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.