CrimQuips
CrimQuips 1/16/03 Thursday, January 16, 2003
Commentary by Barry Crimmins
http://www.barrycrimmins.com
NOTE: Between the book, serious illness in the family (close family member had emergency life and death emergency surgeries-- life seems to have prevailed!) and some rather nasty oral surgery on me that I'm convinced was overseen by John Ashcroft, I have had little time for quips this week. Actually I've had time for quips, it's the damned tech work to get them on the site that has been the primary impediment. They have me pretty whacked on legally prescribed pain medication (in other words, pharmaceutical companies, doctors and chain druggists have all profiteered on my pain) so I 'm sending out what I have managed thus far. At the end are some rambling thoughts that should serve as a warning to young writers who think that hydrocordone (I think that's the stuff) enhances literary creativity. And so, let this cautionary update begin. BC On Wednesday Court-appointed President Bush spoke out against affirmative action because he believes that it unfairly negates the birthright of those born into undue privilege. Over 1,200 US priests have been accused of sexual abuse but we must remember that several bad orchards don't ruin the whole bunch.
In the darkest moment George W. Bush has had to face as court-appointed president, chief UN snoop Hans Blix said his weapons inspectors have found "no smoking gun" in Iraq.
No matter, Bush has satellite photos of a drippy Iraqi water pistol.
So long as there are smoking tailpipes, smoking guns won't be necessary as a pretense for Dubyahoo to order carnage in Iraq.
Now that the awful threat of Iraq having no weapons of mass destruction has become a grim reality, Bush is left with no choice but to send as many of them as possible into the area.
Expect a typically courageous response from Bush. "Now that we're convinced they're defenseless, we are left with no choice but to attack."
Here's the new Bush position on the crisis in Korea: The unilateral withdrawal from nuclear nonproliferation treaties is sovereign US territory and North Korea's deployment of this tactic can be considered as nothing less than a preemptive strike. And the preemptive strike is yet another tactic that must remain the sole property of the United States. Confirming the old adage that unless we are careful, we become what we resist, Ariel Sharon is now financing his reelection bid with Krugerrands. Why doesn't the Republican Party just drop the pretense and hold its 2004 convention right at Ground Zero in New York? Bush will give his acceptance speech dressed up like a fireman.
It will be a welcome change after watching him playact as president for the previous four years.
Proposed 2004 Gluttonous Old Party campaign slogan: Ask not what we have done for our country, and definitely ask not any questions about what was done to our country while we were asleep at the switch (or worse) and certainly don't hold us responsible for what was done, wasn't done or is being done, just keep us in power for the sake of blind vengeance.
If William "Spare Change" Rehnquist really needs money, he should look into taking a job as a National Football League referee. Undermining the legitimacy of a few playoff games should be no challenge for a man who has done worse to an entire republic. The Republicans have turned over a new leaf on the issue of race and to prove it they are once again trying to elevate Grand Dragon Pickering to the federal bench.
Noted civil rights activist Bill Frist has endorsed Pickering-- a guy who makes Trent Lott look like George McGovern.
Bush was ecstatic when he learned Governor George Ryan emptied death row in Illinois before leaving office. But W's ecstasy turned to despair when he was told Ryan had not emptied it by executing all of its inhabitants. Some say Ryan commuted the sentences to distract the public from a corruption scandal that had ruined his political career. That's where he made his mistake. Had he followed Bush's lead he'd have distracted everyone from his corrupt regime through ruthless and indiscriminate carnage rather than reasoned and sensible compassion.
