A View From the Range

I was saying back in September 2001 that someday soon the three thousand civilian casualties of the Twin Towers & Pentagon bombings would begin to seem... not quite so impressive. Actually, I believe I said they would seem "a drop in the bucket," and we would someday come to wish there had only been three thousand.

The verified civilian body count in Iraq, as of today, is somewhere between 21,000 and 24,000.

Perhaps if the Iraqis or even Saddam Hussein had been involved in September 11th, this might be somehow understandable and excusable. But they and he weren't and these dead are as dead as our dead. Dead as an M.R.E. hamburger. The only difference is the September 11th attacks were over in a matter of hours, whereas we are now looking down the sipping straw at more, more and yet more war in which civilian casualties outnumber "insurgent" deaths by a factor of five or more. Years of war. More civilians dead, not to mention mounting casualties among our own brave boys and girls, who will now reside more or less permanently in the line of fire.

Yeats said "too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart." I ask you, who is doing the sacrificing here? What sleazy corporate raider in the Bush administration? What CEO?

This terrorism song and dance has been a real boon to the industrialists, I'll tell you. The real winners of 9/11 were Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, and the Fortune 500. Exxon for example has 40 billion in cash and is worried where to put it all. Profits are booming, with record high productivity.

Meanwhile, thousands of People are losing their pensions, their savings, going into debt to pay for medical care, not getting medical care, despairing of ever getting out of debt. We are yet again debating the teaching of evolution in schools as the civilized world stands by and laughs. To this add the steady day by day drip drip drip sound in the background as our our children are being picked off or blown to bits a handful at a time by "insurgents" in Iraq.

When shall we wake up? Will our Democracy die in its sleep? It seems a reasonable question for our current predicament. Perhaps we should be teaching de-evolution in the schools, which is what is taking place in the social fabric of our country.

My advice to my fellow citizens, the ones who supported the atrocious US hostilities in the first place, in case you decide to go out later: wear the red shirt with the long sleeves; it works to obscure the blood on your hands.

A true friend and supporter,

the GTL

Orrin Hatch: early-onset dementia or just hypocrisy?

"Washington's well-paid reputation-destroyers cannot help but attempt to attack the widely popular president of the United States at this particular time, in an election year... Welcome to Washington." - Orrin hatch

Those darn well-paid reputation destroyers. Will they stop at nothing?

No. They won't. These damn liberal truth-murderers! How dare they play politics when the American people need their governmental leaders to focus on the difficult task of running the country? Why, that's practically treason!

They'll even impeach a President who engages in hanky-panky with a woman besides his wife! Impeach him! Can you imagine? Over a harmless, run-of-the mill dalliance that never even made it to the bedroom! They must be stopped, these well-paid reputation destroyers...

No, wait. That was the Republicans. Never mind.

NUCLEAR ONANISM: Pulling Out For the Team

There's a cold, damp wind blowing through New England this evening, fellow travelers. Hard to imagine that it's really the end of May, with 45 degree temperatures and wind chills much lower. Is it cold in Washington, now that the furnace in the Senate's been turned all the way up?

The more I think of this rather inartful compromise measure on the nuclear option in the Senate the less satisfied I am. For one, it seems to do nothing whatsoever in terms of structurally protecting anybody's right to do anything.

The compromise seems to read, on first blush, that as long as the Democrats don't filibuster, unless it's REALLY IMPORTANT, the Republicans won't dismantle the Democrats' ability to filibuster unless it's REALLY IMPORTANT.

Nice.

It will be as easy next year for Frist to peddle his sides' ridiculous unconstitutional-Senate-rules argument as it was yesterday. The whole sordid enterprise of stripping the last minority protections from Congress will still need only a nod, a wink, and a gavel from Good President Cheney of the Senate to obliterate the rules without the traditional requisite supermajority.

This seems to be exactly where we were before this atom bomb issue arose. A whole lot of steam, a good bit of pressure and very little light has been generated in all of this Congressional warfare and maybe a last-minute time-out is all this is. A cold shower. To dampen the blood lust.

Which is why many on both sides, but more on the Right, seem so upset. It’s nothing less than an enormous cosmic coitus interruptus for the rabid evangelicals, who were just itching like mad for that old vigorous nuke-yoo-lur ultraviolence. Can you feel the frustration, brothers and sisters? The itching, the swelling? How unhappy they are that the Senate was saved?

I like, I like!

The Troglodyte Right will most definitely be back to resume this battle again, but for now they seem to have backed off. My guess is they're feeling weak all of a sudden, underselfconfident, and wouldn’t be enraging their base by pulling out like this if they thought they could put this thing over on its own merits. So... back to their caves for now.

Hey Lefties, remember this feeling? Like you rolled back the juggernaut, this momentary feeling of strength? Like it? Want more?

I know where you can get it.

Next we begin talking about civil disobedience.