Pinochet apologist. As Daniel Ellsberg has pointed out, the US experienced a military coup under Bush, whose secretary of “defence”, Robert Gates, along with the same warmaking officials, has been retained by Obama.

And here we have the President’s stance on Gaza and the atrocities there:

All over the world, America’s violent assault on innocent people, directly or by agents, has been stepped up. During the recent massacre in Gaza, reports Seymour Hersh, “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” and being used to slaughter mostly women and children. In Pakistan, the number of civilians killed by US missiles called drones has more than doubled since Obama took office

And no one is leaving Iraq even though the soldiers there are now knocking each other off.

Perhaps the biggest lie – the equivalent of smoking is good for you – is Obama’s announcement that the US is leaving Iraq, the country it has reduced to a river of blood. According to unabashed US army planners, as many as 70,000 troops will remain “for the next 15 to 20 years”. On 25 April, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, alluded to this. It is not surprising that the polls are showing that a growing number of Americans believe they have been suckered – especially as the nation’s economy has been entrusted to the same fraudsters who destroyed it. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s principal economic adviser, is throwing $3trn at the same banks that paid him more than $8m last year, including $135,000 for one speech. Change you can believe in.

And I find it particularly hard to stomach Obama’s new best friend: Henry Kissinger, the despicable war criminal.

Much of the American establishment loathed Bush and Cheney for exposing, and threatening, the onward march of America’s “grand design”, as Henry Kissinger, war criminal and now Obama adviser, calls it. In advertising terms, Bush was a “brand collapse” whereas Obama, with his toothpaste advertisement smile and righteous clichés, is a godsend. At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man. The Madmen did well.

Read complete article here.

And don’t get me started on the Goldman Sachs’ ex-staffers sprinkled all over the Obama cabinet, holding out their hands for more bailouts, more bonuses, more leeching at the till of good tax payer money being poured down the bottomless pits of CEOs’ pockets.

Policies that are extraordinarily favorable to the financial elite that were put in place over the past month by the Obama administration have fed a surge in share values on Wall Street. These include the scheme to use hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds to pay hedge funds to buy up the banks’ toxic assets at inflated prices, the Auto Task Force’s rejection of the recovery plans of Chrysler and General Motors and its demand for even more brutal layoffs, wage cuts and attacks on workers’ health benefits and pensions, and the decision by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to weaken “mark-to-market” accounting rules and permit banks to inflate the value of their toxic assets.

Wall Street has infiltrated every aspect of the ‘new government’. While:

At the same time, Obama has campaigned against restrictions on bonuses paid to executives at insurance giant American International Group (AIG) and other bailed-out firms, and repeatedly assured Wall Street that he will slash social spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The case of Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council and Obama’s top economic adviser, highlights the politically incestuous character of relations between the Obama administration and the American financial elite.
Last year, Summers pocketed $5 million as a managing director of D.E. Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, and another $2.7 million for speeches delivered to Wall Street firms that have received government bailout money. This includes $45,000 from Citigroup and $67,500 each from JPMorgan Chase and the now-liquidated Lehman Brothers.
For a speech to Goldman Sachs executives, Summers walked away with $135,000. This is substantially more than double the earnings for an entire year of high-seniority auto workers, who have been pilloried by the Obama administration and the media for their supposedly exorbitant and “unsustainable” wages.
Alluding diplomatically to the flagrant conflict of interest revealed by these disclosures, the New York Times noted on Saturday: “Mr. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, wields important influence over Mr. Obama’s policy decisions for the troubled financial industry, including firms from which he recently received payments.”
Summers was a leading advocate of banking deregulation. As treasury secretary in the second Clinton administration, he oversaw the lifting of basic financial regulations dating from the 1930s. The Times article notes that among his current responsibilities is deciding “whether—and how—to tighten regulation of hedge funds.”
Summers is not an exception. He is rather typical of the Wall Street insiders who comprise a cabinet and White House team that is filled with multi-millionaires, presided over by a president who parlayed his own political career into a multi-million-dollar fortune.
Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, worked for Citigroup and received more than $7.4 million from the bank from January of 2008 until he entered the Obama administration this year. This included a $2.25 million year-end bonus handed him this past January, within weeks of his joining the Obama administration.
Citigroup has thus far been the beneficiary of $45 billion in cash and over $300 billion in government guarantees of its bad debts.
David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s top strategist and now senior adviser to the president, was paid $1.55 million last year from two consulting firms he controls. He has agreed to buyouts that will garner him another $3 million over the next five years. His disclosure claims personal assets of between $7 and $10 million.
Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was paid $3.9 million by a Washington law firm whose major clients include Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and the private equity firm Apollo Management.
Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, made $227,155 last year from IndyMac Bancorp, the California bank that heavily promoted subprime mortgages. It collapsed last summer and was placed under federal receivership.
The presence of multi-millionaire Wall Street insiders extends to second- and third-tier positions in the Obama administration as well. David Stevens, who has been tapped by Obama to head the Federal Housing Administration, is the president and chief operating officer of Long and Foster Cos., a real estate brokerage firm. From 1999 to 2005, Stevens served as a top executive for Freddie Mac, the federally-backed mortgage lending giant that was bailed out and seized by federal regulators in September.

