Mark Drolette

Even two boots is two too many

The Eyes Wide Open exhibition, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, came to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento recently. I live right across the street, so it took me about three minutes to walk to the traveling presentation on a gorgeous California spring day.

Over 1500 pairs of combat boots were arrayed on the lawn, symbolizing the number of reported U.S. military dead in Iraq. Some of the footgear belonged to the deceased; the rest was donated by a surplus store. An adjacent grassy area held about 1,000 pairs of neatly-arranged shoes, a memorial to the estimated 100,000-plus Iraqi citizens killed since America, unprovoked, attacked their country.

As people quietly wandered through the display, many pausing to read the occasional newspaper article or note accompanying a pair of boots, the names and ages of the dead, soldiers and civilians alike, were read aloud by volunteers one by one, each name punctuated at reading’s end by a woman dinging a chime. One by one, that is, except for the periodic Iraqi appellation followed by “and 29 family members, ages unknown” or some similar ghastly number.

And quietly, that is, except for the woman who was obviously upset, spending several minutes loudly telling another attendee and anyone else within earshot that her loved one was in Iraq defending our freedom. I chose not to wander closer; her views were clear. Since I couldn’t disagree with them more, I erred on discretion’s side.

No doubt she feels genuine distress over the danger her family member faces; everyone present at that moment stood amidst numerous reminders of that too-real peril. But no matter how strongly she argues, the hard truth remains: this war is a disastrous, barbaric sham, and her relative’s life is on the line solely to sate the power and greed addictions of the fascists who now control America.

As I walked about, I was struck with an unsettling thought: the boots appeared to be covering a much smaller area than I’d imagined they would. As shame coursed through my brain, I cursed the man without one, George W. Bush, and his crooked clutch of capos, for further despoiling America’s soul and thus, my own.

Was what I had feared might happen, finally happening? Was I somehow becoming inured to the slaughter, despite my hyper-vigilance against just such an occurrence?

Certainly, it’s easier, consciously or not, to shunt aside thoughts of war’s rank atrocity when bombs aren’t smashing through the roof or one’s family is not being raked with .50 caliber body-pulverizing rounds, no matter how staunchly one opposes the fiasco that is Iraq. And, of course, there are also millions of Americans who either support the war or couldn’t care less about its consequences, and for whom it appears second nature to give none of it a second thought (if even a first), a disgustingly monumental non-effort that has all along been enthusiastically abetted by criminally complicit corporate media.

Donning the blinders of contempt or disinterest carries far greater risk than merely being labeled xenophobically compassionless, however. Citizens who condone their rulers’ continuous manifested bloodlust also play Russian roulette on the grandest, gravest scale imaginable.

The Captive Mind (1953) was the first book from the late, brilliant Czeslaw Milosz to be published in the United States. Its section entitled “American Ignorance of War” carries a warning for Americans about “life” in a war-torn, occupied country, a message as germane today as it was five decades ago:

“Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural…His first stroll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the ‘naturalness’ of his world…[H]e stops before a house split in half by a bomb, the privacy of people’s homes -- the family smells, the warmth of the beehive life, the furniture preserving the memory of loves and hatreds -- cut open to public view…His walk takes him past a little boy poking a stick into a heap of smoking ruins and whistling a song about the great leader who will preserve the nation against all enemies…

“He finds he acquires new habits quickly. Once, had he stumbled upon a corpse on the street, he would have called the police…Now he knows he must avoid the dark body lying in the gutter, and refrain from asking unnecessary questions. The man who fired the gun must have had his reasons; he might well have been executing an Underground sentence.

