McCAIN Vows To Create New Department of Filth

October 9, 2008 - Grand Rapids, MI. -- Republican presidential candidate John ("Crashboy") McCain vowed today to set up a new Department of Filth & Mud Resources, if elected. It was time, he said, for government to step in a coordinate shit- flinging and dirt-scooping in public life. Speaking to a cheering crowd of Country Firsters, the candidate said ""We also need a standard, national code for racist slurs

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The Voice of Respectability Shrills Again

The News: Cook County Sheriff, Thomas J. Dart, announced that he will refuse to carry out foreclosure evictions in his bailiwick. Dart explained that too many of the evictees were innocent rent-paying tenants of landlords who had failed to pay their mortgages. Although landlords pocketted the rent money, they never bothered to inform their tenants who remained unaware of the foreclosure suits until deputies showed up with a Get-Out-Now order. Under Illinois law mortgage companies are supposed to advise the court of the building's occupants before asking for an eviction, but of course hadn't bothered to do so.

The llinois Bankers Association is outraged. Simply outraged. The Association declaimed that Dart "was elected to uphold the law and to fulfill the legal duties of his office, which include serving eviction notices." Getting haughtier still, the Association chastised the sheriff for "ignoring the law and his legal responsibilities" and indulging in "vigilantism at the highest level".

The Note: This is why it is easier to thread a rope through a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. They will not part with a penny out of sufferance for the poor and they parade the corpse of oppression in the mantel of justice. It is also why, on the latter day, it is a comfort to knit and drink wine while the blade chops.

©WCG, 2008

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These Empty Times

The News: Judith Warner, an op-ed contributor at the NY Times writes that the (alleged) Sinking of Wall Street is no time for schadenfreude.

"Schadenfreude is impossible (she writes) because the fat cats — the ones who bent the rules, the ones who pushed the envelopes, ... the ones who opposed regulations on the banking and mortgage industries — are taking us down with them."

No... Instead, according to Warner, "A great emptiness — and a gnawing kind of fear — has taken its place"

Yes, it's so true. A great, great emptiness, as when Marie Antoinette looked at her silver breakfast platter and realized there was no more brioche!!

This is the kind hollow, self-absorbed kitsch-angst that ranks the Times as All the News that's Fit for the Litterbox. Has it ever ever occurred to Warner or anyone on the Times that while they "made do" in Manhattan the GREAT EMPTINESS of HUNGER filled the bellies of children from the heart of Africa to the heights of the Andes?

No ... it never occurred to these toney-trendies. It never occurred to the likes of Warner, writing books about the travails of life on the Upper West Side (or was it East?), that some people were being gnawed at by more than fear... that the neoliberal policies of the Times had already taken down millions of the truly poor the globe over.

For them... for those on empty stomachs, sleeping on cold door stoops, schadenfreude is the only satisfaction they have left.

©WCG, 2008
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Palin Bats Eye Lashes in Triumph

The News: The Great Veep Debate was held yesterday evening, billed as "Palin vs. Biden" as if it were some World Federation Wrestling match. When it was over, most of the insta-comment called it a draw, although most of the insta-polls gave it to Biden 65-35 or thereabouts.

The Note: Given that these debates are Non-Substantive Occasions (NSO), Palin clearly won; not simply because she "held her own" without making a complete ass of herself, but because she is a great communicator, a runner up to the Great Ronnie himself.

First off, Palin had culled and organized her bumper stickers. That's more than anyone can say for Bush who simply blabbers sound bites with little regard for consistency and coherence.

Second, Palin's sound-bites resorted to tried and tested clichés that sell-well with the American demos. Bush's sound bites have largely resorted to unfamiliar themes of fear and revenge that most Americans feel vaguely uncomfortable with once the Yeeehaw Moment has passed. Palin reverted to the Golden Granola Morning motifs of the Great Ronnie. To the extent that there was an edge, it was the ol' "... if Govmint caint help it can at least git outta da way..." What can be more American than, "Awwwww Mom... I can do it myself."

Third, Palin "connected" with her audience, with her twinkle eye-lash batting, teasing smiles and little bang-shakes of the head. She came across as "genuine," and "earnest" and -- this is key -- not self-important. In fact, her presence had an aura of self-humour about it that said "this is totally crazy for me to be here, but heck it's fun." Not since Ronnie has anyone been able to connect with the Vast of America in this down home, upbeat way.

I should be clear, that if a woman or a job applicant came on to me the way Palin was coming on to Us Folk, I'd say, "Save your time, honey, save your time." But then again, Ronnie never did much for me either. Hell, I couldn't even sit through Kings Row without reaching for the Bromo.

©WCG, 2008
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The Pig Sings

The News: In her first interview without training wheels, Sarah ("Piglips") Palin demonstrated that she is an ignorant idiot.

Ignoring Georgia's assault on S. Ossetia, Palin, accused Russia of having initiated an "unprovoked" invasion of a smaller democratic country. She asserted she understood U.S. relations with Russia because "they're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska ..."

Palin asserted that US troops in Iraq are "on a task that is from God," although in the same breadth she humbly confessed that she "would never presume to know God's will."

But she would never "second-guess" Israel if it decided to bomb Iran. Presumably she would continue not to second-guess nothing as oil soared past $200.00 a barrel, the dollar's value sank to less than a peanut, and the world (including Alaska) plunged into a depression.

The important thing is "that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on," And that mission is? " "To rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation. "

"It is for no more politics as usual, and somebody's big fat resume that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment"

The Note: Yeahuh... who needs big fat resumes with degrees in stupid shit like international law and relations, economics, political theory, compartive cultural studies, and all that pointy headed librul crap. Hey!!! One pig's squeal is as good as another's.

Sad thing is must Uhmurkans would agree.

©WCG, 2008

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The Power of the Boot

The Note: Counterpunch, remembers how how a member of Bush’s inner circle (Karl Rove?) told the New York Times’ Ron Suskind in summer 2002 the “the reality-based community” had it all wrong, that the world doesn’t “really work anymore” on the basis of “judicious study of discernible reality.” “We’re an empire now,” he boasted, “and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

The Note: This is purely and simply Orwell's "Image of the State in 1984".

©WCG, 2008

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