Bush's so-called economic stimulus plan would amount to free-basing viagra for the wealthy while neutering the rest of the nation. W's scheme would fatten the annual deficit up to a record $350 billion. The military budget this year is roughly 396 billion. So here's a compromise-- let the zillionaires have their Bush bonanza but only if Bush agrees to lop $350 billion off the military budget, forcing us to squeak by on a mere $46 BILLION for the sacred art of warfare. In an interview on Kisass in the Morning (or is it Imus?) Bill Frist suggested that the reason Iraq must be attacked is because Iraqi agents could carry biological weapons in their pockets and then unleash them on unsuspecting Americans. So apparently the plan is to bomb Iraq until there are no pockets left in the nation. The New York Times has lost yet another correspondent in its endless struggle to assist in attempted overthrows of President Hugo "Landslide" Chavez -- darling of the Venezuelan people, scourge of the corporate press. This time the Gray Lady went down when its Caracas correspondent, Francisco Toro, resigned because it had become too much effort for him to feign objectivity while he was so busy organizing and participating in the lockout in drag as a strike. This white collar job action first frayed and then failed. You say you didn't know it had failed? Well stop reading the New York Times! For reliable information on this and many other stories that aren't fit to print truthfully in the NYT, check out Narco News. ¿TODAY'S QUESTION? If North Korea truly has a gulag in which some 200,000 political prisoner/ slaves are confined (and it certainly could) why have we just learned of it? Some government officials and journalists had to be aware of this. After all, prison camps that enslave 1/5 of a million people don't just spring up overnight. As secretive as North Korea may be, there are some things you just can't keep quiet.
Except for the fact that North Korea has recently hindered Bush's bloodlust for Iraq (by brazenly announcing it is doing what Iraq either isn't doing or hasn't been caught doing), there's no good reason why we shouldn't have heard this story long ago. So if this isn't just the latest Court-appointed Bush Administration whopper (see below) then it suggests something nearly as bad about the rest of the world as does about North Korea. If we haven't been shown trumped-up reconnaissance photos then this story has come to our attention not because of U.S. altruistic indignation but because Washington wants to embarrass North Korea, just as North Korea has embarrassed it.(And also because it may starting to rationalize the mother of all preemptive strikes)
If this story is true, the United Nations should prove it still is a humanitarian organization by withdrawing from participation in the planned military assault on thousands of Iraqi innocents and switching its focus to the liberation of the North Korean political prisoner/slaves.
The United States should provide financial assistance to the UN's North Korean endeavor but it should not taint it with any American military presence. And if the USA is truly opposed to slavery, perhaps it will withdraw its support for globalization and renew tariffs that penalize countries that use slave and/or starvation wage labor.
NO JOKE
OK, so Bush's "5 -to-19 terrorists loose in the USA at the new year" alert turned out to be a hoax -- as have the last 35 or so color-coded distractions intended to terrify people into overlooking what is really transpiring in this country.
And so what if the Washington Post story about Iraq funneling chemical weapons to terrorists turned out to be completely baseless? What matters is this the five-star prevarication led corporate broadcast news roundups and was bannered across front pages around the country. Oh sure, a few refutations turned up in op-ed fine print here and as a political roundtable offhanded comment there, but many, many more people saw the lie than the truth. So the corporate media did its job.
And who cares if even Bush boot-lick extraordinaire Tony Blair has begun to at least survey the war-fever room for emergency exits? Who needs international consensus when we have heart-tugging footage of activated National Guard troops bidding farewell to their loved ones? It would be a betrayal of our troops to question why they have been called up. At least that's what emotionally manipulative network editors and producers would have us conclude as we watch story after story about these poor political illiterates heading off to become mass executioners and/or cannon fodder. War has become a temp job but don't expect MSNBC or FOX-NEWS or CNN to examine the negative long-term ramifications for American soldiers. Death is the one permanent position, other than post-traumatic stress disorder, that this war offers the Guardsmen/women. When its done, troops will be laid off like seasonal employees and forgotten until the next time a politician needs the ultimate distraction -- and the cable news channels need a ratings boost.
The corporate media and George W. Bush are perfect for each other. They are both pathological liars and therefore derive symbiotic benefits from one another. From the moment the White House concocted Bush's alibi for going Barney Fife on 9/11 (the fabrication about the terrorist phone calls to the Secret Service threatening W), the media has demonstrated an insatiable appetite for the smorgasbord of manure served up by the court-appointed Bush Administration. Nonexistent bombs, be they dirty or "nookuuleear," always make a direct hit at the top of the broadcast and above the fold. Perhaps the press feels it's in too deep to do anything but continue to wave red, white and blue pompoms whenever W wheels out another whopper. Truth used to be the first casualty of war but if Iraq is attacked because of an oilwellian Catch-22 that compels an assault no matter what is or isn't found there, truth will have died before even taking its induction physical.
