Saturday, August 20, 2005

On the fucking use of profanity Anyone who reads me regularly knows that I have a potty mouth. I don't have to cuss in my blog. (And, in fact, out in public I don't cuss much at all.) But I use profanity liberally here for at least a few reasons. One, I like the striking contrast between the liberal use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives and well-reasoned arguments (and quotes from Jesus Christ, of course). I call that my "style." Two, I could write in a stuffy, stilted, academic way, but I want people to read me. People like to read profanity, whether they'd ever admit it or not (not entirely unlike how people don't like to admit that they enjoy orgasms -- orgasms). Finally, I like to weed out the idiots, the kind of people who state that I make great points, but my use of the "f" word is so offputting! (I've heard this in e-mails and in comments left on posts. To one woman who left such a comment I curtly replied only, "Fuck you." [She had it coming.]) For the record, I don't want those who bitch and moan about my use of profanity reading me anyfuckingway. If you are one of those people who have a mini-stroke over something as fucking stupid and insignificant as the use of the "f" word but are perfectly OK with such things as stolen elections and bogus wars -- if you are a gnat-strainer -- please, please, please never read me again, because I don't fucking want your readership. I know why the gnat-strainers go agog over profanity: It's because their tiny little brains can't wrap themselves around anything that is significant. They can zero in on the "f" word, however. The United States' huge problems -- which stem from the fact that in late 2000, Americans, fat and lazy from the Clinton Years, didn't seem to think that it really mattered that Al Gore got more than 500,000 more votes than did George W. Bush; the Bush people are screaming louder than are the Gore people, so just let the Bush people have their way, the collective thinking seemed to be -- seem unsolvable. So if someone should use the "f" word while discussing the nation's huge fucking problems, it's easier to just dismiss entirely what the person has said because he or she has used profanity than it is to actually address the substance of what the person has said. This illustrates my point. Reports monkey-wrench-in-the-machine Cindy Sheehan: I got an email the other day and it said, "Cindy, if you didn't use so much profanity... There's people on the fence that get offended." And you know what I said? [I said,] "You know what? You know what, God damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence? "If you fall on the side [of the fence] that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out." Fucking right on. 10:57:50 PM    Comments []

Associated Press photos Anti-Bush-bogus-war-in-Iraq mom Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., hugs Bush supporter Gary Qualls of Temple, Texas, at Camp Casey near Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 13. Qualls and Sheehan lost a 20- and a 24-year-old son respectively in Bush's illegal, immoral, unprovoked and imperialist war on Iraq, yet while Sheehan doesn't want to see any more people die for Halliburton's war profits, Qualls believes that his son died in Iraq for "freedom" and says that he's OK if his 16-year-old son enlists in the military. Qualls today opened what I can only think of Camp Heil Bush in Crawford in order to counter Camp Casey.  Why our anti-war camp is better than their pro-bogus-war camp It's pathetic when the wingnuts try to copy us progressives. Michael Moore's best-selling book Stupid White Men was countered with Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man. Um, yeah... Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," the highest-grossing documentary of all time, was countered with "Michael Moore Hates America" -- um, not in the top 10 highest-grossing documentaries of all time. We progressives always seem to get there first, and the best that the wingnuts can do is respond with juvenile personal attacks (such as "Michael Moore is a big fat stupid white man" and "Michael Moore hates America"). We progressives got there first again with Camp Casey in Crawford Texas, near "President" Bush's Permanent Vacation Ranch. So no wonder that the wingnuts, in response, have established Camp Heil Bush in Crawford. Reports The Associated Press today: CRAWFORD, Texas -- A patriotic [patriotic or jingoistic? Read on and decide for yourself] camp with a "God Bless Our President!" banner sprung up downtown [today], countering the anti-war demonstration started by a fallen soldier's mother two weeks ago near President Bush's ranch. The camp is named "Fort Qualls," in memory of Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Wayne Qualls, 20, who died in Iraq last fall. "If I have to sacrifice my whole family for the sake of our country and world, other countries that want freedom, I'll do that," said the soldier's father, Gary Qualls, a friend of the local business owner who started the pro-Bush camp. He said his 16-year-old son now wants to enlist, and he supports that decision. [They let anyfuckingone have children...] Qualls' frustration with the anti-war demonstrators erupted last week when he removed a cross bearing his son's name that was among hundreds the group had put up along the road to Bush's ranch. Qualls called the protesters' views disrespectful to soldiers, and said he had to yank out two more crosses after protesters kept replacing them. Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, died last year in Iraq, started the anti-war demonstration along the roadside on Aug. 6. "Camp Casey" has since grown to about 100 core participants, and hundreds more from across the nation have visited. Sheehan vowed to remain there until Bush agreed to meet with her or until his monthlong vacation ended, but she flew to Los Angeles [on Thursday] after her 74-year-old mother had a stroke. Her mother has some paralysis but is in good spirits, and if she improves, Sheehan may return to Texas in a few days, some demonstrators said. In her absence, the rest of the group will keep camping out for the unlikely chance to question the president about the war that has claimed the lives of about 1,850 U.S. soldiers. Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan but won't change his schedule to meet with her. She and other families met with Bush about two months after Casey Sheehan died, before she became a vocal opponent of the war. Large counter-protests were held in a ditch near Sheehan's site a week after she arrived, and since then, a few Bush supporters have stood in the sun holding signs for several hours each day. Bill Johnson, a local gift shop owner who created "Fort Qualls," said he wanted to offer a larger, more convenient place for Bush supporters to gather. He and others at "Fort Qualls" have asked for a debate with those at the Crawford Peace House, which is helping Sheehan. It's unclear if that will happen. But a member of Gold Star Families for Peace, co-founded by Sheehan and comprised of relatives of fallen soldiers, said her group would not participate. "We're asking for a meeting with the president, period," said Michelle DeFord, whose 37-year-old son, Sgt. David W. Johnson, was in the Army National Guard from Oregon when he was killed in Iraq last fall. "We don't want to debate with people who don't understand our point of view." I wholeheartedly agree that "debates" between us sane progressives and the wingnuts are unproductive and thus pointless. You can't even call them "debates," because debates are about using facts and logic, and the wingnuts are only and all about defending their Neanderthal point of view, truth and reason be damned. They're like the members of the Taliban -- ignorant/dogmatic, fearful and quick to violence -- only they call themselves "Christians." Same mindset, different dogma. If you think that George W. Bush is a great man and a great president -- if you sacrificed one of yours sons to Halliburton and are willing to sacrifice another of your sons to Halliburton but claim that the sacrifice is for "freedom" -- really, you and I can't have a debate because you're a lost fucking cause. I will never come close to agreeing with you, even if you torture me like we God Bless Americans have tortured innocent Muslims, and you will never agree with me -- because, again, you're a lost fucking cause and you should donate your organs now so that someone else can make better use of them. The only criticism I have of the people at Camp Casey is that they probably should have sought permission from the Gulf War II dead's families before erecting the white crosses bearing the war dead's names -- not because not seeking permission first was some great moral crime, but because they should have foreseen that some flag-waving, Pray-for-Our-Troops-magnet-bearing assbite like Gary Qualls would take issue with his son's name being written on a white cross as part of an anti-war message. I mean, horrors! -- having his dead son's name associated with the promotion of peace! Sacrilege! Jesus wouldn't have it! (Oops, nevermind -- yes, He would...) Anyway, while I've read no account of what Camp Heil Bush is like, I can make an educated guess: At least 90 percent of the people there are white, with only an occasional Condoleezza Rice or Alberto Gonzalez type. Wal-Mart-purchased "patriotic" crap is all over the fucking place; if they could get the U.S. flag on something somehow, they fucking did. (The American flag has been ruined for me since Sept. 11, 2001; when I see it now, it only represents for me the sick and twisted jingoism, nationalism and bellicosity that has gripped the nation since 9/11. It might as well be the Nazi flag, and I am not being flippant when I say that.) Lots and lots of country fucking music. (Garth Brooks' music, you know, will be available only at Wal-Mart.) Occasional talk of Jesus, who you know was pro-war. Jesus Christ was all about killing innocent civilians, including children, and calling it "freedom marching on." At Camp Heil Bush you'll find pretty much the same crowd that we saw at the Repugnican National Convention last year. These people aren't fun to hang out with. They have an absence, a gaping void about them, which is the result of years and years of any independence and individuality and creativity and originality and love and light and spark and spirit systematically having been beaten out of them. They are more like holograms than human beings. The lights are on but no one's home, and I don't think you can even say that the lights are on, because these people are pretty fucking dim. They checked out a long time ago, and now they are just a collection