Friday, November 03, 2006

VOTE!

I held off posting a couple of days to avoid simply venting my outrage at the recent flap over a botched turn of phrase from John Kerry which the GOP, Fox News and every other media news venue (including, shamefully, NPR) spun endlessly this past week. At least when the same tactics were applied against Howard Dean, he was fucking running for office.

Hearing the ceaseless sound bytes of none other than churlish Dick Cheney savoring Kerry's faux pas, after all the blatant lies, misstatements, and outright bullshit he, Rumsfeld, Rice, Snow and Bush (who should be pilloried daily by the press for his ongoing inability to string two coherent words together) on every news venue in the US just goes to show how completely "the media" is in the GOP's pocket, and what a complete lie the "liberal media" myth really is. If that were so, Bush's verbal gymnastics would be daily fodder for ridicule, quite deservedly so. Last week, it was painfully made clear anew via Bush's own stumble-bum rhetoric that he has no idea what the difference between "strategy" and "tactic" might be -- unsurprising from the President who declared open war on a tactic (shame on the US and the rest of the world for even accepting "The War on Terror" as anything grounded in proper English, much less a fundamental grasp of reality).

The desperation is palpable from the Republicans, but what's really fascinating is the corporate media's fumbling coverage of the issues in every arena: the transparency of their own self-interests is betraying some curious divisions and conflicts. It's getting tougher to buy for a nanosecond into Bush's "them Dems are going to raise your taxes!" when it's increasingly evident, day by day, that whoever is in the White House after these jackals cut and run will be paying dearly for Bush's irresponsible, American-economy-depleting abuses (note, for instance, that even as Bush bullishly pushes this line of shit on the campaign trail, his own policies since 2001 ensure that Americans earning $75,000-$500,000 per year will enjoy raised income taxes starting next year, thanks to the alternative minimum tax laws and Bush's championing new tax cuts for the rich while failing to address the consequences of those cuts; Congress failed to address the necessary revamp of alternative tax issues, too).

The race against time isn't just this coming week's election -- it's Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al racing to stay ahead of any consequences for their policies, actions and inactions, hot to accomplish their goals (stated and unstated) before it's time to truly pay the piper for the tax cuts Bush still insists should be made permanent... not to mention the unprovoked pre-emptive war(s), the complete squandering of the budget surplus and ever-mounting deficit, shirking any culpability for the lack of any concerted effort to address the devastation of the Gulf Coast in Katrina's wake, ignoring Korea, Durfur, Global Warming, and other international issues completely, etc. etc. etc..

The toll is steadily rising.

The strategy: leave that hotseat for the next President and administration, and bully them from the sidelines; how long with the American public fall for this shell game?

Ramping up the verbal beatings of whipping horse "candidates" who aren't even candidates (in this case Kerry, a neat companion to the cheapshot end-of-summer attacks on Clinton) and endless homophobia (the 21st Century racism of choice for this pack of dogs and those Americans stupid enough to play along) may be playing in some sectors, but it sure looks like flopsweat to me.
  • As if the whole Foley/Hastert brohaha in't enough, this just surfaced minutes ago (as of my 7 AM posting),
  • adding to the ongoing splitting-at-the-seams fear-based GOP election week mania.

    If you vote based on the Republicans's ongoing fear-mongering, well -- what can I say. Remember Katrina, October's record body count of US GIs in Iraq, and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan (The War That Bush Forgot!), and tell me we're safer and the War is going well.

    Whatever you do, though, however you vote -- VOTE.