As accessories to the murder of the truth, we can expect the corporate media to expose Bush as a jingoistic flimflam artist just as soon as it cops to its role in the lies and deceptions that have led us to the brink of war, economic collapse and totalitarian oppression. Until we the people learn to stop begging fatally corrupt institutions to listen to our complaints-- and by doing so, validate them-- the media barons have us. If we acknowledge theirs as the only true legitimacy, we might as well start appearing at press conferences with Raelians. We need to develop new and more reliable sources of information (as many are doing on the internet) or we'll never regain control of our country. And the corporate interest will never be forced to loosen its death-grip on the media and, in turn, the world.
We need antitrust laws powerful enough to reverse the odious trend of media consolidation. We need the Telecommunications Act of 1996 struck down. We need the public airwaves returned to the control of the PUBLIC. Unless these serious remedies are set into action, all the breast-beating in the world about the need for liberal talk show hosts won't amount to spit on a red-hot griddle. Until the people regain control of their own airwaves, until local concerns again own local newspapers, we'll never see anything even vaguely approaching an honest representation of progressive views. So long as the Fairness Doctrine remains on dry ice, Doctrinaire Rightists will continue to gain market share. Writing letters to news networks and editors might occasionally succeed in embarrassing a little truth out of them. But faster than you can peddle through the next news cycle that truth will be washed away in a tidal wave of new and even more dramatic falsehoods. We must untangle this sophisticated web of disinformation by getting up off our couches to witness, report and make history. The internet provides us with one great way to convey our news and opinions and there are others: low power radio, newsletters, rallies and most importantly, the patience, charm and resolve to spend the time it takes to beg others to sit still and consider another view. Along the way we must learn to act as our own editors, rather than permit the complex world to be reduced to the sound-bite pabulum which always favors the oversimplification that's so necessary to reactionaries. When we show we are ready to record, distribute and digest information that hasn't been tainted by corporate censors, then we'll not only have liberals on the air but we'll have progressives controlling their fair share of the airwaves. That's the real job we need to get done and that's no joke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please click to sign up for the e-mail version of :
CrimQuips List.
2003 Barry Crimmins
http://www.barrycrimmins.com
NOTE: Between the book, serious illness in the family (close family member had emergency life and death emergency surgeries-- life seems to have prevailed!) and some rather nasty oral surgery on me that I'm convinced was overseen by John Ashcroft, I have had little time for quips this week. Actually I've had time for quips, it's the damned tech work to get them on the site that has been the primary impediment. They have me pretty whacked on legally prescribed pain medication (in other words, pharmaceutical companies, doctors and chain druggists have all profiteered on my pain) so I 'm sending out what I have managed thus far. At the end are some rambling thoughts that should serve as a warning to young writers who think that hydrocordone (I think that's the stuff) enhances literary creativity. And so, let this cautionary update begin. BC On Wednesday Court-appointed President Bush spoke out against affirmative action because he believes that it unfairly negates the birthright of those born into undue privilege. Over 1,200 US priests have been accused of sexual abuse but we must remember that several bad orchards don't ruin the whole bunch.
In the darkest moment George W. Bush has had to face as court-appointed president, chief UN snoop Hans Blix said his weapons inspectors have found "no smoking gun" in Iraq.
No matter, Bush has satellite photos of a drippy Iraqi water pistol.
So long as there are smoking tailpipes, smoking guns won't be necessary as a pretense for Dubyahoo to order carnage in Iraq.
Now that the awful threat of Iraq having no weapons of mass destruction has become a grim reality, Bush is left with no choice but to send as many of them as possible into the area.
Expect a typically courageous response from Bush. "Now that we're convinced they're defenseless, we are left with no choice but to attack."
Here's the new Bush position on the crisis in Korea: The unilateral withdrawal from nuclear nonproliferation treaties is sovereign US territory and North Korea's deployment of this tactic can be considered as nothing less than a preemptive strike. And the preemptive strike is yet another tactic that must remain the sole property of the United States. Confirming the old adage that unless we are careful, we become what we resist, Ariel Sharon is now financing his reelection bid with Krugerrands. Why doesn't the Republican Party just drop the pretense and hold its 2004 convention right at Ground Zero in New York? Bush will give his acceptance speech dressed up like a fireman.
