Ridet et Moritur

It was said of Rome, that she “laughed and died”. It will be said of us as well. But at least, from a certain point of view, it will be amusant. US politics has become a total farce.

Wikipedia (yes, I rely on Wiki!) defines “farce” as “a comedy ... which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play, and a fast paced plot whose speed usually increases, culminating in an ending which often involves an elaborate chase scene. Farce is also characterized by physical humour, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense,....”

Uh....

Lessee here.... the aspirants for Emperor have included a senator turned impersonator who runs on his record as tv prosecutor; a real-time prosecutor who runs away from his record as an adulterer, mafia pimp and real-time cross dresser; a kiddie bomber turned torture victim whose damaged psyche promises to keep the country embroiled in a 100 year war aimed at ferreting out a quasi mythological figure of evil; and lastly, a bible thumper and a Mormon Savant... Where, oh where is Moliere when we need him?

On the Demorat side we’ve had a crowd of mediocrities, the chief ones of which is a lacquered matrioshka doll whose revealed and uncovered political positions remain the same: progressively bigger versions of herself. While matrioshka jets around the country telling Arkansas, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, and Nevada how “thrilled” she is to “be here” (Hi there!!!) she is trailed by her bully boy hubbie who has given off intoning lachrymose renditions of Amazing Grace in favor of negro-bating and snarling “you, get out of here” to questioners at public meetings.

This duo is followed by another -- for Tintin buffs, the American version of Thompson and Thomson (Dupond et Dupont) -- a black man peddling “change” trailed by a white suthner’ peddlin’ “hope”. Were they to run on a ticket, the platform would undoubtedly be: It’s Time for a Change Hope is on the Way. By all accounts, prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary has a better record of effective relief.

To be effective, every farce needs just a hint of reality missed, which in this case is provided by a reactionary who wants to return to the statu quo ante 1812 and a jug eared dwarf married to a towering stunner, who wants to move the country forward (while, perhaps, communicating with alternative life forms from outer space).

If tragedy can be enveloped within farce it lies in the fact that contradictions like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich represent what paradoxically enough needs to be done. The United States, needs to return to its constitutional foundations, reviving its spirit of laissez-aller, while at the same renouncing laissez faire and moving forward toward social-democracy.

For those not blessed with French, the two laissez’s are not the same. The first refers to a spirit of live-and-let live and to a concept of the State that does not look too hard at individuals, does not probe into their lives and respects their privacy even if it leads to some minor social deviances and sloppiness around the edges. In every day American life, this spirit once led to an easiness not found anywhere else in the world. You could get a drivers license simply by passing a test and telling the clerk who you were. You could get into the country simply by knowing where the Orioles came from and you were a shoe-in, if you said that you had gone to Grover Cleveland High... because God knows only Americans could come up with something like that. Juridically, this concept of laissez aller was enshrined in the first four articles of the Bill of Rights and, most practically, in the Fourth Amendment. As Burke put it, howsoever drafty and humble the abode, “all the Kings horse and all the King’s men dare not cross the threshold!”

But there is a difference betting “letting him be” and “letting them do”. The line may be imprecise and shiftable, since all being involves some doing and all doing involves some being. But basically, we all know what it looks like when some asshole is going on a rampage that doesn’t do the public much good. Incredibly enough laissez faire became the prevailing political philosophy --at least the "resounding cymbal -- of the 19th century. This doctrine of irresponsibility (for that is what is at issue) took hold precisely on account of a confusion and equivocation between individual aller and corporate faire. This confusion lives on today, in such absurd notions as “our family budget is just a smaller version of GM’s”. Well... it’s true, both use math... but that really isn’t the point.

From this equivocation, a further petard sprung up; namely, the propaganda that pursuit of private interests promotes social good: “What’s good for me, is good for you, Jack; have faith.” This notion was no more than a perversion of altruism. It is one thing to say, as the ancient Romans did by way of greeting, si vales valeo (if you are well, I am well); it is a moral distortion to invert the greeting into si valeo, vales.