Read more at Global Research

But there are rumblings of distress amongst the populace who are beginning to shrug off the election torpor of Happy Days are Here Again. Even with the red alert of The Big Swine Flu Distraction.

Guns and ammunition are disappearing off the shelves. Dry goods are being accumulated by those who have a few pennies of their own left.

The harsh and painful reality of millions of homeless, foodless and jobless, corruption at the highest level and no one taking care of the store at home is finally beginning to sink in.

We are on our own. Pass the Koolaid.

R*E*S*P*E*C*T

{on a cold winter day, I go back to the bay - photo by me}

My last post caused a bit of a stir. And engaged some of my commenters with each other rather than directly with me. Which is all fine and good.

But what struck me most forcibly and has for a few days now, was the complaint that I didn’t offer solutions to the problematic Proposition 8 approval in California and to the other long list of ills that faces the new president, Mr. Obama.

Solutions?

They can be all boiled down to one word:

RESPECT.

(1)
How about that from here on in that the U.S.A. offers respect to all the other sovereign countries of the world. That respect would begin by not invading them ever again.
And to those they have invaded without cause or reason:
Huge whopping apologies for the genocides and the horrific destruction with a sincere effort to rebuild the mess and compensation for resources stolen and private property annihilated.

(2)
How about from here on in that the U.S.A. offers respect and equality to all of its citizens and not base it on gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. And by not forgetting the marginalized aboriginal peoples or the 25% of Americans who declare themselves atheist or agnostic. Starting with perhaps the Oath of Office, an affirmation of the separation of church and state and certainly not a gloating in-yer-face assertion of Christian domination of all belief systems.

(3)
How about respect for the planet itself, our fragile eco-system that can no longer sustain the burdens of over-population and the relentless plundering of her finite resources: water, oil, minerals, animals, fish, etc. How about being the world’s leader in an effort to halt the pollution, the mono-agriculture, the flagrant waste of rampant consumerism?

(4)
How about not bailing out the banks, the insurance companies, the auto manufacturers who have raped and pillaged the hard workers of the U.S.A. How about revitalizing the electric car, sustainable community living, 21st century public transit, community organic gardening?

(5)
How about universal health care that would embrace each and every citizen of the U.S.A, and not just the wealthy?

(6)
How about correcting a system that sees 5% (the highest in the WORLD) of its citizens incarcerated for idiotic petty crimes.

(7)
How about admitting that out of control capitalism doesn’t work, has never worked, will never work. How about working together to find a system that does?

Starting with RESPECT?

And speaking of respect: has anyone else noticed that the news commentators on CNN, MSNBC, et al, refer to the new president as “Obama” while continuing to refer to the last as “Mr. Bush.” A small point, but telling.

And a great big thank you to Tessa for my latest award, shown on the sidebar and here!


- and I pass it on to these five wonder-women:

Irene
Twilight
Gaye
Brighid
Laura

Satire Blares the Truth (again!)

Boy, I just love "The Onion".