It will be a welcome change after watching him playact as president for the previous four years.
Proposed 2004 Gluttonous Old Party campaign slogan: Ask not what we have done for our country, and definitely ask not any questions about what was done to our country while we were asleep at the switch (or worse) and certainly don't hold us responsible for what was done, wasn't done or is being done, just keep us in power for the sake of blind vengeance.
If William "Spare Change" Rehnquist really needs money, he should look into taking a job as a National Football League referee. Undermining the legitimacy of a few playoff games should be no challenge for a man who has done worse to an entire republic. The Republicans have turned over a new leaf on the issue of race and to prove it they are once again trying to elevate Grand Dragon Pickering to the federal bench.
Noted civil rights activist Bill Frist has endorsed Pickering-- a guy who makes Trent Lott look like George McGovern.
Bush was ecstatic when he learned Governor George Ryan emptied death row in Illinois before leaving office. But W's ecstasy turned to despair when he was told Ryan had not emptied it by executing all of its inhabitants. Some say Ryan commuted the sentences to distract the public from a corruption scandal that had ruined his political career. That's where he made his mistake. Had he followed Bush's lead he'd have distracted everyone from his corrupt regime through ruthless and indiscriminate carnage rather than reasoned and sensible compassion.
Bush's so-called economic stimulus plan would amount to free-basing viagra for the wealthy while neutering the rest of the nation. W's scheme would fatten the annual deficit up to a record $350 billion. The military budget this year is roughly 396 billion. So here's a compromise-- let the zillionaires have their Bush bonanza but only if Bush agrees to lop $350 billion off the military budget, forcing us to squeak by on a mere $46 BILLION for the sacred art of warfare. In an interview on Kisass in the Morning (or is it Imus?) Bill Frist suggested that the reason Iraq must be attacked is because Iraqi agents could carry biological weapons in their pockets and then unleash them on unsuspecting Americans. So apparently the plan is to bomb Iraq until there are no pockets left in the nation. The New York Times has lost yet another correspondent in its endless struggle to assist in attempted overthrows of President Hugo "Landslide" Chavez -- darling of the Venezuelan people, scourge of the corporate press. This time the Gray Lady went down when its Caracas correspondent, Francisco Toro, resigned because it had become too much effort for him to feign objectivity while he was so busy organizing and participating in the lockout in drag as a strike. This white collar job action first frayed and then failed. You say you didn't know it had failed? Well stop reading the New York Times! For reliable information on this and many other stories that aren't fit to print truthfully in the NYT, check out Narco News. ¿TODAY'S QUESTION? If North Korea truly has a gulag in which some 200,000 political prisoner/ slaves are confined (and it certainly could) why have we just learned of it? Some government officials and journalists had to be aware of this. After all, prison camps that enslave 1/5 of a million people don't just spring up overnight. As secretive as North Korea may be, there are some things you just can't keep quiet.
Except for the fact that North Korea has recently hindered Bush's bloodlust for Iraq (by brazenly announcing it is doing what Iraq either isn't doing or hasn't been caught doing), there's no good reason why we shouldn't have heard this story long ago. So if this isn't just the latest Court-appointed Bush Administration whopper (see below) then it suggests something nearly as bad about the rest of the world as does about North Korea. If we haven't been shown trumped-up reconnaissance photos then this story has come to our attention not because of U.S. altruistic indignation but because Washington wants to embarrass North Korea, just as North Korea has embarrassed it.(And also because it may starting to rationalize the mother of all preemptive strikes)
If this story is true, the United Nations should prove it still is a humanitarian organization by withdrawing from participation in the planned military assault on thousands of Iraqi innocents and switching its focus to the liberation of the North Korean political prisoner/slaves.
The United States should provide financial assistance to the UN's North Korean endeavor but it should not taint it with any American military presence. And if the USA is truly opposed to slavery, perhaps it will withdraw its support for globalization and renew tariffs that penalize countries that use slave and/or starvation wage labor.
NO JOKE
OK, so Bush's "5 -to-19 terrorists loose in the USA at the new year" alert turned out to be a hoax -- as have the last 35 or so color-coded distractions intended to terrify people into overlooking what is really transpiring in this country.