Nevertheless, this perversion became the foundation stone of capitalist ideology. It had a false and seeming corroboration so long as the irresponsible party was wasteful enough to leave juicy scraps all about making it appear that the proposition was true. But it was “true” only so long as there could be an abundance of waste... waste that inevitably some poor, oppressed peon in one of them inferior undeveloped countries paid for with sweat and a ruined life devoid of anything but underpaid labour.

Most of the world gave up on this nonsense by 1880. By then, even Bismarck caught on which is why he coopted huge chunks of the socialist platform from Ferdinand Lasalle. Historically viewed fascism is the progression past capitalism. From the Communist perspective, it was “capitalism in its last stages” From the fascist perspective it was “the first stage of the post-capitalist “third way”). To put it very simply (in what is after all an essay on farce), the argument between the two sides was over intent and purpose but neither side disputed the structural character of a "regulated economy". Only the imbeciles and morons in post-war/pee-cee political science departments could elaborate the manichean fairy tale that has become the accepted view of “fascism”.

The difference between what the French called the "radical right" and social democracy was simply the degree of laissez aller that each was willing to allow. Both philosophies accepted private enterprise as an engine of production. Both put limits on laissez-faire. Both fascism and social democracy regulated capitalism to insure that it behaved more or less responsibly. The difference basically boiled down to tolerance. Historically, speaking the European fascist movements encompassed racial, religious, cultural and geo-political aims in addition to the central socio-economic one; and this endeavor to “regulate” these other issues is what gave fascism its totalitarian taint.

To give a simple and minimally controversial example, fascist programs to get rid of “degenerate art” and to “restore decency” to culture were in fact an unnecessary side issue to the underlying restructuring of political-economy. Communism also embarked on these side dish crusades, and this coincidence on irrelevancies has led bimbos in America to argue that communism and fascism were “the same”. They were not.

Under FDR, the United States too became a fascist country. Anyone who does not understand that should start up his or her own campaign for president. The underlying proposition of the so-called New Deal was that the “the economy needed to be regulated”. Duh. And so fifty years after Bismarck, the ever avant garde United States came up with a rudimentary social security program.

In some ways, US fascism was the worst of the lot. There is no question that its main target was to protect and promote capitalism. Roosevelt made this very clear in a speech to preppies in which he avowed his love of bacon, eggs and the “capitalistic system.” Whereas, in European countries fascism was avowedly undertaken for the good of “the State” the “Das Volk” the La Nación Una y Grande... in the US it was undertaken to salvage “the system” i.e. capitalism. It was a subtle but important distinction.

Leftist orthodoxy would have it that fascism was just a razzle-dazzle capitalist "trick" on labor. In my view, that is an incorrect oversimplification which overlooks the contradictions inherent in any attempted synthesis of opposites. Bismarck's trenchant remark about assuming responsibility for the "welfare" of the "labour soldier" bespoke the dualism involved.

Under the European fascist model, state intervention in the economy was avowedly undertaken for the direct benefit of ordinary people and in some not insignificant respects this was in fact the case. The underlying notion was that business owed and the worker had a social right to a certain standard of living. Under the Rooseveltian model, intervention was undertaken for the direct benefit of the “business community,” and "the flow of interstate commerce" in the belief that that would indirectly benefit the public in general. In other words, the Rooseveltian model did not depart one iota from the trickle down theory. For that reason, and with good reason, some commentators have called it National Capitalism.

The virtue of American Fascism Lite was that whatever it did to regulate the faire of the matter, it left largely unregulated, the aller of life. The cruel irony is that since the 1960’s , America’s pursuit of multi-cultural, multi gender, political correctness has ended up making it more fascistic by attempting a totalist management of culture and social mores while leaving an essentially 19th century political economy intact.

A comparison between the United States and Germany is once again illustrative. No one can doubt that the current regime in Germany is anti-Nazi. But to be “anti-Nazi” can also simply be to be Nazi in reverse. The facts bear this out. The German government today criminalizes and sends people to jail for invoking illicit symbols, illegal ideas, impermissible beliefs. Just as Goebbels tried to purge the German language of “non-Germanic” words (mandating haarschneider versus friseur) so today German wort-leiters are purging the language of words that have “unsavory” connotations such as “degenerate” and “lager”. Why? Well, because Nazis used them.