“Since these conditions last for years, everyone gradually comes to look upon the city as a jungle, and upon the fate of twentieth-century man as identical with that of a caveman living in the midst of powerful monsters…

“The nearness of death destroys shame. Men and women change as soon as they know that the date of their execution has been fixed by a fat little man with shiny boots and a riding crop. They copulate in public, on the small bit of ground surrounded by barbed wire -- their last home on earth…

“The man of the East cannot take Americans seriously because they have never undergone the experiences that teach men how relative their judgments and thinking habits are…Because [Americans] were born and raised in a given social order and in a given system of values, they believe that any other order must be ‘unnatural’…But even they may one day know fire, hunger, and the sword. In all probability this is what will occur; for it is hard to believe that when one half of the world is living through terrible disasters, the other half can continue a nineteenth-century mode of life, learning about the distress of its distant fellow men only from movies and newspapers…”

Milosz writes from brutal experience: he fought in the Polish resistance during World War II and defected to France from Stalin’s Poland in 1951. His two-alarm message of war’s hell and the amazing ease with which humans slide into accepting that which before seemed unimaginable would be well-heeded by anyone living under a regime that, let’s say, has demonstrated zero compunctions about invading and occupying a foreign land and killing thousands in the process to help ensure the future of unfettered crony capitalism.

Admittedly, there’s a tremendous difference between being underwhelmed by a combat memorial and scurrying past bodies lying in cratered streets. But the two are not unrelated, either. The terror-mongering warmakers seek to make the unacceptable, acceptable, to gradually erode the home populace’s resistance to behavior that would normally, or “naturally,” be untenable. This primary aim of the Bushies underlies their incessant blathering about the “war on terrorism,” as they remind us ad nauseam to beware of the terrorists who lurk everywhere, thereby securing sufficient cover through trumped-up fear to continue their vile imperialism unchallenged.

What, though, comes without price? Whether one believes in karma, percentages, or plain old-fashioned retribution, our government’s grim assault on both humans and humanity increases the possibility daily that, at some point, America itself will endure a hellishness guaranteed to make believers of even the most skeptical of Milosz’s counsel.

Pointless political parlor game, American-style

For over two centuries now, a favorite pastime in which Americans have partaken shortly after each presidential election has been to predict the major political parties’ standard bearers for the next quadrennial go-round. The current version is already underway, but because, as you know, our presidents these days are pre-determined, it’s done now purely for nostalgia’s sake.

No matter. Detailed below are my best guesses as to who will next occupy the White House come January 2009, but only, of course, after Americans have first dutifully engaged in a tradition now rendered quaint (like some Geneva Conventions): “voting,” a feel-good process consisting of utilizing inactive screens on electronic boxes that has no actual bearing on who is eventually declared president or king or whatever it’s called by then.

The astute observer will notice my leading picks are all members of the Bush family:

The twins: Having both Jenna and Barbara Bush as co-presidents is actually a stroke of genius. (This is likely the only time, by the way, that both “genius” and “Bush” will ever inhabit the same sentence, so capture it in your mind’s eye.) Because the odds are high against both being in rehab or jail at the same time, one of them is bound to be available for, like, ceremonies and stuff while the other is busy drying/bailing out. While it’s true that having two twenty-something Americans serving as co-commanderettes-in-chief is illegal on at least a couple of different levels, anyone who has paid attention to how their father ruins, er, runs, the country knows he’s never let little things like legalities get in the way.

Besides, who couldn’t look forward to a giggling Inauguration Day speech full of lame hamster jokes and festivities afterwards sure to include fake ID parties and all night keggers?

Laura: I think it’s interesting how certain factions could excoriate John Kerry last year for killing an enemy solider during wartime, yet any discussion of a 17-year-old Laura Welch (the future Mrs. Dubya) blowing a stop sign one clear night on a Texas country road and snuffing out the life of an innocent classmate driving the car she broadsided is somehow off-limits.

Ah, those hypocritical Republicans: gotta revile ‘em. Had a young Teresa Heinz Kerry knocked off a fellow teen in a tragic lawn bowling accident, you can bet Karl Rove would have played it to the dirty hilt. The whole world knows Rove would sell his own mother out for political gain -- if he had one, that is (fungi don’t really have parents).

Subhuman ad hominem homily: Is it just me, or does Laura look, well, slightly reptilian? I don’t think it’s so much her third eyelids or the scales covering her entire body (a good make-up man is worth his weight in gold), but you know how when during the Barbara Walters interview in January Laura suddenly shot out that two-foot long forked tongue and slurped up a fly in mid-air like it was nobody’s business? That right there was what got me to questioning her exact species. I figured Walters would at least ask her about it, but Babwa herself was busy right then biting off the head of a small rodent. That was one weird interview.