And so what if the Washington Post story about Iraq funneling chemical weapons to terrorists turned out to be completely baseless? What matters is this the five-star prevarication led corporate broadcast news roundups and was bannered across front pages around the country. Oh sure, a few refutations turned up in op-ed fine print here and as a political roundtable offhanded comment there, but many, many more people saw the lie than the truth. So the corporate media did its job.
And who cares if even Bush boot-lick extraordinaire Tony Blair has begun to at least survey the war-fever room for emergency exits? Who needs international consensus when we have heart-tugging footage of activated National Guard troops bidding farewell to their loved ones? It would be a betrayal of our troops to question why they have been called up. At least that's what emotionally manipulative network editors and producers would have us conclude as we watch story after story about these poor political illiterates heading off to become mass executioners and/or cannon fodder. War has become a temp job but don't expect MSNBC or FOX-NEWS or CNN to examine the negative long-term ramifications for American soldiers. Death is the one permanent position, other than post-traumatic stress disorder, that this war offers the Guardsmen/women. When its done, troops will be laid off like seasonal employees and forgotten until the next time a politician needs the ultimate distraction -- and the cable news channels need a ratings boost.
The corporate media and George W. Bush are perfect for each other. They are both pathological liars and therefore derive symbiotic benefits from one another. From the moment the White House concocted Bush's alibi for going Barney Fife on 9/11 (the fabrication about the terrorist phone calls to the Secret Service threatening W), the media has demonstrated an insatiable appetite for the smorgasbord of manure served up by the court-appointed Bush Administration. Nonexistent bombs, be they dirty or "nookuuleear," always make a direct hit at the top of the broadcast and above the fold. Perhaps the press feels it's in too deep to do anything but continue to wave red, white and blue pompoms whenever W wheels out another whopper. Truth used to be the first casualty of war but if Iraq is attacked because of an oilwellian Catch-22 that compels an assault no matter what is or isn't found there, truth will have died before even taking its induction physical.
As accessories to the murder of the truth, we can expect the corporate media to expose Bush as a jingoistic flimflam artist just as soon as it cops to its role in the lies and deceptions that have led us to the brink of war, economic collapse and totalitarian oppression. Until we the people learn to stop begging fatally corrupt institutions to listen to our complaints-- and by doing so, validate them-- the media barons have us. If we acknowledge theirs as the only true legitimacy, we might as well start appearing at press conferences with Raelians. We need to develop new and more reliable sources of information (as many are doing on the internet) or we'll never regain control of our country. And the corporate interest will never be forced to loosen its death-grip on the media and, in turn, the world.
We need antitrust laws powerful enough to reverse the odious trend of media consolidation. We need the Telecommunications Act of 1996 struck down. We need the public airwaves returned to the control of the PUBLIC. Unless these serious remedies are set into action, all the breast-beating in the world about the need for liberal talk show hosts won't amount to spit on a red-hot griddle. Until the people regain control of their own airwaves, until local concerns again own local newspapers, we'll never see anything even vaguely approaching an honest representation of progressive views. So long as the Fairness Doctrine remains on dry ice, Doctrinaire Rightists will continue to gain market share. Writing letters to news networks and editors might occasionally succeed in embarrassing a little truth out of them. But faster than you can peddle through the next news cycle that truth will be washed away in a tidal wave of new and even more dramatic falsehoods. We must untangle this sophisticated web of disinformation by getting up off our couches to witness, report and make history. The internet provides us with one great way to convey our news and opinions and there are others: low power radio, newsletters, rallies and most importantly, the patience, charm and resolve to spend the time it takes to beg others to sit still and consider another view. Along the way we must learn to act as our own editors, rather than permit the complex world to be reduced to the sound-bite pabulum which always favors the oversimplification that's so necessary to reactionaries. When we show we are ready to record, distribute and digest information that hasn't been tainted by corporate censors, then we'll not only have liberals on the air but we'll have progressives controlling their fair share of the airwaves. That's the real job we need to get done and that's no joke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please click to sign up for the e-mail version of :
CrimQuips List.
2003 Barry Crimmins