Of course, this “culture management” is totalitarian in the truest and worst way. But, in Germany, it takes place on top of a system that actually does protect and deliver social benefits to ordinary people. The fascio/social democratic economic foundation remains in place. In the United States there is no foundation to speak of. What little there was has been pulverized by the Reagan - Bush - Clinton - Bush regimes. What we are left with is political and cultural fascism without even the economic benefits -- in other words Police State Capitalism.

This then, in summary form, is the situation in its historical context. Once the context is grasped correctly and shorn of the digressive nonsense and ignorance that passes for American political criticism, it can be seen how and why the Ron and Dennis Show embodied the pathetic contradictions of our current in extremis.

Ron Paul is completely correct in advocating a political return to constitutional laissez aller. But he is completely wrong in thinking that this can be accomplished without regulating the corporate beast. In fact, the corporate beast did not exist in 1789, and cannot under any stretch of sophistry be brought within any libertarian framework of an “original intent”.

Similarly, Dennis Kucinich is completely correct in his advocacy of social welfare and environmental protection programs. But he is equally wrong to the extent that he promotes the jumbalaya of political correctness. Nothing has brought the putative “left” into more contempt in the public’s mind than its essentially fascistic drum beating on cultural and personal issues.

At this juncture in history, the only way out of the morass is to pull these contradictory poles into synthesis. The corporate mechanism will not be abolished in our lifetimes, but it can and should be brought under strict regulation directly for the public good. Society must emphatically reject the idea that humans, wildlife and God’s creation exist for the plunder and profit of corporations and an excrescent plutocratic elite. In tandem it must be recognized that the private sector has no role in certain public endeavors, such as health care. This synthesis, forms the structure of the so-called the “mixed economies” -- which entailed laissez faire at primitive economic levels, fascistic regulation in the middle, and outright socialistic control of certain national resources and enterprises. Broadly speaking this was the “state-socialism / social-democratic” system adopted in Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries. It needs to be adopted in the United States.

A move to such a system is not a simple flip of the coin. Individualist libertarianism and state-socialism are, after all, opposites. The "move" becomes a question of adulterations. For example, in pure Madisonian liberalism, the state has no business knowing if you have hemmorhoids whereas in a system where the state provides health care the question shifts to limits on what can be done with that information. There would be plenty of practical issues to argue over were US social policies to undertake a move into the late 19th century.

Rather than debating such pragmatic and structural questions, the farce that passes for “democracy” in the United States makes Carnival in Rio look like a sober academic discussion. Of course, this farce could not more delight the putrescent scum that control the US media, which fills the airwaves and, thus the empty space in millions of crania, with total nonsense and absurdities. In fact, they have done such a good job in hollowing out what passes for the American brain, that The People themselves DEMAND NONSENSE.

For decades, true political questions and discourse have been dragged through muck and mud of racio-gender-faith issues to the detriment of any serious political or economic thought. It is not that any one of these “issues” is not important to the interested persons or groups, it is rather that, in the scheme things, they are not issues that relate to the whole. Although they have filled the national airwaves they are not truly national issues.... unless, of course, one suffers from Bentham’s Dementia.

Thus considered, the faux left is equally as idiotic as the neo Christian right and between the two of them they have shredded politics to fragmented tatters. And when that gets old there is always the tested standby of racism wrapped in righteousness, which in today's incarnation is blaming Mexican "illegals" for our self-inflicted woes. All of this suits our true rulers who would have us all chase after bugaboos forever rather than come anywhere close to the word “class”.

As a result, the farce will continue. Energy and vapour will be expended in copious amounts on such stupidities as Hillary the Woman versus Obama the Black, when any damn fool can see that neither is either. Pundits will punditize on whether “Hope” is more of an appealing political (sic) issue than “Bringing America Home” or “Fighting Terrorism Wherever it Takes Us” or “Putting the God back into the Budget.”

