Blood and Gold

What it is, brothers and sisters? How's life been treating y'all?

Been punked by any Democrats lately?

I missed the play-by-play of the latest fraudulent vote in which Bush's Mules (once known as the Democratic Party) gave The Unitary Executive a big thumbs up - and a whole lotta cash - to make sure our ongoing crimes against the people of Iraq don't sputter to an ignoble end for lack of funding. One wonders how much of that money - my money, your money - finds its way into the velvet pockets of the Bush-Cheney families and their many cronies.

War is hell, but only for The Expendable Class. Even then, it isn't like they emerge from experience empty-handed. If only for the duration of their sacrifice, the cloak of invisibility which would otherwise shroud them from cradle to grave is momentarily lifted, revealing The Hero suffocating deep within the hollowed-out soul of every faceless ghost shuffling through Wal•Mart behind a shopping cart full of sweatshop goods and low, low everyday prices.

For its investors, war is something else entirely. If there is one certainty about the American public's acceptance of permanent war, it's that a lot of people - not just George & Dick - have seen their bank accounts grow fat enough to sink Turks & Cacos, where a good deal of those zeros reside and multiply faster than AIDS-striken widows working as refugee-prostitutes in Syria. They are your Congressmen. Your judges. Your "public servants" in The Pentagon and State Department. All the pretty people and cool kids populating the cable & broadcast networks and print media. And how's that 401K doing, anyway?

so wave the flag and take a stand
stand in line to shake his hand
he says he's a friend
a friend of the common man
~The Blasters

Wouldn't you like to see the stock portfolios? Me, too. But, alas, this is perhaps the dirtiest of dirty secrets and, as such, cannot even be discussed, much less revealed. Not only are the rich getting richer and paying few, if any, taxes, they're doing it on the rotting flesh of random corpses, bleeding orphans, displaced families and shattered lives. It has always been thus, as we are the proud and not-so-proud beneficiaries of a brutal Empire papered in slick, glossy advertisements which hold our gaze and make us pine for its stolen fruits. I gotta make a living, man.

Like a five hundred-foot robot from a sci-fi 50's flick, "Bush's War" - our war, yours & mine - plods and lumbers and destroys, undeterred by pleas for peace and justice, leaving only the stench of smoke and death in its wake while shitting bricks of gold into the open arms of its grateful creators.

Just don't blame The Democrats. As any Democratic loyalist will attest - and damned if there aren't millions and millions of 'em - whatever collective culpability exists, This is Bush's War. And, as anyone who reads the papers can tell you, They didn't have the votes for an override. Or, as Salon's Joan Walsh put it:

"...the party doesn't have the votes to stop the war, and thus Democrats have to focus on recapturing the White House and bulking up their congressional majorities in 2008, since that's in the end the only way to bring the troops home. There is absolutely no way that Bush winds down the war...

Absolutely no way, says Joan, that Bush will "wind down" the war. Hey, it's only Congress, not FOX News. Their hands are tied. Get off their backs.

And, besides, what are nobodies like you and me gonna do about it, anyway? The Republican Party went so far to the right, it tumbled over the edge of the Flat Earth years ago, taking the nation's ideals and the Democratic Party with it. Think it never occurred to Rahm Emmanuel that, come election time, you will - for the millionth time - swallow the pill and push the magic button for Democrats in '08? What the hell else are they gonna do? Not much, Rahm. Not a goddamn thing.

Don't look at me. I don't know where the answers are, but I've never been more certain of where they are not, and that's in the cold ashes of yesterday's democratic republic. Stop sifting and look somewhere else.

Letter To Joan Walsh

"Equal Blame" = Disingenous Framing

Democratic complicity, like the cowardice and corruption which fuels it, is not some rippling mirage constructed in the fevered brains of frothing leftists.

The complicity of the Democratic Party is real. It has been since well before Day One of George W. Bush's Reign of Profitable Terror. Your response to that complicity is to assign liability to the war's architects and enablers as though you are an insurance representative handling a dented fender claim.

Has the Democratic Party done everything in its power to stop this war? We both know the answer to that question, Joan, even if only one of us will answer it. NO. I would add an emphatic far from it. You would likely disagree.

Play all the semantical games you want. It is, after all, your gig. But don't expect the rest of us to play along. Of course, we don't have to so long as there are millions of voters willing to give them another chance. Given the national propensity for self-delusion and magical thinking, the rest of us will always be outnumbered. That's okay, too, because the rest of us are damn tired of being forced into accommodating the rest of you.

One day, perhaps the rest of us will recognize the obstacles to democratic and Democratic reform, then confront them directly without the usual liberal angst. What separates progressives from our ideological ancestors is our unwillingness to make hard choices and take action. Until we overcome that weakness, we will be failures as citizens and as human beings.

The Republican Party sells fear. Fear of terrorists. Fear of liberals. Fear of impoverishment. Fear of oppression.

The Democrats sell fear, too: Fear of Republicans.

Both parties are selling the same can of botulism. Only the labels differ.

I used to think the Democratic Party which so often aided and abetted George W. Bush did not represent the voters who sustain it. Unfortunately, as your commentary increasingly reflects, that party is a fair representation of its rank & file. Talk about an ugly truth. Were it otherwise, there would be a serious campaign to exact a toll on the Democrats who actively and passively promote the NeoCon agenda. Instead, with the rarest of exceptions, their failures are rationalized and excused by the few centrist and "progressive" figures whose opinions are promulgated via corporate media. Funny how that works.

A party which cannot oppose a tyrant like George W. Bush possesses neither the qualifications nor the will to lead America out of the dark valley of fear. That the Republicans are likewise unfit to lead gives me no comfort. A coward is a coward and a crook is a crook regardless of political affiliation.

This Democratic Party needs to be destroyed so that something useful can be constructed in its place. I don't see that happening because, frankly, not enough people give a damn. By the time you're done prostituting yourself for the Democratic Beltway Elites, it is possible Americans will understand that an '08 Democratic "victory" - just like The Bush Years - will have been constructed from a mountain of lies and our own persistent suspension of disbelief.

So, by all means, go ahead and pin your hopes on an '08 White House victory. When the champaign corks are flying and you're signing up to play White House Spokesperson, remember that it will have been "won" by the needless death and misery of thousands of human beings.