of slogans and symbols and "arguments" that they heard on Rush Limbaugh's show, which they repeat over and over again. Progressives, on the other hand, are a lot more fun. With progressives you can be yourself. You can use the "f" word without drawing gasps. Your skin color doesn't matter. Neither does your gender. It's OK if you're openly gay. You can dress down. No one cares whether or not you go to church, and if so, which church you go to. In his great book Wake Up ... You're Liberal!, Ted Rall nails the difference between progressives and conservatives: When I was first becoming aware of the world around me, around the ages of eight to ten, the Republican Party was epitomized by President Richard Nixon, an unappealing man who looked smug, mean, vicious and scary. Furthermore, when my fourth grade class held a mock presidential election in 1972, all of the kids who spoke up for Nixon were the bullies and morons. [Some things never fucking change...]  Rall writes that in contrast to his mother's Republican friends, his mother's progressive friends cracked funnier jokes, cooked better food, and laughed louder when laughter was called for. Her Republican friends often made more money at their jobs and had bigger homes in nicer neighborhoods, but they were a stiff and stuffy lot; if we accidentally broke something at their houses, they'd make such a big deal about it that we would be afraid to return.... Democrats didn't go crazy because you had deep-sixed a glass. They cleaned up the mess and went on talking as if nothing had happened. That's just one small example of how progressives are, as Rall puts it, "more fun, intellectually curious and more charitable than Republicans," but the devil is in the details -- and the devil is in the Republican Party, which is about killing the spirit, your own and that of those around you. I don't have to go to Camp Heil Bush to know that it would suck the spirit right out of me (well, the "people" there would try to suck the spirit right out of me, anyway), and I don't have to go to Camp Casey to know that I would find it a spiritually nourishing, if a somewhat chaotic*, place. Simply put, progressives rock, while conservatives suck ass. *We progressives tend to be a bit unorganized, but I'd sacrifice organization for the sake of my spirit any day, whereas the Republicans put what they perceive as order far ahead of the human spirit. They're organized, but they are spiritually dead. "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" is a question that Jesus asked (Mark 8:36, Matthew 16:26 and Luke 9:25), but that the Repugnicans never ask themselves. 9:59:04 PM    Comments []

Rage against the media machine I love Arianna Huffington. Not only do I usually agree with every word she writes, but she remains the only national commentator I know of who regularly uses the "f" word, and anyone who regularly uses the "f" word in political commentary is a genius in my book. Arianna posted this yesterday on her Web site, The Huffington Post: As Gary Hart points out, there is indeed a rich history of protest in America. From our Founding Fathers to abolitionists to suffragettes to labor strikers to civil rights marchers, protesters have repeatedly challenged the status quo and changed our society for the better. So why are the mainstream media having such a hard time covering Cindy Sheehan? It's as if the simple, direct, and starkly emotional nature of her stance is too raw for them to handle in any of the standard ways. So they've taken to treating her with a strange mix of detachment, condescension, distortion, and aggression. Paula Zahn referred to her as "this woman." Edmund Morris alluded to her in The New York Times as an "emotional predator." And Dana Milbank wanted to "determine, once and for all, whether Cindy Sheehan is Rosa Parks or Lyndon Larouche." It's one thing for the O'Reillys and the Limbaughs to spew anti-Cindy venom. The problem arises when, under the pretense of offering both sides, MSM figures regurgitate the GOP attack machine's most contemptible hits ("she's a puppet," "she's anti-Israel," "her own family is against her") as if there are always two legitimate sides to every story. I wonder if the civil rights protests were happening today, who at the cable shows would feel compelled to give equal time to the John Birch Society? And what to make of the attempt to paint the nascent anti-war movement as a "special interest group." Leaving aside the fact that Sheehan is clearly nobody's pawn and has been raising her voice in protest long before Fenton and MoveOn and Ben Cohen arrived on the scene to lend their support, the use of the term "special interest" is blatantly misleading. Thinking that the war is a lousy idea -- as a majority of Americans now do -- does not qualify one as a "special interest group." So you can imagine what a pleasure it was watching Keith Olbermann this week, who, instead of offering a "balanced," "on the one hand, on the other hand" look at Sheehan, named Limbaugh "today's worst person in the world" for his despicable Sheehan attack, saying "I guess the painkillers wipe out your memory along with your ethics." And it's about time we put an end to the absurd double standard wherein a private citizen, staging a courageous and selfless protest, has every word she's ever uttered dug up and scrutinized more closely than some residual DNA on CSI while