In the end, no one will shed tears for us, anymore than they shed tears for the enervated and degenerate Romans. Hilarity will reign until the concluding mad “chase scene” when the US economy falls on all concerned, and the Rulers of the World are left bereft, standing next to their rusting SUVs and squabbling over turnips.

Ridet et moritur.

©WCG, 2008
.

Whoops

I did not watch the State of the Union Address because I don't need a Talking Turd to tell me what the state of the Union is. Anyone who hasn't figured that out should put an ad in the Pet Rock Personals section of his local paper.

State of the Union speeches aren't very important anyway. Originally conceived as a kind of accountability-accounting of national accounts, it became in the last hundred years or so a form of political tone setting -- somewhat like the Queen's Speech, only delivered by boors.

There is nothing particularly wrong with political toning. In fact, it does serve to identify the particular obsession, lunacy or idiocy that animates a Chief Magistrate. The Caesars engaged in political toning, only they were much more succinct and graphic about it. Upon acceding to the imperial curule, they would "indicate" a tutelary deity. When the Empire was beset by economic difficulties and lots of illegal immigration by Uncouth Blonds, Diocletian, not surprisingly, chose Hercules as his Guiding Light or Club as the case might be. Nero, chose pretty boy Apollo and, if I am not mistaken, Julius Gaius chose Venus. Everyone one knows the story about how Constantine changed tutelary deities in mid-battle, as a result of which we all now eat the Bread of Christ in lieu of Mithra's Pomegranate or whatever his holy food was. Problems only arose when emperors "indicated" that they were their own tutelary deity ... as when Caligula became convinced that he was the very incarnation of Zeus. Otherwise, it was an efficient "political toning" system that saved a lot shouting from the Rostra. Alas, this system would hardly work in the United States. Given that all our Chief Magistrates have chosen to accept Jesus as their titular god.

For all that, getting a general indication of a president's "agenda" for the year wasn't particularly obnoxious either. However, beginning with Reagan, the State of the Union became the occasion for a lot of cheap and meaningless rabble-rousing. It was then, that I first noticed how the flotsam in Congress passed over from applauding to whooping and whistling. And not only when Reagan fed them some ear-candy, but even as He walked into The Well. "This is undignified," I thought.

Ever since then the State of the Union Address has gotten progressively more vulgar, loud, crude, and just plain hysterical. It has become, in fact, an Orwellian Hour of Adulation -- a mindless orgy of Whoops, Yelps, Shrieking and Foot Stompings and Furious Clapping. Apes and Chimps on a rampage.

Ever haling proudly, we broadcast this disgrace throughtout the world, convinced that this proves to all the alien unfortunates what a "vibrant democracy" we have. What it in fact shows, is that our Congress has surpassed the Roman Senate in degenerate, stupid, mindless, adulation of tyrants. As Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush walk down the aisle these moronic sychophants stumble over one another to reach out for a handshake or even a look or a smile in their direction. And so I was not surprised when a friend called to say that during the Talking Turd's latest address the congressoids were all but standing chairs.

Ah! This is terrible! Our representatives reduced to standing on chairs to express the legislative ecstasy. We need to pass a bill to authorize the installation of rings, swings and trampolines. Democracy demands no less.

©WCG, 2008
.

The Times Makes Light of Desperation

The New York Times continued it’s truly vile reporting on Gaza with an article by Steven Erlanger which began by stating that Egypt had moved to “restore” its border with Gaza after “Palestinians used a bulldozer to knock down another portion of the wall, originally built by Israel just inside Gaza, to continue their shopping spree.”

Shopping spree??? SHOPPING SPREE??? Is that what Erlanger thinks you do when you are starving? Are we to suppose that Erlanger would characterize 12 year old “ghetto rats” who “breached” the “security barrier” around the “Jew-Enclave” of Warsaw as going on a “shopping spree” for potatoes? Oh... I forgot...those shoppers were Innocent Jews, these untermenschen are filthy Arabs.