‘Course, my recollection could be off a bit.

What does any of this have to do with anyone becoming president? Not a damn thing. But since the ballots we all cast last November had the same relevance, I guess it’s a draw.

Neil: Don’t laugh. People chuckled at the thought of Dubya being elected president, too,
and even though he never has been, we all daily feel the brunt of that sick joke.

The common wisdom is that Neil’s possible political career was shot down before it began just because he was a central player in a $1.3 billion savings and loan scandal in the late 80s. (To prove it wasn’t a fluke, he became integrally involved a short while later with a company [Apex Energy] that also tanked after he invested only three grand of his own dough against a Small Business Administration-guaranteed loan of $2 million.)

I say folks have Neil all wrong: what better experience could you want in a thief executive than bilking American taxpayers out of Big Money? Compared to sibling George, though, Neil’s just getting his feet wet and fingers sticky, and probably could still benefit from participating in another major con job or two of ripping off federal funds before becoming qualified enough to follow in his brother’s goose steps.

Finally, with Neil as Current Unquestioned Ruler, or CUR (“president” just seems so, well, passé -- sorta like our democracy), just think how much fun it would be concocting silly phrases like “Heil, Neil!” or “Kneel, knave, it’s Neil.”

On second thought, perhaps not so much.

Rose: Third on the left as you enter the White House Rose Garden, many observers have noted this plant possesses a quiet yet resolute calmness during all matters, no matter how thorny. It is this steadfast demeanor, many believe, that gives it an inside edge among all 2008 botanical presidential candidates, because, as has been noted many times, “People want a president who isn’t wishy-washy.” (Although, technically, in this case, it would be “a president that isn’t wishy-washy,” ‘cause a shrub isn’t a “who,” it’s an “it”; you know, like Dubya.)

Another plus: Extensive testing has shown this bush registers an I.Q. exactly equivalent to that held by our indumbent. (Disclaimer: A high source -- check that, a highly placed source -- tells me the numbers were fudged a bit to reduce the plant’s final score to preclude undue embarrassment for its gray and green coloring matter-deficient kin. Rumor also says GOP operatives have promised the bush unlimited mulch and soothing monthly de-aphiding baths [March through September only] as long as it keeps mum, even though it hasn’t any mums, only roses.)

Prescott: Some are bound to quibble with appointing a deceased person as president, undoubtedly citing things like constitutional restrictions and a sure unyielding stench emanating from the Oval Office, but I daresay such pifflings thus far have not impeded Prescott’s granddemon, er, grandson, from doing his job of doing a job on America.

Daddy Bush’s daddy obviously possessed a pair of grosse Hoden (and I don’t mean that in a good way). The term’s Spanish equivalent, cajones grandes, may be more familiar to most folks, but the Germanic verbiage is quite appropriate given certain business dealings the former U.S. senator from Connecticut (1952-63) conducted during World War II.

Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell of The Guardian write in September 2004:

“…[recently declassified] documents…show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, [Prescott Bush] worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty” and

“…the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade…Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.”

Just what is it about these Skull and Bones guys, anyway, (yes, Prescott was one) that is just so, well, creepy? What depraved, can-never-see-the-light-of-day acts do the super duper secret society members commit as pledges, of which incriminating photos must surely exist, that they will do anything, including destroy America or even refuse to properly speak English, before breaking the dark bonds of their mysterious order?

Plunder graves? Fornicate in a most despicable manner? Dance the Macarena? (Regarding this last item, the most vile of the three, by far: Anyone who’s seen photos taken at a wedding reception a few years back of a certain individual seemingly merrily engaging in this cultural abomination, that is not me, OK? And I do so know my left hip from my right, thank you very much.)

It’s obvious that America’s current surplus Bush crop comes by its duplicity quite naturally. It’s all in the genes, which certainly is the most convincing argument I can think of for banning both cloning and genetically modified fools.

