Lou Quacious

Unseen Outsider Insight....

Friday, July 20, 2007

FUCK VICK

Thursday, July 19, 2007

GOP=Trouble With a Capitol T

As the news of the desertion of two of John McCain’s top advisors came out last week, a sure sign of turbulence inside the campaign, and a new poll pegged the Republican frontrunner as “none of the above,” it becomes increasingly clear the entire GOP field has considerable ground to make up on their way to November ‘08. With donations lagging 50% behind the Democrats and no credible candidate anywhere on the radar one must wonder who the Republicans could possibly choose as their nominee.

John McCain, the insider’s outsider, who said all the right things in 2000, is now too broke and too old to be a plausible candidate. And that’s probably exactly what his campaign manager and chief strategist realized last week, as the second quarter donation numbers became official they jumped ship. He blew his chance in 2000 when the “Straight Talk Express” actually had some momentum, now he seems to sway like a palm in the political and cultural breeze, pandering to whatever crowd he happens to be addressing. He’s a joke; sidling up to the supposed “agents of intolerance”, supporting Bush and his war long after that’s a tenable position, and getting publicly befuddled like everyone’s favorite grandpa; McCain’s just not presidential material anymore. And as much as the GOP is looking for the next Reagan I’d hope they were wary of his one all too Reagan-esque quality and that is his seemingly approaching senility. If you’re voting for McCain you better be a big fan of the Vice President because you may be seeing a lot more of him then you think.

Then there’s Rudy, what can’t you say about Rudy? He or his top level people have been linked recently to cocaine and prostitutes and he’s got deep connections with the mob, that’s a pretty nice trifecta. So is his marital track record for that matter, he’s on wife number three, that ought to play well with Christian right where “family values” is such a big issue. But he’s still the hero of 9/11 right? Well not according to the International Firefighter’s Union which recently started running an ad campaign against him questioning his handling of emergency services during his tenure as mayor. What did he really do on 9/11 that any other mayor wouldn’t have done in the same situation with the same PR team around them? He stood on some rubble with a megaphone and waved some flags. Bravo brave Rudy or should I say “helluva job.” Guiliani’s a crazy New Yorker who probably couldn’t get elected for any public office in his own state, so why is he a viable presidential candidate? The simple answer is he isn’t, the media has enabled his ridiculous notion that he could ever lead this country for too long and it’s really not fair to him or us.

Luckily for the GOP though there’s Mitt Romney; the eminently presidential looking, church going, family man; perfect right? What secrets could this fine man possibly be hiding? Well, for one if the cardinal sin of the 2004 election was flip-flopping then Romney’s in a lot of trouble because the more you look at his record the more you see this guy’s like fish out of water anytime you compare his past positions to his present ones. His next biggest liability however might be secret underwear, that’s right he’s a Mormon, an on the surface seemingly innocuous little blip (hey Kennedy was a Catholic) but the more you look at this strange sect the more you realize it’s more like a weird Masonic cult and less like a legitimate religion. The Mormons in case you weren’t aware are known to wear secret undergarments with magical symbols that supposedly protect them from harm. If it sounds too ridiculous to be true that’s because it is, but it’s all too real, look it up. Another big difference is Mormons unlike Catholics have a history of polygamy and racism as tenets of the faith, neither of which is very popular in mainstream politics these days. As soon as people unfamiliar with this peculiar little cult realize what they are all about Romney should be laughed right out of the limelight, another victim of the media’s unreality.

What about Fred Thompson the dark horse candidate waiting in the wings ready to swoop into the race? He may not be a President but he could play one on TV so he counts. Eight years in the Senate as a distinguished loafer and skirt chaser and a stint on “Law and Order” that’s a pretty good presidential resume, I guess(Reagan and Clinton all rolled into one). A former lobbyist (we all know they’re pretty popular at the moment) and lawyer (another historically well-liked profession) who’s been divorced and is currently married to a woman 25 years his junior (that should go over well with those older conservative voters). Thompson is as fatally flawed as all the rest of them if not more so.

So who’s left? They still need not just a nominee but someone who can compete against the Democratic dream team and Bush’s epically low poll numbers. The only even remotely viable names I see in the Republican bullpen are Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Representative Ron Paul of Texas. Who and who? That’s exactly the problem for Republican’s; the two most promising, rational, and electable candidates have been pushed so far to the fringe no one really knows anything about them. The media is too busy focusing on the celebrity campaigns worrying more about ratings and the bottom line then serious news gathering. But that’s been a problem ever since the news became more of a profit maker than a public service, a big painful side effect of our ever expanding commercialization culture.