Actually there is no difference. Cutting off heat in the winter, cutting off electricity and water, restricting medical supplies and reducing food rations to just above starvation is a crime against humanity -- any humanity -- and that includes anyone. Period. Erlanger’s quip about “shopping spree” was just the sort of cynical, contemptuous, humour one might have expected from the moral cadavers that ran the concentration camps.

Let’s get certain facts straight. Facts that even the Spew York Times can’t quite bury. As commented on this blog in October, the initial “sealing off” of Gaza did not just involve electricity blackouts but extended to food. Even innocent Israel didn’t deny it, proving its magnanimity by saying it would “allow in the minimum amount of food and medicines necessary to avoid a humanitarian crisis”

Avoid a crisis? How many calories does that require? 2,000? 1600 Non-German Rations? A “Jew Ration” of 800? It’s all so deja jew -- aint that right Stevie?

The US press, which gives comfortable berth to scrivner punks like Erlanger, has consistently sought to sanitize Israel’s crimes under international law and has become a mere fart horn for the Israeli Thug State. It glosses over Israel’s illegal acts, it consistently harps (in misleadingly vague terms) about so-called “missle attacks on Israel” and routinely refers to the blockade of Gaza as involving mere “power cuts”. Typically enough Erlanger’s spew talked about “the economic squeeze on Hamas, which intensified last week when Israel decided to cut off shipments into Gaza, including fuel for the local power plant, in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.” Ah.... well then... it’s not so bad... It’s just an “economic squeeze” on "Hamas" in an ever so restrained response against TERRORIST ROCKET attacks on Israel.

The whole world except the spew fed chicken-public in the US understands that Israel is seeking to “degrade” the quality of life of Gazans to sub-basic levels.

As reported by the Guardian “Gaza goes hungry as Israeli sanctions bite”

“http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2189543,00.html

“According to a World Bank report issued last month: "Gaza's economic backbone and private sector vitality risks collapse if the current situation ... continues." The report states that 90% of Gaza's industrial production has ceased and agricultural output has fallen by 50% in 2007

“The Israeli sanctions are affecting every level of Gazan society. Farmers have been particularly hard hit as they have been barred from exporting their products and denied pesticides and fertiliser by Israel, which makes it impossible to plant for next year

“Spare parts for water pumps and other equipment are also barred

“It is reducing the amount of food going into Gaza every week as it tries to exert more pressure on the population to bring about political change.”

Let me repeat that for thug pimps like Erlanger... Thug Staat Israel is:

REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF FOOD .... in order to EXERT MORE PRESSURE ON THE POPULATION. ....

In order for “pressure” to work it has to hurt. After all, no one was pressured into making concessions by baskets of brioche. And when reduced amounts of food “hurt” we call it hunger and starvation. In other words, Israel is engaged in precisely what international forbids: the collective starving of civilians in order to get them to surrender, or otherwise do what you want. It’s kinda like “area bombing”.

Back last Fall, the International Herald Tribune reported:

"The international aid group Oxfam International has warned that 225,000 Gazans could soon suffer from inadequate water supplies because of the fuel shortage, raising concerns for public health.

"With exports and most imports halted, factories have closed, construction has halted and store shelves are empty. Government officials believe the poverty rate has jumped to 75 percent, up from 65 percent from last summer."

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8618265

Let me repeat that for Spew York Times douchebags like Erlanger

SUFFER FROM INADEQUATE WATER SUPPLIES / STORE SHELVES ARE EMPTY

No doubt Erlanger, stuffed and slothed by post-war fats thinks that this refers to a run on truffles at Bloomies. Not.

Just this past week, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, condemned the crisis Israel had instigated in Gaza, stating that “If this situation endures, the closure will also cause further shortages of food, medical and relief items in the Gaza Strip,” He called on Israel to “refrain from actions that will harm the well-being of the general civilian population in Gaza.”

FURTHER SHORTAGES OF FOOD.... got that Steve?

As Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak, insisted that Gazans were starving, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, John Holmes, sounded the alarm about the impact of the closure of crossing points on the already “extremely worrying and fragile” humanitarian situation in Gaza. The crossings are “the lifeline for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and other goods into Gaza,” Holmes said, and the closure will result in even greater shortages of food items, medical goods, among other relief supplies and basic daily necessities.

