Whiskey Fire

Dear 2006, I Have Some Propaganda I Would Like To Return

by va

Excuse me! I am relatively new to the intricacies of Israel and Palastine and such warrings and in fact I still get confused with the notation "I/P" (Internet Protocol? Iambic Pentameter? International Proletariat? Ah, Israel/Palestine). But might someone please tell me what Hamas has to do with Iran? For example, I am seeing douchebag's douchebag Michael Ledeen gushing about a piece in The Atlantic by douchebag's douchebag's douchebag Robert Kaplan where he sez "Israel’s attack on Gaza is, in effect, an attack on Iran’s empire, the first since its offensive on Iranian-backed Hezbollah in 2006." Um, pardon? Of all the people on whom it has been suggested Israel pawn off Gaza, Iran has not been one of them, ever, nicht wahr? And then of course there's Kristol, who said yesterday, "If Israel had yielded to Hamas and refrained from using force to stop terror attacks, it would have been a victory for Iran." And why is that? "The Iranian regime would be emboldened, and less susceptible to the pressure from the Obama administration to stop its nuclear program." Crazy! Crazy, over here, on its face! Crazy propaganda cleanup in aisle 4!

You crazy fucks! When did Iran ever have anything to do with anything? Unless perhaps it was 2006, when Dick Cheney decided that Israel's assault on southern Lebanon was going to provide a blueprint for a U.S. attack on Iran. In which case, for a whole new host of reasons, Kristol and Ledeen and Kaplan are fucking nutters! It is not 2006! We are not going to bomb Iran! Jesusy Christy Christ! Perhaps you jokers might consider crawling into the Cave of Circle Jerks and insane each other to oblivion!

Last Wishes, Xmas Edition

by va

Dear Santa,

I've been piecing together evidence of a vast right-wing conspiracy against you! This has required painstaking reading of conservative venues for upwards of 15 minutes. The strategy is two-pronged: they're waging a PR battle, saying things like, we need to save Xmas from atheists! and, We'll start a Civil Fucking War if we can't have Jesus everywhere? And the other prong is basically to huff and puff and melt your place down with Global Warming. And then to drill the very fuck out of it! Take for example the President of the Chevron, David O'Reilly (no relation to Bill?) who just last June told Larry King,

Well, nobody's really finding oil at the North Pole

which you might feel to be a great relief, given that Larry King's question was "What about drilling at the North Pole? Cheaper to drill there?" until you see just with what word David O'Reilly concluded that nefarious sentence, which in point of fact is

YET.

Santa, you are FUCKED dude! It's pretty obvious that Chevron has infiltrated your workshop with elfin spies who are sneaking off to look for oil when they should be making those horrible Hess trucks. Basically you've been totally disappeared from the public consciousness with all this horseshit about Xmas being about Jesus and Mary and wise men and some camels and asses and other irrelevant personages (St. Joseph, e.g.), so no one will notice when you drown in the icy arctic waters. Thus your remains may turn into fossil fuel in the next million years; thus future Big Oil can drill you up and pump you into the gas tank of a CEO in the future United Megachurches of Amerikkka to power a piston-burst or two while he drives his SUV from the local gun shop to the bedroom of a suspiciously under-reproductive couple where said CEO will carry out his mission to ensure that no coitus is to be interrupted! Fuck! I'm not such a big fan of this Xmas mortivity scene!

***

This is all by way of saying that this year, my Xmas wish list has a certain urgency. I write to you tonight, looking out my window on the city's jagged silhouette of church spires and apartment buildings and smokestacks billowing smoke in the frigid wind, across the dark night sky, under which reside all the good citizens who love and breathe and grieve and dream, to make some final requests on our behalves before the True and Good Spirit of Xmas vanishes from this busy Earth forever. FOREVER! It's "below the fold." My wish list is.

The Politics of HOPE

by va

Two thoughts, if I may, about the story of Zeituni Onyango, Obama's aunt.

1) It took an illegally disseminated Republican smear for the media to talk about impoverished people & how they're dealt with administratively. Her story is sympathetic, and if I was the Obama campaign, I wouldn't push back too hard on it.

2) It seemed weird to me that the pictures the media were using of Zeituni's building made it look like a serene collegiate dorm.

Turns out this development was renovated pretty recently under the HOPE VI program, which is in place to renovate distressed public housing. (Or, per Wikipedia, "to revitalize the absolute worst public housing projects into mixed-income developments.") It has been controversial; the program integrates people with varied income levels into the same space but at the cost of low-income units. Seems to me like a good project that's seen iffy execution. Naturally, Republicans don't like it. Indeed, Bush's infamous 2004 budget "proposed to eliminate the Hope VI program."

The completely unsurprising conclusion? As the Bush administration jacked up military and security spending, it wanted to fuck people like Zeituni.

Third Thought: The Obama campaign's response that "all laws should be followed" is just about inhuman. Jesus.

Added thought by Thers: The information on Obama's aunt may have been revealed illegally, but it was revealed for purely patriotic reasons. Now, looking up Joe the Plumber's records, that, my friends, is fascism. Which is not to say that looking up Mr Wurzlefluffel's records was kosher; it wasn't. But he's also not threatened with getting deported. And he's not nearly so scary and well-connected as this old woman who, as Michelle Malkin helpfully points out, WAS BREAKING THE LAW and IS PROBABLY A TERRORIST:

As I’ve pointed out countless times since 9/11, systemic immigration loopholes and deportation failures that have benefited peaceful illegal aliens have also benefited illegal aliens with nefarious intent....

And lucky for Aunti, anyone who thinks she should face the music and get the boot is considered a “hater” and a “xenophobe” and a RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACIST.

It really is awful how people like Michelle Malkin could ever be called "haters." That's the real crime here.