revision99

Clearly I have waited too long to post again.

If you doubt this, go back and read the last comment on the previous post, posted by someone called “Enlightenment.” I published my post way back on the 15th of this month, so Enlightenment sure took his/her sweet time to get here. Go ahead and read it. I’ll wait. I think I’ll get some coffee. It will take you that long. Because it’s really long, maybe the longest comment ever on revision99.

Back already? Did you read the whole thing? OK, you don’t really have to read the whole thing. You can get the idea after four or five sentences. For you non-readers, let me summarize: The attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York City and Washington, D.C. were not the work of Islamist terrorists, but rather some combination of United States government, military and (possibly) commercial interests, and the evidence for this is so blatantly obvious that we must all be stupid or blind not to see it.

Frankly, I don’t know how to respond to this. I wouldn’t want to brush the whole tirade off as nonsense. I haven’t trusted the government or politicians in general for decades, so it’s not like these ideas don’t have a bit of traction with me. But what the hell? My instinct is simple: The suggested conspiracy is too complicated, and would have to involve too many people. Certainly “they” could pull off a bombing or a few hijackings, but nobody could keep it secret for five minutes, let alone five years. With hundreds of people involved in the plot, it’s inevitable that somebody would go for his fifteen minutes of fame and spill the inside scoop to Bob Novak, or Bob Woodward, or Bob Scheer, or maybe Bob Seger, and then there it would be, plastered all over the Washington Post, or maybe featured in a song.

In any case, whether the Bush administration was involved in the attacks a lot or a little, or even if they were completely taken by surprise. it’s for sure that there will be no serious look into Enlightenment’s claims until they are out of office, at which point it will have been seven and a half years since the events, and the trail will be pretty cold. Maybe some facts can be uncovered at that time, maybe not. But since I am trying to turn over a new leaf on revision99, and get away from grumbling about politics for a while (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I am biting my virtual tongue and choking back an angry rant, and I’m proud of myself. I hope you are proud of me, too.

I will leave this discussion to you Precious Few, and to you Enlightenment. What happened to us on September 11, who did it, and what – if anything -  is being covered up?

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PS: Food for thought along these lines is available aplenty at Loose Change.

Hey, I’ll bet the Republicans in Congress are glad now they didn’t invoke the “nuclear option.”

You remember — that was when they were holding confirmation hearings on President Bush’s right-wing Supreme Court nominees, Roberts and Alito, and the Democrats, in the minority and with no other choices if they didn’t approve of the nominees, were saying they might filibuster the appointments. The filibuster, for you nonparliamentarians, is a tactic whereby you talk and talk and talk, refusing to end the “debate,” until the other side can’t stand it any more and makes some sort of compromise with you, or just gives up.

The Republicans, who had control of everything in DC at the time, said they would change the rules so they could stop the filibuster, thus not only getting their way, but taking away the only way for a legislative minority to have any influence in government for all time. At first they called this “the nuclear option,” apparently because of it’s potential to scorch the political earth, but then they backed away from that unsavory metaphor and started calling it “the constitutional option.”

Then one day they woke up in the minority.

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So now that the Democrats have won, I am learning to relax a little. I used to be a fun guy. I wrote about possums and persimmons and kinky sex. Six years of a demagogue in the White House and his pre-emptive war and other criminal behavior and his rubber-stamp Congress made me a little cranky. It seemed that the only time I had the energy to post here was when I was pissed off or scared about something the neocons were foisting on us. Most of my blog friends went away, so I know it must not have been all that interesting, but I couldn’t help it.

Look, I know that the Democrats (my side) didn’t win a Great Victory last week. I know that voters were just sick and tired of the war in Iraq, thought it wasn’t working, we weren’t winning, it was costing too much money and too many lives. I know they were just sending a message to Washington that they were dissatisfied.

It was an election the Republicans lost, rather than one the Democrats won.

I’ll take it, but I have no illusions, and the Democrats shouldn’t either, if they know what’s good for them. Now that they have gained a little power and they have a voice, I hope they will take strong and moral positions on the great questions of our time, and show us why they should be given a further mandate in 2008.

I hope they’ll be honest, hard-working, inspirational, effective and worth voting for again. They only have two years, and there is a big mess to clean up, and the Republicans will probably try to block a lot of their efforts, but today, at least, I have hope.