But in what surely qualifies for a cameo scene in one of the genocide soaps Hollywood churns out, the Guardian reported that

“The Israeli army is micro-managing the sanctions to ensure that it cannot be accused of starving Gaza. In a daily communique to international organisations, the army proclaims: "No Humanitarian Crisis in the Gaza Strip - No Hunger in the Palestinian Territories", before it lists the number of days of food it estimates that Gaza has."

Ah yes:

Welcome to Theresienstadt, where you will be well cared for. There is no starvation in Theresienstadt. You will be well cared for... And everyone will receive FULL RATIONS , as decreed by the Reich Government!!

As the Guardian noted,

"But dry statistics hide thousands of stories of misery."

While the humanitarian Israeli Army is “managing” the situation to insure -- most critically -- that it can’t be accused of what it is doing to bring stomach pressure to bear, David Welch, one of the pieces of shit that have gotten stuck into the US Government, blamed the “border crossings” on Hamas’s `illegal actions in Gaza, their unwillingness to behave in a responsible manner.”

Wringing its hands and joining in the woe-fest, Israel's government said it was concerned that militants would use the breach in the border fence to bring arms and terrorists into Gaza. “We have real concerns that they can now freely smuggle explosives, missiles and people into Gaza, which makes an already bad situation even worse,'' Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel “Egypt should take care of the problem.''

The hypocrisy is beyond belief but not beyond outrage. Jesus forgave almost every sin... but hypocrisy infuriated even him.

Conflict and enmity are lamentable facts of human existence. That Jews and Arabs are at war in Palestine is one thing. But, if we have learned anything, in 2000 years of Christian Civilization it is that we can at least seek to mitigate the harm we inflict on civilians and avoid cruel and unusual punishments on even our enemies. Too often the restraint that distinguishes civilization from barbarism has been cast aside, as by Allied terror bombing of German cities and German ethnic cleansing of the so-called eastern territories. If there is a paradigm of what ought not to be done, it is the “rations reduction” of civilians trapped behind walled enclosures. If Israel doesn’t understand that then, it “has remembered everything and learned nothing.”

©WCG, 2008

http://cghs.dadeschools.net/ib_holocaust2001/Ghettoes/diet/diet.htm
http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-2.htm#Feeding
.

The Sheer Outrage of Ignoring Jews

As Israeli-starved Gazans stampeded into Egypt to buy desperately needed foodstuffs, the self-appointed Council of German Jews vociferated its indignation and “outrage” that a Munich carnival had been scheduled for what Jewish organizations have unilaterally decreed to be “International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

The Council seems oblivious to the fact that except in its own mind there is no such thing as an International Holocaust Rembrance Day. It is not an official holiday in Germany nor in most of the rest of the world. No doubt the Council will labor ceaselessly to rectify that failure and to insure collective self-abasement by everyone else to the unsurpassable uniqueness of Jewish suffering. But until then, the Council is simply being "uniquely insensitive" to other peoples' happiness.

Personally I find the Jewish Council’s action outrageously hypocritical. The dead are gone. If we are to be about remembering, christian faith requires us to relieve and console the present sufferings of others. Indeed, the Old Testament itself commanded no less. But to hell with Jesus, Jeremiah or Isaiah. In the Council’s imperious view we are all to heap ashes on ourselves and dedicate ourselves to remembering past Jewish suffering while present-day Jews inflict collective hunger and privation on civilians in complete violation of humanitarian international law.

©WCG, 2008

ElagabaBush goes to the Holy Land.

In the annals of imperial demise there is always a point at which farce begins to overtake tragedy. What could be more inane than the image of Romulus Augustulus training his pet-chickens as the 1000 year empire he nominally headed crumbled into irrelevance at Odovacer’s feet?

But even before that farcical last act, the Roman Empire was, with ever greater frequency, slipping into and out of folly. Hardly less inane than l’empereur des poules, was the emperor Elagabalus who quite literally backed his rump onto his throne as he grovelled before a huge black phallus dragged through the streets of Rome.