This week's edition has a page devoted to George the Decider outlining his farewell thoughts on his successful presidency. I excerpt this:

It's just gonna be so hard packing up my things and heading off into the sunset come January. I wish I could go on forever giving massive and disastrous tax cuts to the wealthy, taking the country from a surplus to a deficit—nearly $500 billion this year, likely to pass $1 trillion next year, fingers crossed—and just generally doing irreparable damage to the very underpinnings of our economy, but, well, I'm afraid the Constitution says I can't. And not even I can overrule the Constitution. Though Lord knows I tried! Initiating blanket wiretaps without warrants, suspending habeas corpus for prisoners in Guantanamo, infiltrating an unknown number of nonviolent civilian antiwar groups without permission… such wonderful memories. I'm going to cherish them forever.

For more see here.

And the mountains going to shout amen!

An American, living in Newfoundland, calling in to CBC yesterday, weeping:

Yunno? Mr. Bush was so damn mean.
Mr. Obama is so damn kind!

Yeah, Mr. America, I and the world applaud you and your voting brothers and sisters!

Thanks to you, our tiny little planet now has hope.

And our Leonard Cohen sums it up, oh so well.....

Its coming through a hole in the air
]from those nights in tiananmen square
Its coming from the feel
That it aint exactly real
Or its real, but it aint exactly there
]from the wars against disorder
]from the sirens night and day
]from the fires of the homeless
]from the ashes of the gay
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a.

Its coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
]from the staggering account
Of the sermon on the mount
Which I dont pretend to understand at all
Its coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
]from the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of chevrolet
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a.

Its coming from the sorrow on the street
The holy places where the races meet
]from the homicidal bitchin
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
]from the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a.

Chorus
Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state!
To the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
Through the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on...

Its coming to america first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
Its here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And its here they got the spiritual thirst
Its here the familys broken
And its here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a.

Its coming from the women and the men
O baby, well be making love again
Well be going down so deep
That the rivers going to weep
And the mountains going to shout amen!
Its coming like the tidal flood
Beneath the lunar sway
Imperial, mysterious
In amorous array
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a.

Chorus

Im sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I cant stand the scene
And Im neither left or right
Im just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But Im stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
Im junk but Im still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the u.s.a

PS (posted later) And my good friend Nick, in his comments, points to this well written and funny column in The Times by Martin Samuel. All about black guys having to clean up the white guys' messes. LOL.

Jumping the Shark

I imagine most are familiar with the term Jumping the Shark. That is the episode in a favourite and admired TV Series where it all starts to go downhill.

I'm getting a strong whiff of this from the Obama campaign.

He had the gall (on top of his "sweetie" remarks to a female reporter a month ago) to tell HRC supporters this:

"According to Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Obama then said, "However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I'm running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it."

And get this: from Barack Obama's blog, posted by one of his supporters on how to handle HRC and not taken down by the blog administrator.

Just slit her throat, lock her in a car boot, and drive the car into a river in West Virginia.

Ain’t gonna let no whore screw with the man

Pro HRC comments are removed from his blog whereas the above and many more of a similar sickening vein remain.

And just in case anyone has forgotten, BO steamed into town with the following declaration:



This is not looking good for the world.

Oh yeah, and he voted to let the telecommunication companies implicit in unauthorized spying on private citizens off the hook, and continue surveillance without cause.

Are any of the Obamabots coming out of their coma of CHANGE?

But of Course!

At times, I need my "Bizarro" posts so I can take a breather from the political shenaningans I see around me. More than shenaningans, for as I mentioned in a previous post the result of the U.S. election affects everyone on this tiny planet of ours.

I had speculated on the "disappearance" of Karl Rove with more than a little suspicion. The great election fixer had quietly retired? I didn't buy that for a second.

One of those ah-ha moments today when he surfaced as the new mastermind behind the Obama campaign. Yes you read correctly, the Obama compaign. He recognized very early in the game that Hillary Clinton had to be stopped at all costs and how to do that? Genius Rove, more commonly known as "Bush's Brain" came up with a brilliant strategy.

Find a charismatic orator, with minimal political experience and set him up against Hillary with the full support of the sycophantic media of course. Create a cult. Trash Bill Clinton again at every opportunity, painting him a racist. Then, the stroke of genius, have registered Republicans switch allegiance in the primaries to the Democrats and vote for Obama.