If the Democrats can just keep it together they should coast right into the Oval Office but you never know in today’s instantaneous and omnipotent media environment. One little slip and you’re out; just ask George Allen and his buddy “maccaca”. A year ago he was considered a frontrunner for 2008 now he’s politically dead and buried, and we’re still almost 18 months out from the election, so anything goes. But the Democratic bench is deep Obama, Hillary, Edwards even the second tier is strong with Richardson, Biden, and Dodd. Plus there’s still the chance Al Gore will jump in and ride a green wave into the White House. They’ve got enough candidates to run two or three America’s (however many we’ve got these days) and a huge money lead, so if they can’t cobble together a winning ticket out of that field they’ve got bigger problems then even the Republicans.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Idiots in a Bubble

Complacency is the death knell of democracy and so for that matter is incompetence, both of which abound today among the general public and its elected leaders. Sure everyone may say the right thing in the right situation but just because you can teach a dog to sit when prompted doesn’t mean he’s going to actually believe in it. As I watched our esteemed President get choked up the other day recounting an encounter with a wounded vet or grieving widow(does it even matter at this point) who was happy to have done their part to battle the evildoers I was sickened and appalled. I remember rich, stupid, drunken, circle-jerk, frat boys like Bush from college and they were more or less harmless as long as they didn’t have any power. But hand one of these cocksuckers the keys to the kingdom and look out; given any sort of responsibility they will invariably fuck it up, that’s their nature.

And when it comes time to cash in their connections and take some asshole executive job (whether it be the chief one or not) they are perfectly suited because their attitude for years has been “fuck-em all,” especially anyone not in their exclusive little country club of the elite. Now we have the CEO-in-chief running amuck all over the world with either no clue or care for the fucked up state he’s leaving the country and the planet in. As long as he and his cronies come out of the shit storm smelling like roses and freshly printed money who cares? Well the rest of us out here dealing directly with consequences of his ignorant policies that’s who. It’s time for people to publicly stand up and say “fuck you asshole, you’re making the world a shittier place for everyone, stop.” But apathy nation doesn’t really care; as long as American Idol keeps coming on, Nascar keeps driving in circles wasting gas, and WalMart stays well stocked with cheaper and cheaper shit made by slave labor we’ll all keep our heads safely up our own asses. Besides “you can’t fight city hall” anyway right?

Wrong; that’s the big problem with big brother people think he’s invincible when really it’s their fear, ignorance, and passivity that enable him.

First off wake up and stop fearing fear itself like most of you have been doing since 9-11. I know it’s hard you’ve been fed a steady diet of fear-laced propaganda for so long who knows what’s really what anymore. But that’s what this whole “war on terror” is about, trying to fight some great unknown that can never be defeated because there is no tangible enemy, only the paranoia of there being more enemies out there. It’s kind of like a war on monsters under the bed but worse because real people are being killed and maimed. So what have four years of killing gotten us so far? Containment and a handle on the terrorist situation, “fighting them there, so we don’t fight them here”, well what about the doctors in England? Were men like this the intended targets of our “war on terror” or unintended byproducts of a policy of violence and confrontation? Was dealing with a region and a group of people who were already upset with our years of intrusion with an invasion a prudent or even sane move? Probably not, but somebody wanted to be a “war president” and having already perpetrated a bloodless coup to attain office in one country what harm was engaging in a little deception to start an endlessly bloody coup in another? No, all we’ve gotten for our billions and blood is an unbelievably diminished world standing and a more unstable terrorist situation then ever.

People need to open their eyes to the world around them, the United States is not the be all or end all. There are other countries and people and cultures out there and they are all valuable in their own right and for more then the cheap labor we use them for. The reputation of the US is dogshit to most of the world right now, which should be the first clue something is wrong. If we were so right why do most think we are so far off track and don’t give me some jingoistic nonsense about anti-Americanism abroad. After 9-11 there was a chance to unite the world behind our cause, Le Monde declared “We are all Americans”, but instead we took all that goodwill and alienated and isolated ourselves by stupidly declaring “you’re either with us or against us”. The close-minded stance of the cowboy, that “might makes right” attitude doomed us geopolitically and the fact that the American people sat there and let so much wrong be done in their name with nary a peep and then went and reelected the motherfucker to boot makes it even worse. No wonder it’s a hassle to travel as American abroad these days, it probably should be, you should have to explain yourself and the government that you let represent you.

The problem is people just don’t want to get it most of the time. Sometimes if you point it out to them clearly and concisely like how most of their possessions were likely made in sweatshops by virtual slaves who were quite possibly children, there may be a faint passing glimmer of recognition and regret, but no anger at the system they are a part of which is allowing it to occur. And that’s the hitch, that next step past acknowledgement towards action is where people need to move to start having a positive effect. It seems to be dawning on some slowly but surely that the missteps of the past few years have gone beyond politics and foreign policy and have infiltrated their daily lives. They’re shaking off that high fructose apathy as it hits home in the form of disabled vets, stagnant wages, and outright criminal behavior by their elected “leaders”. But we’ve been asleep sheep for too long and I’m afraid it will take a very loud, very dramatic wake-up call to stir anyone to actual action not just talk.

Perfect penance for this motherfucker-in-chief would be if he had to spend his post-presidential years personally explaining himself to loved ones of the over 3000 dead and the thousands of young men disabled in his pointless and gratuitous war. But he’ll just slink off to a ranch somewhere and not care because his attitude is, is that by the time any of this is history and really being judged he’ll have been long since dead or “raptured” whichever the case may be. So what can we do? I say impeach him or indict him, even if he is the lamest of all ducks. That way he knows for sure his legacy is shit.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Independence Day???

Why is it Led Zeppelin is a more American band than any other I can think of?