Barbara: Despite her discombobulating ultra-white hair (reminiscent of the terrifying mythological creatures, las monstruas del pelo blanco, particularly feared for their dreadful penchant for bearing evil, muddleheaded spawn), how can a woman who otherwise looks so motherly saddle the world with offspring like George, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Dorothy, and Toto, too? This sad record of production is almost as abysmal as that of my beloved/hated San Francisco Giants’ grand total of world championships (zero) since I’ve been alive.

Almost.

Yet, according to Al Franken in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, ol’ Barb is plenty protective of her purloining progeny for whom probity is a proven problem. He relates how he and Barbara crossed swords shortly after crossing paths, leaving her, um, kinda cross.

Sharing the same first class section with the third-class former first lady during a flight in January 2000, Franken, naively thinking Barbara was human, made a couple of innocuous jokes about Dubya, one of them implying he wouldn’t be president-elect come November. (Franken was under the same naïve impression then as most of us: that elections actually were.) She was not pleased, however, and by the end of the journey had haughtily dismissed Franken by decreeing no fewer than six times, “I’m through with you,” but not before also telling him she has five children and is “proud of every one of them.”

Now, unless Barbara has a super-secret stash of five other kids somewhere (is she in Skull and Bones, too?), we know exactly of whom she speaks. And she’s proud of them? Anyway, Franken recounts that when he later was at a Bat Mitzvah attended by “Washington insiders, Democrats and Republicans alike,” he discovered the “universal” opinion of these folks: Barbara Bush is a stone “bitch.” For Franken, the most enlightening “insight came from everyone who knew the Bushes. They all agreed. ‘Dubya is her son.’ He’s mean.”

This is why Queen Barbara would make the perfect president for today’s America: she’s mega-mean, has a sense of entitlement beyond belief (a necessity, really, with our new political system of royalist fascism), and is sans any shame that would hinder her ability to continue pursuing the utter dismantling of American democracy already moved along quite well by her louse of a spouse and crude brood.

So there you have my top candidates for who will next sit upon the throne and, in grand
(theft) Bush family tradition, use America as their/her/his/its personal piñata stuffed with tax dollars and cannon fodder to use for personal consumption and impersonal destruction.

An admission: It truly matters not, though, whether any of the above or another member of the tragically ubiquitous Bushes secures the next presidential ‘ppointment since Dick Cheney, from his permanent undisclosed location, will still be in charge anyway, a situation likely to continue even well after his death (if it hasn’t occurred already), since an aura that evil is destined to linger for some time.

Still, now that the Constitution is no longer viable and the time many of us spent trying to defend it is now just so many empty hours, what better way to pass it than by playing a spirited round of “Pick the President”?

Just remember: If you take the Karl Rove or Supreme Court token, you’ll want to take a long shower afterward, too.

U.S. human rights record (flayed in China)

Remember when communists used to be our mortal enemies? Now, apparently they’re our mortal friends, ‘cause if weren’t for reds, particularly those of a Chinese bent, we’d be hard-pressed to find anyone else to regularly buy ever-riskier U.S. Treasury bonds to enable our continued borrowing of over $1 billion a day to throw away on Iraq, make our aristocrats even more aristocratic, and prop up a ridiculously unsustainable lifestyle fostered by an infantile belief that we possess a birthright to unrelentingly consume the world’s resources like the compulsive, spiritually empty, wasteful automatons that we are but it still don’t matter, dammit, ‘cause, you know, we’re, like, Americans.

Plus, without our good Chinese friends and their blessed abundance of forced labor, not only would I not have been able to purchase about 95% of the goods I needed for my new apartment (precipitated by impending Divorce Number Three; I plead guilty without an explanation), but the U.S. would also be sans its new moral compass. You see, China recently issued a report excoriating America for its human rights record.

Yes, that China.

There once was a time when the image of China, arguably the planet’s most oppressive regime, issuing an assessment criticizing anyone for human rights violations would have been laughingly dismissed out-of-hand. Even by the Chinese. In fact, such a report would have undoubtedly been written in symbols even more squiggly than the ones that comprise the normal Chinese alphabet because of the unsteady penmanship caused by members of the Running Imperialist Dogs Report and Silly Committee Title Composition Committee giggling uncontrollably over the wholly absurd idea of the pot (stickers) calling the kettle black.