public officials making life and death decisions are allowed to say the most ludicrous things without being held accountable. So Cindy might have used the "f-word" when talking about the administration that sent her son to die in Iraq. Big fucking deal. Is it really worthy of a banner headline on Drudge or cackley chatter on right-wing blogs? Certainly not while Don Rumsfeld's ludicrous comparisons between Japanese kamikaze pilots and Iraqi insurgents go unchallenged. It's truly amazing: The MSM want to hold Sheehan's feet to the fire on statements she's denied making about Israel while allowing Dick "last throes" Cheney, Condi "mushroom cloud" Rice, George "slam dunk" Tenet, Alberto "quaint" Gonzalez, and George "Mission Accomplished" Bush a free pass. Now that Sheehan has had to interrupt her vigil due to her mother's stroke, the media should take the opportunity to look in the mirror and reassess their handling of her story. Because while Sheehan's Crawford protest has been interrupted, the public's outcry against the president's war in Iraq has only just begun. "MSM," I take it, means "mainstream media." I would add this to what Arianna says about the MSM: The MSM doesn't want to cover Cindy Sheehan's war against George W. Bush's war -- or cover Cindy's war adequately -- because this is the same MSM that promoted the fucking bogus war in the first place. I remember the MSM's coverage of the Bush regime's March 2003 invasion of Iraq clearly because it is that coverage that prompted me to stop watching the mainstream television network "news." (I get the vast majority of my news via the Internet now; about the only mainstream media that I trust are The Associated Press and Reuters.) The MSM treated the March 2003 invasion like it was a fucking video game or a sports event. Journalistic standards, such as asking the tough, pertinent questions (such as "Why?"); holding government officials to strict account; objecfuckingtivity; and getting both sides of the story went out the fucking window as "embedded" "reporters" talked about how cool they found all of the American war machine's state-of-the-art, high-tech gadgets -- paid for by the billions of U.S. taxpayers' dollars that aren't going to things like health care, education and environmental preservation and conservation, but are lining the pockets of war-profiteering corporations, like Dick Cheney's Halliburton. The MSM didn't question why we were bombing Iraq, whether it was justified, whether it was moral. No, the MSM only commented on how accurate U.S. missiles supposedly are and delivered us, Hollywood-style, live coverage of the U.S. war machine's leveling of Baghdad like it was a fucking Hollywood summer blockbuster (no one really dies in the movies). "Shock and Awe" was a rated-PG Hollywood blockbuster, however, because the MSM never showed us the dead and maimed Iraqi children who were on the receiving end of those U.S. missiles. (Sensitivity, you know.) So no fucking duh that the MSM aren't exactly giddy to cover Cindy Sheehan, the monkey wrench in the mainstream media machine: As the dutiful purveyors of the Bush regime's relentless propaganda, they were -- and remain -- an integral part of the U.S. war crimes against Iraq of which Cindy so annoyingly reminds us Americans we are collectively guilty. Even the dullest Bush supporters know, deep down, that Gulf War II was a BFM (big fucking mistake). The more cheesy jingoistic magnets we see on their SUVs, the more we know that they know they're dead fucking wrong. Because they don't have truth on their side, they can only answer with more cheesy, made-in-China "patriotic" symbols that they buy at Wal-Mart. There is a reason that, as Arianna points out in her column above, the members of the Bush cabal, entrusted with maintaining the United States of America's greatest good, can get away with just about fucking anything -- including the atrocities that U.S. military personnel have committed against innocent Muslims, Nazi-style, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere -- whereas private citizens like Cindy Sheehan are pilloried for any perceived transgression, no matter how small*: Because Cindy is an American who has bravely stood up against the ignorance- and fear-based Matrix that the Bush regime created and that has kept a huge chunk of Americans in a stupor for the past four and half years. You're not supposed to stand up to the Matrix. It makes the sheeple who make the Matrix possible uncomfortable, and Americans won't be made to feel uncomfortable, damn it (discomfort is something that the United States only imposes on other nations). Seeing someone courageously standing up against the Republican mindfuck that has enthralled the nation since the Bush regime stole power in late 2000 reminds the sheeple of what worthless pieces of shit they are, what fucking cowards they are, how mentally lazy they are, how blindly obedient, bleating asswipes like they are made Hitler's rise and his regime's atrocities possible. We Americans, the wingnuts believe, are all supposed to fucking pretend that George W. Bush is a great, moral, Christian man who really cares about anything other than his war-profiteering frat buds' war profits. We're all supposed to fucking pretend that nothing that the United States does -- including slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians, as it has done in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, while insanely hypocritically calling such slaughter fighting a "war on terror" -- possibly could be wrong. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Let the Bush cabal lead the sheeple to their slaughter. They deserve it and their elimination would be good for the gene pool, which they contaminate. But the rest of us Americans aren't lemmings and we don't want to and we don't have to jump off the cliff that the Bush regime is driving us toward. So, UNITED WE STAND -- with Cindy Sheehan. Put that on your fucking SUV. *While about half of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, the wingnuts tried to make a big deal out of the fact that Cindy is in the middle of a divorce; clearly, the wingnuts are fucking desperate. 8:30:58 PM    Comments []

A possible RVS exclusive! Cindy Sheehan to return to Crawford as early as today OK, admittedly, I just wanted to feel like Matt Drudge for a moment (except, of course, that he's a closeted* right-wing assbite who lies and distorts for a living, whereas I'm an openly gay man who is sane and who doesn't make a penny for conscientiously telling the truth). I got an e-mail yesterday from an associate of mine, fellow Sacramentan Karen Bernal, who is volunteering with Cindy Sheehan's anti-Gulf War II effort near "President" Bush's vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas, and it contains news that I've yet to see widely reported elsewhere: First, Cindy and Dede’s mom is okay, considering she had a stroke -- it was not life-threatening. Dede (Cindy’s sister) will stay with her from here on out, and Cindy should be back by tomorrow. There’s no such thing as good timing when it comes to something like that, but this weekend is particularly trying because they are trying to move the encampment at the site to the plot of land that a lone sympathetic rancher has so kindly allowed the vigil keepers to stay on. In addition, Amy Goodman just got here last night, in addition to an Air America [Radio] affiliate from San Diego. There are celebrities scheduled to arrive here this weekend besides Lance Armstrong; unfortunately, I am not at liberty to say who they are. Because Crawford is so small, it has been a real struggle to be able to handle the influx of people coming to the [Crawford] Peace House and Camp Casey from a logistical point of view, so advertising who may show up is not being pushed right now.... In her e-mail Karen writes that she was made the Crawford Peace House volunteer coordinator, so I consider her a reliable source of information. (Besides the fact that I know her and have known her only to be 100 percent truthful, and I admire her quite a lot. She is one of the leaders of Sacramento for Democracy, Sacramento's chapter of Democracy for America, and I wish that I had a fraction of her drive and her leadership abilities. She's amazing, and I'm not easily amazed. She does all that she does with a little girl to raise, too. I certainly hope she doesn't mind my writing about her...) Here is what Cindy herself posted yesterday on her blog on Sacramento for Democracy's Web site: I spent a majority of the day in the hospital with my mom. She seems to be getting stronger by the minute, thanks to all the prayers and well-wishes from the world. I am so grateful for all of the love and support we are getting right now. My mom is still in ICU and I don't know if she will ever be able to come home, but I know she knows we are there and we even made her laugh a couple of times today even though she can't speak. I hear things are going great at Camp Casey and more Gold Star Families for Peace members are arriving every day. They want to say, "We want to speak to the president, too. He killed our sons, brothers, and dads, too. We are tired of being disrespected and lied to. We deserve the truth and we deserve respect." Something George Bush, et. al. refuse to acknowledge is that he works for us. He is our employee. Did we forget that too, as a nation? I think we did, but I think we are waking up and remembering that we have the power. We are the government. We have everything it takes to make change possible. I used to have doubts about 2006 and the progressives' chances of taking over at least one branch of our government, but now I think it is so possible. We will kick some fat booty in 2006 and we will change America for the better. We can do it!!! What started in Crawford on August 6th is an amazing testament to the American people. I knew we had it in us. I knew we could do it. I had faith in us, and my faith was rewarded. Thank you all for your prayers, phone calls, and emails. With the love of my family, friends, Camp Casey and you all, I will be back soon. I agree -- the Republicans are going to lose the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006 by such margins that any probable attempts of theirs to tinker with the electronic voting machines will be blatantly obvious from the difference between the polls and the officially stated election results. *Openly gay right-wing-operative-turned left-wing operative David Brock wrote in his autobiographical Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-conservative that he once had a man-date with Drudge, which, I understand, Drudge denies. I believe Brock.* *Disclaimer: I do think that David Brock is pretty hot. 9:44:16 AM    Comments []