Torturous Lies and Videotape

I had started videotaping my early morning news-reading sessions as a record for posterity on what a truly gruesome experience they were becoming under the Bush administration and this, uh, Democratic Congress. But, seeing how they could be used as material evidence in a torture trial against the mostly innocent purveyors of news, I decided, against Harriet Miers' advice -- though "it was not clear what the basis for [her] advice" was -- to burn said tapes.

Maybe that was a bad call. Perhaps future generations really do need a filmed record of the diabolical tortures the assclowns in charge are heaving on the average citizen's reading time. I approach the papers each morning like a whipped puppy -- primed to whimper and buckle at the slightest bit of additional horror being slammed down on me. What next? What will this morning's cyber-rolled paper bring, viciously whacking me on the nose and reducing me to a wailing hulk of neuroses?

Invariably within 60 seconds flat I'm ready to cry "enough." It's like living in Torquemada's Groundhog Day. The assclowns -- our esteemed elected representatives, from one end of Pennsylvania Ave. to the other -- have, once again, been slithering while I slept. And this morning was no different.

You will recall the Democratic Congress' powerfully thrilling avowals of late to tell Mr. Bush to shove his future war-funding requests where even Harriet would not care to look, assuming he refused to concede some level of reason about the timed closing of our imperialistic shop in Iraq. No doubt you will recall that, because it was, indeed, powerfully thrilling -- like one of those trailers for what looks like a powerfully thrilling, upcoming action film.

So you buy the hype and spend good money to see what more often than not turns out to be a real clinker -- which of course the producers knew all along, but were clever enough to offer peek previews into only the one or two actually thrilling parts.

Enter, stage center-right, the Democratic leadership, which, it seems, has been taking its cues from Hollywood finaglers.

For this is the vicious smack on the nose that greeted me this morning: "Congressional leaders are assembling a $500 billion package to try to resolve an impasse by providing President Bush with unfettered money for the Iraq war in exchange for new spending on popular domestic programs.

"Senior lawmakers and Congressional aides said the broad outlines of the proposal called for the House to consider $30 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, as well as money for military bases and support programs for military families to quiet fears of Pentagon layoffs because of a lack of money.

"The Senate would then add up to $40 billion for Iraq combat operations, with the expectation the final war spending total would produce enough Republican support to offset defections by House Democrats."

Maybe what preceded this grim finale was merely an appropriately sinister version of the good cop-bad cop routine. David Obey struts before us and promises all manner of manly fortitude if only we'd stop whining, right before Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bring a New York City phonebook down on our heads, shattering our spines but by comparison making theirs look reasonably intact. Now will you agree we've done all we could do? What say you? Want it again? Talk to 'em, Dave. Whisper some sweet-sounding bullshit in their ears, then we'll hammer them again.

I don't know. The two-party system has been on electoral crutches since George McGovern -- then, as well, in the grips of an insanely futile and pointless war -- tried the old true-differentiation razzle-dazzle, only to meet with deafening indifference. So maybe, after all, Americans at large are indeed coming around to the imperial notion of perpetual war, as long as the Washington warmongers flood their districts with new post offices, bike trails and promises of occasionally adequate health care for those future warriors, our children.

I don't know. But I do know it's a painful and tortuous process -- this being subjected each morning to such a regularity of assclowns in action; this pompously out-of-control executive and this poltroonish Congress. Cut!

Comments

[Hotrod]

PM,
Once again, your prose hit the nail on the collective head. We are now subjected to a farce in slow motion. The Predator Class controls everything and yet is so vulnerable because of their rampant criminality. What if the serfs revolt? How bad will it get before the collective stupidity and ignorance is overcome by economic hardship? I am afraid we shall soon find out.

[ED]

Twice in the last part of this column you wrote, "I don't know." I think most of us DO know now: as Gore vidal said, we have one party,the {war] party, with two right wing branches. A new, truly Progressive Party is needed, combining the anti-war, environmental, workers' rights, women's rights, minority rights, human rights, gay rights, and immigrant rights populations and groups, including the progressive members of Congress (not the Blue Dogs). The "two party" charade is a dead end for our democracy and our future.

[epppie]

I can't comprehend why many Dems continue to drink the (frequently orange colored) kool-aide: oh, if only you voters would JUUUUUST elect a few more of us Dems, we'd FINAAALY do the right thing. We REAAAALY want to do the right thing.

A Populist Progressive Party or Presidential candidate would appeal to two thirds of this country, I think. And such a Party/Candidate would give the two "major" parties the chance to coalesce officially, since the Dems have simply been collapsing into the ever right-drifting GOP for several decades now.