No longer. Given America’s current dubious behavior under the devious George W. Bush, we are presented yet again with another example of a once-unthinkable occurrence now manifesting itself, sort of like how Americans just assumed for so many years they’d never have presidents who weren’t elected.

The Chinese report, according to Peter Edidin of the New York Times, is entitled “The Human Rights Record of the United States” and is China’s response to the “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” (CRHRP) produced yearly by the U.S. State Department. Edidin says “China’s assessment…is a frank indictment and draws a picture of America that approaches caricature.”

Hmm. With due respect to Edidin, I suggest, dear readers, we proclaim “Fox that!” and then do this: I report, you decide. The following quotes (with errors and terminology intact) are directly from the Chinese report as reported by reporter Peter:

“The United States claims to be a ‘paragon of democracy,’ but American democracy is manipulated by the rich and malpractices are common.”

I concede the Chinese stretch things a bit here: For one thing, I’ve never, ever heard anyone call the U.S. a “paragon” of democracy, but that isn’t really what bothers me. I’m referring to the “democracy” part. Anyone who still believes that simply wasn’t paying attention last November 2.

“Elections in the United States are in fact a contest of money.”

Well, elections used to be contests of money. But nowadays, even though the parties still clamor for cash from anyone who can write a check or punch in a credit card number, modern American elections are now decided beforehand by GOP-dominated electronic “voting” machine companies whose own considerable financial remunerations are funded by, yep, you got it, tax receipts from the same suckers (us) who nonetheless continue shoveling buckets full of the precious green stuff to the Republicans and Dems in a pointless but nostalgic ritual that must remind us of the days when we thought we actually had a say in choosing our government. So, yes, every election still involves tons of money, but it sure ain’t no contest, ‘cause we always lose.

“Campaign advertisement and political debates were full of distorted facts, false information and lies.”

I’m afraid this data is a little suspect, too. If only our political campaigns, even if now only meaningless sideshows, were that clean.

“Poverty, hunger and homelessness have haunted the world richest country.”

This is certainly accurate, but I’m thinking the Bushies must have an ironfisted -- sorry, ironclad -- business-model plan for turning this into an advantage for America, since every policy the White House advances pushes those numbers higher. Using good old American know-how-to-screw-‘em-and-how-know-how, perhaps the idea is to actually start exporting poverty, hunger and homelessness to other countries that don’t produce enough of their own. ‘Twould be brilliant: we’d both tackle our astronomical trade deficit and right America’s floundering ship in the process by making our shiftless ne’er-do-wells walk the proverbial plank. I assume the details are being worked out as we leak.

“Upper middle- and upper-class families that constitute the top 10 percent of the income distribution are prospering while many among the remaining 90 percent struggle to maintain their standard of living.”

Whoops! Gotta be a tiny little bit of dropped text there, probably. Perhaps I’m just anal, but that passage actually most likely reads “while many among the remaining 90 percent struggle to maintain their standard of living for no earthly reason whatsoever other than that the mass murdering, power-craving, money-licking, utterly depraved Bushian fascists hell-bent on destroying America are pathologically addicted to the disgustingly sick kick they get from remorselessly and repeatedly sticking it right up the asses of the masses, making sure to always withhold any and all lubrication and never, ever use disease-preventing devices -- ever.”

Picky, I know.

“The United States frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks. Spain’s Uprising newspaper on May 12, 2004, published a list of human rights infringement incidents committed by the United States troops, quoting two bloodthirsty sayings of two American generals, ‘The only good Indians I ever saw were dead’ by Gen. Philip Sheridan, and ‘we should bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age’ by Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay.”