For some reason, the imperial Bimbo’s trip to the Middle East makes one think of Elagabalus... or maybe Romulus Augustulus... or maybe just one of the last idiot Merovignian kings of France.

Amid the now familiar panoply of advance teams, jumbo jets, back up jets, decoys, limo-transports, post-teams, legions of guards, legions of walkie-talkies and legions of undercover agents whispering into felafels, Bush flew to the Holy Land to bring peace to the Middle East in his term. Anyone who believes this nonesense ought to be committed to wherever they sent Louis le Fou. In fact, anyone who reports this nonesense with a straight face ought to be shot pro bono publico.

Despite the trappings, Bush’s lap dog status was revealed and underscored by the lavish and obsequious flattery with which Olmert all but smothered his guest. The more Olmert praised and thanked Bush the more it become obvious that he was desperately trying to cover the fact that it was he who dictated what’s what to the object of his flattery. But the facts betrayed the game. Every item and condition and limitation on the Israeli agenda ended up getting mouthed by Bush, so that despite the imperial fol de rol, Bush played Blair to Olmert’s Bush.

(By the way.... where was Tony ....? Hadn’t he been given some very important mission to bring peace to Palestine?)

Who knows.... In any case, the fact is that peace will not be brought to the Middle East, nor less to the Holy Land, by Bush or by any US president so long as the United States continues to let AIPAC and Israel dictate policy. In addition to bankrolling Israel’s defense, the US all but acts as apologist and agent for Israel in the Security Council. Bush is the most blindly pro-Israel president ever and has since endorsed the ghetto-ization of the West Bank. Behind Bush’s so called “push for peace” is a de facto aquiesence in the long term Israeli push for colonization. It doesn’t get simpler or truer than that.

Now, in addition to steppinfechin’ Israel’s “domestic” policies, Bimbush let it be known that he was hop to-ing Israel’s regional policies. It would be comedic were it not so fraught with direful potential for human misery. As Bush thundered from the parapets of Jerusalem against Iran for continuing with its nuclear energy program, the president’s erstwhile ami du jour, Nicky Sarko, was in the United Arab Emirates firming up a deal to sell them the technology and where-withall to build their own nucular energy plants. Of course not a peep from the US mudia.

Again, hardly a peep from the US mudia or congressional AIPACoids as Israel tested a long range (4,500 km) nuke-capable missile within but days after Bush blasted Iran for destabilizing the region and exhorted his Arab hosts to join in the crusade (?) against the Infidel --X that -- Shiite Persian. All that was needed to round out the farce was for Bush to urge his oil-pals to recall their heroic ancestors at Thermopylae.

Rather than report on the fundamental contradictions underlying ElagabaBush’s sejour in the Near East, worthies such as the New York Times dedicated full story coverage to the peregrine aspects of the imperial tour, reporting in all but hushed tones that, after listening to a cantor sing prayers for the dead, Bush emerged from Israel’s Genocide Memorial with tears in his eyes asking mommy Rice why we hadn’t “bombed Auschwitz.” The Times then went on to report on Bush’s wide eyed pilgrimage (his word) to the Sea of Galilee. Yawn.

In an apparent effort to make up for lack of reportorial substance, the Times hired smirking Bill Kristol as a resident pontificator. But none of this did much to clue in the US chicken-public, which was by and large (plus ça change) left to draw the conclusion that their leader was making a last, if desperate, effort to bring peace to those people over there. As reported by Reuters, the Arab press saw it all quite differently:

The Lebanese daily As-Safir: :

"The explicit aim of the lame duck visit to the region is to foster hatred for Iran among Arab countries ... and to urge them to stand together with Israel against what the American president calls 'terrorism' -- as if there was anything more dangerous for the region than Israeli terrorism."

United Arab Emirates daily Khaleej Times:

"Just as the Gulf countries have healthy relations with the West, including the US, they also have historical, cultural and economic ties with Iran. The UAE happens to be Iran's biggest trading partner. This is why the UAE and other Gulf countries wouldn't want any more confrontation and conflict between the US and Iran."