And so, in the spirit of reaching out, and in the hope that some of The Precious Few who used to read here and sometimes even participate will return, I hereby pledge to knock off my tedious and cranky political rants and start having good old bipartisan, meaningless fun.

For as long as I can.

But really, that might be a long time.

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Now, have any of you space travelers seen this really large image of The Colonel? I saw it when I was in orbit the other day, and I had to go around a few more times to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. An 87,500 square foot KFC logo. Gotta get me some o’ that Popcorn Chicken.

It’s November 8, 2006.

I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for six months. I was up late last night watching the amazing election results. The voters returned the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats, and even the Senate might go Democratic. It is widely seen as a repudiation of Bush (and, I’ll add, the whole neocon agenda).

• 8:30 AM — Tom Delay says the Republicans will take it all back in the next election. He sneers at the electorate and predicts the first thing they will notice is a $2,000 higher tax bill.
• 9:06 AM — Rush Limbaugh opens his show quoting Nancy Pelosi: “Now we can return to civility in Washington.” Rush asks “Is this an admission that the Democrats went over the top in this campaign?”
• 9:49 AM — From KFI-AM640 (Fox radio in Los Angeles): Administration officials are saying that Donald Rumsfeld will be stepping down. Limbaugh is exasperated and sputters “Why didn’t they get rid of him last week!?”
• 10:19 AM — George Allen still won’t concede in Virginia. It’s close there, but he hasn’t had the lead for 12 hours, and 99.9% of the precincts have reported. The state will pay for a recount if the margin is less than a half of one percent, which it might be. If Tester wins in Montana (looking likely) it all comes down to Virginia, just like Florida in 2000. I expect Jim Baker and a thousand Republican lawyers will show up down there with about a billion dollars to spend, trying to save the Senate. The recount, by the way, can’t even start until the Commonwealth certifies the results on November 27, so we may be in for three or four more weeks of suspense, unless Allen gets his head out of his ass.
• 10:30 AM — Woops, I’ve been missing The Decider’s press conference. Just turned it on and he was saying he doesn’t think there’s a civil war in Iraq, and that, unlike during Vietnam, these U.S. troops are volunteers, and therefore knew what they were getting into.
• 10:39 AM — Continuing the Republican blame-the-stupid-voters theme, Bush says “I thought the people would understand the importance of security, but I was wrong.” His way of saying “I wasn’t wrong, it was the voters.”
• 11:19 AM — Tester has won in Montana. Democrats need one more state to control both house of Congress. I didn’t even allow myself to hope for this much.
• 11:20 AM — Is it just me, or does the sky seem bluer this morning, and the air fresher?

UPDATE: If you don’t think you’ll be able to make it to your voting place today, read this.

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I’m sure by now the Republicans must be sick of hearing us liberals warning each other about tomorrow’s midterm election:

• Take nothing for granted.
• Don’t let them steal this election, too.
• Vote early and often (just kidding).
• Get paper receipts.
• Videotape the goings-on at the polls.
• These Republicans don’t care about the Republic. They’ll do anything to win – voter fraud, machine hacking, vote suppression, intimidation, lying, SO BE ON GUARD!

We seem to take for granted that chicanery and deception is the only way the morally bankrupt GOP can trick the voters into keeping them in office, and we state as if it is undeniable fact that all they really want is to stay in office, not so they can make the country and the world a better place, but so they can remain bellied up to the public trough for as long as possible, the better to steal all the money and violate all the tender young pages. What a snotty, elitist attitude. It’s gotta piss ‘em off.

To you moderate conservatives who don’t think you fit into this description, or who know you are not guilty of these offenses, where the hell have you been for the past ten years or so? You stood back and let this happen. The neocons looked like they were winners, and you didn’t have the balls to stand up and yell “You don’t speak for me!” You let the extremists set the tone, you rode into (and stayed in) office on their energy, on their dirty tricks, on their nutcase agenda. You let them have the keys to the engine, and now you are riding on a runaway train, desperately holding onto what’s left of your honor and your jobs.