Certainly, the entire Iraq fiasco is a wanton slaughter, but I daresay the above quotes lack a certain, um, topicality. My nomination for a more contemporary WINDBAAG (Worst Imaginable Nitwitted Declaration by an American General) would have to go to Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, who, while preaching to an Oregon revival gathering in June 2003 (in dress uniform, no less) about the dangers of Osama bin Saddam Laden Hussein, infamously spaketh the following, according to Sidney Blumenthal of The Guardian: “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.” The evil-doers “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”

No comment needed. Sometimes, some words just speak for their ugly, insane little selves.

“In 2004, United States Army service people were reported to have abused and insulted Iraqi prisoners of war, which stunned the whole world.”

Well, not the whole world, exactly, since, unfortunately, it seems that millions of Americans either 1) couldn’t care less that Iraqis, Afghanis, and others, many of whom are guilty only of being in a country the U.S. chose to invade, are regularly mistreated, 2) have gone into deep denial about the fact that their freedom-spreading, chest-thumping country routinely tortures, “renditions,” and indefinitely imprisons human beings all in the name of democracy and unfettered corporate profits (not necessarily in that order) or, 3) think such effronteries are just peachy and that those tick-ridden raghead camel jockeys deserve everything they get, plus some.

A few paragraphs on, the Chinese actually cut the U.S. some slack by noting the deaths of “only” twenty Iraqi and Afghani detainees in American custody, seven fewer than the number reported recently by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. Strangely, these homicides don’t show up in the State Department report, which also, as Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post notes, conveniently “sidestep[s] mention of U.S. prison abuse scandals in Iraq and Afghanistan…”

Now let’s take a peek at some of the things the State Department has to say. As brutal as the Chinese are (and, my, they are brutal), it’s still not too hard to understand how such official American hypocrisy concerning human rights could result in raisin’ higher their Asian ire. Consider just these tidbits offered in CRHRP’s preface:

“Over the last 12 months, [America has] worked closely with the international community to enable citizens in countries such as Guatemala, Indonesia, Ghana, Ukraine, and Afghanistan to make their votes truly count in selecting their governments.”

Dang! Too bad we didn’t work closely with ourselves last year to assure our ballots mattered in our own election.

“We take seriously our responsibility to report as accurately, as sensitively, and as carefully as possible the information in these reports.”

Except when we don’t -- like in this report.

“The information contained in this report allows us to construct strategies for promoting freedom and individual liberty.”

Present country excluded, of course.

Signed: The Wicked Witch of the World. Check that, Condoleezza Rice.

The choicest part, though, comes in CRHRP’s introduction when the administration assails alleged misdeeds of Iran (high on our next-to-do list) in 2004:

“There were numerous reports that security forces tortured prisoners and detainees. Additionally, there were arbitrary arrests, extended incommunicado detention, poor and overcrowded prisons, lack of access to counsel…and violation of personal privacy.”

Remind you of any other nation you know?

The self-congratulatory puffery, sanctimonious finger-pointing, and obvious inconsistencies of the State Department report are apparently too much even for our typically timid media to silently swallow as its release remarkably prompted them to pose queries. Kessler writes:

“Acting Assistant Secretary of State Michael G. Kozak [who presented a CRHRP briefing] was peppered with questions about the administration's support of nations with less-than-stellar records on democracy. Last week, for instance, the administration announced it would sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, which is ruled by a general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

“Kozak said it is difficult to apply a ‘scientific cookie-cutter approach’ that works consistently. ‘Sometimes it's the carrot, and sometimes it's the stick,’ he said, adding that the right combination will vary by country. ‘You can slice and dice this any way you want. Hopefully, you know, the sausage machine produces something that’s halfway coherent at the end.’”

This “explanation” by Kozak, no matter how many times it’s run through the Hedge-O-Matic, is certainly not in danger of ever approaching coherency, but it does sound like it went through some kind of contraption: one that mixes spiked half-truths with watered-down rationalizations and ultimately spits out loads of vapid shredded metaphors.

Whatever. Anyone who still hopes for a molecule of truth from the Bushies does so at his or her own peril, for, under them, our nation’s slide into immorality is so complete and our beautiful American ideals have become so corrupted that is makes just as much sense to flip a coin to determine who is actually more honest if, for example, one is presented with dueling reports on human rights abuses from the White House and, say, China.

Yes, that China.