The Syrian daily As-Sawra :

"This is a new chapter in the series of lies that has characterized the Bush administration. He wants us to believe that he seeks peace and that Iran, and not Israel, is the danger. America does not want peace for the Arabs, but rather their surrender. It doesn't seek democracy but the control of the whole region. "

The Cairo weekly Al-Ahram :

"The positions Bush expressed in interviews with major Israeli television channels and newspapers last Friday are even more shocking than Israeli actions on the eve of his visit. They mark a clear regression from the stances Bush declared in his opening speech at the Annapolis meeting."

Such opinions do not come from the “terrorist” presses of Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood, but from established and government-allowed papers. The palpable anger and disgust must thus be viewed as semi-official if not completely official reactions. But the US chicken-public will hear little of that. What they will hear is arguments from the likes of smirking Billy Kristol and the scrivener drones in Albrecht’s Enterprise Institute, to the effect that this rag-head hostility is all the more reason why we should hug up and hold tight with “our only ally” Israel.

And the sad thing is that most of the chicken-public will believe it and none of the cowards in Congress will gainsay it until lurching from folly to disaster to catastrophe the US finally goes the way of Romulus Augustulus.

©WCG, 2008
.

Disrespect, Ingratitude and Blasphemy

Once again, the New York Times proves that it is no stranger to insulting bad taste and astonishing cheek. Reporting on Bush’s mawk-o-rama tour of Holy Land holy sites, Times reporters, Steven Erlanger and Steven Meyers, adopted a respectful factuality when recounting Bimbo’s “emotional” and tearful visit to Yad Vashem. Bush, they wrote, called the experience a “... a sobering reminder that evil exists... “ as he “laid a wreath and lighted a torch as a cantor sang the Jewish prayer for the dead...” etc. etc.

But when it came to Bush’s wide eyed tour at the Sea of Galilee, Erlanger and Meyers could no longer contain their snide juices. Bush, they wrote, “... walk[ed] out onto a pier with two friars in brown robes, who pointed toward the spot where Jesus is said to have walked on the water, according to pool reports.” Pool reports. Cute. Apparently respect for other people’s religions doesn’t matter much outside of Yad Vashem.

(By the way, friars in brown robes are known as Franciscans; not that anyone at the Times knows or gives a shit about such alien distinctions. )

The Erlanger & Meyers article then went on to complain about the cost of Bush’s trip. Noting that Jerusalem had been under virtual lock-down during the Bush visit, the intrepid Times reporters groused that “ Israeli taxpayers spent about $25,000 for every hour that Mr. Bush was in the country for security expenses, not counting the loss of business.”

Oh the lost business!!! The humanity!!! We can hardly go on...

It’s beyond belief. Israel could hardly survive without US financial, military and diplomatic support. Billions of US taxpayer dollars are forked out to Israel in loan guarantees and grants. Military hardware and intelligence is shared. The US all but acts as apologist and agent for Israel in the Security Council. Bush is the most blindly pro-Israel president ever. He has endorsed the ghettoization of the West Bank (“contiguity”) and behind his so called “push for peace” is a de facto aquiesence in the long term Israeli push for colonization.

Erlanger and Meyers are lucky most other Americans are too damn stupid to realize when they’ve been mule-kicked in the butt.

But the Oscar for impudence must certainly go to those settlor Jews who paraded about Jerusalem carrying placards that read: “Bush Read Your Bible ... G-d gave Israel to the Jews.”

Now, Jews are wont to use the term “G-d” as a humble indication of the too awful, too great, too far-beyond anything we can fathom divinity of the unutterable Creator and Ruler of all that is.... It is the English version of FWRTKL or whatever H-'s unpronounceable name is. Yeah...but not so damn humble to tell us what He did, does, wants and deeds title to.

“G-d” my ass; and I know that there are sincere and devout orthodox Jews who would agree that such hypocrisy merits nothing but contemptuous disgust.

©WCG, 2008