Because the radicals in your party don’t have a plan other than to take the money and run, because they have been hiding this behind their false messages of piety and compassion, the wheels are starting to come off. You have let the wingnuts, with their street-fighting style of political thuggery, create an atmosphere of distrust in the land — distrust going toward flat-out hatred — and now you think you can avoid blame by running away from your president and his brutal henchmen at this, the last possible moment.

It won’t work, because the hatred you have spawned is turning back on you, even though in your hearts you know you don’t deserve it. Maybe you don’t, but you’re going to have to spend a long time earning back the trust you have squandered, and that’s only if the voters in your districts aren’t so disgusted with you that they throw you out with the rest of the hypocrites, liars, cheaters and bums.

To The Precious Few who read this blog, and to all good people who stumble on this: Let’s make today the last day of the neocon darkness that has fallen on the United States and the world. Get out and vote. Vote your hopes, not your fears.
Things are gonna get better, but first let’s stop the bleeding.

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[Thanks to Michael Bains for the link to the Image Chef campaign button fabricator.]

I would personally like to welcome the “Reverend” Ted Haggard over to the dark side.

Some will suggest that covert dalliances with a gay male prostitute by a man who presumes to the leadership of 30 million evangelical Christians and who preaches that homosexuality is a sin could be nothing less than the very pinnacle of hypocrisy, arrogance and hubris. But here at revision99, the Blog of Love and Accceptance, Pastor Ted would be an honored guest, and to heck with the name-calling and the finger-pointing.

Remember when Jimmy Swaggart got caught with a hooker? Man, that was some good television, Jimmy all humble and repentant in his white three-piece suit. “Ah have sinned,” he intoned, and he actually wept. How could you not forgive the guy, no matter how much money you had sent in to the ministry? And hookers! I mean, if women are evil temptresses, hookers must be the shock troops, the painted and perfumed Special Forces. Of course they would target men of God like Brother Jimmy, and use his natural manly impulses against him and all that is holy. And then after he did penance and got absolution he went out and met up with more hookers like, within a year. You just can’t ever turn your back on hookers.

But really, we could have seen that one coming. Jimmy was, after all, cousin to legendary hellraiser Jerry Lee Lewis, who married another cousin when she was just thirteen years old. Just growing up with a guy like Jerry Lee has got to bring you into at least a passing acquaintance with Satan. So Swaggart’s fall from grace was really more like stepping off a steep curb and almost twisting your ankle. Haggard’s fall is shaping up to be much more dramatic, the stuff of tragedy.

Pastor Ted has said that he went to the gay male prostitute for a massage while he was in Denver, but he didn’t have sex with him. But then while he was being massaged, the topic of snorting meth came up, as it will do, and Ted decided “Well, why don’t I buy some meth from this man?” And so he did. But then after he had the meth, he saw that it would be wrong to ingest it, so he changed his mind and threw it away, unused. And did I mention – no sleeping with the massage guy?

Come on Ted. You don’t have to tell these lame stories. No one believes you anyway, and really, we would be so proud to have you join us and embrace our San Francisco values. If you’re gay, or even if you’re just open-minded, you’re all done with the Christian Right. They will be dropping you like a smelly gym sock. We, on the other hand, could use a man like you, with good organizational skills and leadership qualities, not to mention charisma up to here. We on the left are not so judgmental as those rigid old fundamentalists. As for your very important White House connections, I understand it would be hard to give that up, but when you think about it, after this next election, are you really going to want to be bothered with all those Monday morning conference calls?

And Ted: We’re liberals. We have better drugs.

Dave Johnson, writing on the Commonweal Institute Blog,

…has a pretty good thought. You might want to check it out.

How many Americans have ever even heard the positive case made for the underpinnings of our government — democracy and community? When was the last time you heard that one-person-one-vote is better for people than one-dollar-one-vote, or that sticking together and standing up for each other is better for people than the conservative vision of everyone being on their own and in it only for themselves? And what do you think the country could be like if more Americans were exposed to those ideas?

He suggests that conservative claims over recent decades – the “Market” is all-knowing and beneficent, government is inefficient, regulation is bad, etc., etc. – have gone so completely unanswered that we’ve been brainwashed by never hearing a differing point of view. Thus the results of this CNN poll.

I’m personally kind of sick of the greed-is-good gang, and ready to see if we can make a better world.