Obama wins primaries. Obama gets torn down completely (remember swiftboating) in the race against McCain. McCain wins.

Mission accomplished. Third Election engineered and won by the Master Rove.

See here
And Time Magazine's article here
and New York Times article here

I'm sure hoping I'm crazy, but I found myself nodding today when I had my eureka moment. P.T. Barnum was so right. Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people.

Enlightenment

Picture is of Cape Spear, Newfoundland, August 2007
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I felt like pluralizing the above title but decided against it, why contribute to further deterioration of the language - and at my crusty age I should feel ashamed of the temptation.

Answers to life's puzzles come in their own good time. Like the ongoing teaser of the great R puzzle. Now resolved. A further conversation with him last night showed his heart very clearly is in another direction. My investment in the whole thing was entirely removed this morning when he forwarded me a Christian YouTube film about this 13 year old boy whose elderly cow gave birth to a calf and broke her back in the effort. He had to shoot the old cow but as he stood there afterwards in grief the voice of God came into his head to tell him that God had endured the loss of His Only Son so could understand the sorrow.

I was snapped into reality really, really quickly. My mind riffed off on this. God voices in the head have gotten the world into a lot of trouble. See George Bush and his God calling him into war. See The Crusades. See The Holocaust. See the Irish Famine. Then I had the thought that given a Goddess and the same wonky scenario would She have had the same enthusiasm in torture-slaughtering Her daughter for the good of womankind and our 'sins'? While watching and having the power to stop it? Just puttin' it out there.

The R switch has been turned off for me. I found this whole film (and his admonition for me to get out the Kleenex first before watching!) appalling, the brainwashing of the young boy, the attempt to thread the two similarities of sacrifice vomititious in the extreme. Far from R's intent. He was 'inspired'. Another dream bites the dust.

I must admit to shedding a few when Hillary got the nomination in NH last night. I'm not a Hillary hater like many, I've felt from way back, when she was Bride of Bill, that she was the better 'president'. Opportunistic, yes, aren't they all in the cutthroat and Hollywoodized politics of our Southern neighbour? But looking at all the Democratic candidates since the outset, for my money and the future of the planet she is by far the best choice. I absolutely cannot see her sacrificing any more youth to this undending war on so-called terror, her past votes be damned. Politicking. And we need more women in politics. We need more of an equal gender balance however we get it. Compassionate people get slaughtered out there in the voting trenches. Given a chance, I think she will do her best to clean up the mess and initiate universal healthcare and education. If the pot hasn't been totally licked dry by the Incumbent and his cronies.

Remind me, who are the terrorists again? They are currently patrolling the Persian Gulf. How would the U.S. react to Iranians patrolling their war ships in the Gulf of Mexico? Little speedboats wouldn't be it. Nuclear warheads more like. WW 3 for sure. And the bought-and-paid for MSM falling over themselves to pontificate on the threat of the little speedboats on their own waters against those "benign" humungous battleships? There's money to be made in tham thar war zones!

A brilliant analysis of U.S. Politics {LINK}

Jane Smiley is one of my very favourite writers and she churns up some riveting stuff in the above link - well worth reading.

Like the late, great Molly Ivens, she is fearless in her analysis of how things went so terribly wrong in her country.

The Iraq quagmire is sucking the life out of our neighbour down south, the dollar shrinking, housing markets decimated, personal bankruptcies through the roof, no health care for its citizens, New Orleans a no-go for the people who used to live there, one out of every 150 of its citizens in jail and more jails being built every day, its military outsourced to private and for profit mercenaries (was there ever a name with such a death knell ring to it as 'Blackwater'?), and the Patriot Act in all its permutations stripping the Constitution of any of the 'freedoms' so proudly bandied about by the flag wavers. And the media operating at just about the level of a trained poodle (Blair, anyone?)

And Iran may be the next target for the bringing of 'democracy'?

Bumper Sticker seen on U.S. vehicle here in Newfoundland:

Be nice to me or I will bring democracy to your country too!

Thank heavens for Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann and Stephen Colbert who through satire and wit (and lately a healthy disgust) bring the actual truth to their audiences.