The Laminated President

You may remember former president Ronald Reagan was sometimes referred to as the Teflon President because charges of malfeasance, or whatever, never seemed to stick. Certainly that slimy coating did not serve all his underlings quite as well. Many of them were implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal of the '80s, some were even convicted of such crimes as conspiracy, making false statements to Congress and obstructing congressional inquiries. However, as often happens among the elite of this deeply troubled nation, these bad players received only symbolic punishment, most even had their convictions overturned on technicalities or were pardoned by Bush I.

Their unfortunate return to power, to the White House, the Pentagon and other pissing posts the ruling class frequents in Washington, brings our attention back to their former association with the Teflon President and the man who presently holds his office. Emperior George W. Bush appears to have no such coating, instead it could be said that he is laminated. Charges DO stick to George Bush. He has repeatedly lied to the citizens of these United States and to both houses of congress in full public view. His dodges and inability to take responsibility for the mistakes or the outright horrors of his regime's policies are on display for all the world to see. The problem is that while the charges stck, his handlers cover them over with yet another layer of bullshit.

The guy is like an onion of deceit; the evil onion man. With a new laminate, applied by Karl Rove or Scott McClellan or Condi Rice or whomever, the emperor is remade. U.S. citizens, with their infamous 15-second attention span, are then treated to the next big thing: determined Bush flies back to White House to save Terri Schiavo; Bush boogies in Georgia; tough guy Bush backs the nuclear option; ad nausium. As a result all the sins seem forgotten and the Laminated President doesn't get busted.

Of course, this doesn't speak terribly well for the corporate media which in previous times would have hoisted this guy by his own petard long ago, as they did Nixon, making it near impossible for Mom & Pop America to ignore the obvious. Today, the slavish worship of glitter and dazzle and utter disregard for substance, not to mention the bottomline mentality in the front office, make for a very different mainstream media. The corporate media is for the most part, in fact, just another applicator for the Laminated President.

If there is any hope in this dim and sorry-ass picture perhaps it is this: laminates come undone when exposed to the elements. Keep your eye on the weather.

a department of justice

is the goddess of justice still
draped from our view like a
raven-haired beauty exiled
in a cave, she's hidden away,
screened off, unreachable
to us plaintiffs pleading the
case for a place we can live with,
or at least spend some time with
now and then in a world gone mad.
for all our loved ones, sisters and brothers
we need a department of justice, true
to its name that wouldn't hide from
our sight, our touch, a life-line cast
into a sea of misery where we drift,
taking on water, shedding tears.

we await the unveiling, though
it may never come. perhaps a rebellion
is in order: storm the castle, free
the prisoners, empty the caves.
how can i not kiss you behind
the barricades?

Earth to White House: The door swings both ways!

It seems the Bush regime and it's repugnican noise machine is demanding a monopoly on phony news. This recent dog and pony show about the retracted Newsweek piece on trashing the Quran at Gitmo is more smoke than fire. While the White House feigns indignation over the news clip, pounding its' collective fist on the podium, the hand behind its back is holding "Jeff Gannon's" leash and a copy of the Downing Street Memo. Who are these clowns kidding??

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" writ large. The neo-cons and bottom-feeders in that operation have ruined the lives of countless U.S. citizens and a seemingly endless number of people around the world with their lies and deceptions. To call it spin is a disservice to everyone's intelligence. The Bush regime's horrific policies, be they economic, political, environmental, what-have-you; and of course their illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq have all been facilitated by lies and deceit. If it isn't their own stable of journalists-on-the-take
doing their dirty work it's the corporate sycophants haunting the Press Room. Why these guys haven't been dragged out of that place and run out of town speaks volumes about the state of this nation.

Maybe the citizens of these United States have just been exposed to far too much advertising over the years. Nobody knows what's true anymore. Like robots, your neighbors believe what ever the last person they talked to told them. ARRRGGHHH! They're coming! Don't go to sleep!! ....oh, sorry, that's from a film, right? A work of fiction. I don't know, these days fact and fiction seem so....what? co-dependent?
Tell me these guys will go to far. Tell me at some point they'll be a tipping point. They can't go on bullshitting the nation about the "liberal media" bullshitting the nation while they continue bullshitting the nation, right? Doesn't the door to the White House swing both ways? Will it hit them on the way out, as it's designed to do? Tell me it will.

What a way to start the day

In a sense, every day we wake up from sleep it's a sort of rebirth, we are new to the waking world. It's like being a child all over again....until our mind begins to kick-in or we turn on the radio. I made the mistake of turning on the radio first thing this morning and unfortunately it was set to the voice of the status quo: NPR. As most of you no doubt know, National Public Radio continues to slip perceptively into the column marked "Friend of empire" with its spineless servitude to the ruling elite in DC and its constant deference to the criminal Bush regime. In any case, this Mother's Day morning the first clip of the morning on "Weekend Edition Sunday" was the voice of the emperor himself, speaking from Europe on the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the nazis. The voice on the radio said:

"In the distance we can see another great goal -- not merely the absence of tyranny on this continent, but the end of tyranny in our world. Once again, we're asked to hold firm to our principles, and to value the liberty of others."

So much for my little "re-birth" this fine day, a day originally marked for the cause of peace. The relative newness, and potential joy of my re-birth was dashed on the rocks of imperial hypocrisy courtesy of the present occupants of the White House. It gets worse.

Yesterday I was reading John Dean's book "Worse than Watergate - The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush", which I recommend highly, and which set a course in my mind through the murky waters of empire yet again (a recurring journey for many of us, yes?). As a result of having just read about the ongoing duplicity, obfuscation, and outright criminality of the Bush regime, of having their sins foremost in my mind , quotes like this:

"What began as a movement of thugs became a government without conscience, and then an empire of bottomless cruelty"

from his speech in Europe has special meaning. The man is describing his own operation. And talk about great moments in double-speak, the emperor went on to state:

"Successful democracies that effectively protect individual rights require viable political parties, an independent judiciary, a diverse media, and limits on executive power."

Whoa! Give me some of that! "Limits on Executive power"! What a concept! "Diverse media"! Where can I get some of THAT! Certainly not on the airways over here in the belly of the beast. As to "viable political parties" and an "independent judiciary", we have only one in the fore and they're working on none in the latter.

So, this was how I started this Mother's Day. In a way, I'm glad my mother is no longer here to suffer these indignities. She was an Eisenhower Republican, a real conservative as opposed to the new issue that neither knows how to conserve nor cares about anything much beyond their own self-interest. Fuck that.