Thursday Notes:
Well....I've had one little setback here at the Chimes at Midnight this week, the unknown entities behind the superlative "Romney is a Fraud" blog have dropped me from their links!
Oh well...all those references to the "Kolobian Viceroy" probably made everyone a tad queasy.
What can I say, bitter effusions such as that make me laugh....
Nonetheless, the Romney is a fraud blog is a very worthwhile daily read, all and sundry should bookmark it pronto.
Dang I was listed under "heroes"....
And while you are at it, take some time to drop by my good friend Lis Riba's blog "Riba Rambles", she is concise and factual to a fault.
Oh and Senator Kerry has spiffed up his website, check it out.
If these links all work it'll be a miracle.
:)
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
A Gay Olde Tyme....
In 180 days, a mere six months, the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts hath decreed "gay marriage" will be legal in this state.
A nice pleasant thought, but don't you believe that this will come to pass without an almighty fight!
The State Legislature, defied the Courts and the Electorate to gut "clean elections" last year and they will do no less in regards to gay marriage.
Count on it.
Bob Travaglini, Terrible Tom Finneran, and Bishop Romney will jump through the hoops like acrobatic monkeys to get this ruling hamstrung-believe that playa!
My Ghod these are the men appointed by us to protect our own rights and lives...the lot of them would sell us all out for nickels.
It's sad to see any number of democrats desperate to restrict the rights and fortunes of a particular minority, especially over an issue that yield up in the short term naught but symbolic significance.
On the other hand, we've gotten used to republicans and their biblical revulsion towards any type of sexual liberation...so their desire deny rights to others comes as no surprise anymore.
I strongly doubt that there will be stampede of homosexuals seeking marriage licenses some six months from now- I don't think the SJC's ruling will hold up in the fracas to come.
Howver the economic consequences of broadening the definition of marriage is another debate.
Trust me on that one as well, said debate will never happen.
I look forward to an uninterrupted cataract of homophobic excrations for the next six months.
Yup, the Commonwealth will fill up with every witchburner, snake handler, and sundry voodoo practitioners they'll be buying teevee time and howling that old time religion on every street corner.
There will be gruesome talk about protecting what George Bush calls "the sacred institution" of marriage from queers and trannies. Loud bellows will be hard about the diresome threat "gay marriage" poses to that aforementioned sacred edifice.
As if marriage could be any more debauched given our current divorce rate and the number of single parent families out there right now.
No...it is not marriage that is threatened, but the sexuality of a lot of windbags and frantic virtuecrats.
And when their sexuality fragile though it is, is threatened it's strictly Katey-bar-the-Door!
It'll be anarchy I tells yuh.
And not for nothing, but if Willard Mitt Romney really IS a Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, and IF he agrees that marriage is a "sacred institution", shouldn't he recuse himself from any discussions about the issue?
Isn't this the very picture definition of a conflict of interest?
Granted the LDS defines his Bishopric as a "lay" position but it is still a position within the hierarchy.
The current word is, that Romney will offer an amendment to the State Constitution blocking gay marriage entirely.
Woo! That didn't take long!?
No doubt Eric Fehrnstrom was up all night polling and tabulating results.
JohnIAT@aol.com
In 180 days, a mere six months, the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts hath decreed "gay marriage" will be legal in this state.
A nice pleasant thought, but don't you believe that this will come to pass without an almighty fight!
The State Legislature, defied the Courts and the Electorate to gut "clean elections" last year and they will do no less in regards to gay marriage.
Count on it.
Bob Travaglini, Terrible Tom Finneran, and Bishop Romney will jump through the hoops like acrobatic monkeys to get this ruling hamstrung-believe that playa!
My Ghod these are the men appointed by us to protect our own rights and lives...the lot of them would sell us all out for nickels.
It's sad to see any number of democrats desperate to restrict the rights and fortunes of a particular minority, especially over an issue that yield up in the short term naught but symbolic significance.
On the other hand, we've gotten used to republicans and their biblical revulsion towards any type of sexual liberation...so their desire deny rights to others comes as no surprise anymore.
I strongly doubt that there will be stampede of homosexuals seeking marriage licenses some six months from now- I don't think the SJC's ruling will hold up in the fracas to come.
Howver the economic consequences of broadening the definition of marriage is another debate.
Trust me on that one as well, said debate will never happen.
I look forward to an uninterrupted cataract of homophobic excrations for the next six months.
Yup, the Commonwealth will fill up with every witchburner, snake handler, and sundry voodoo practitioners they'll be buying teevee time and howling that old time religion on every street corner.
There will be gruesome talk about protecting what George Bush calls "the sacred institution" of marriage from queers and trannies. Loud bellows will be hard about the diresome threat "gay marriage" poses to that aforementioned sacred edifice.
As if marriage could be any more debauched given our current divorce rate and the number of single parent families out there right now.
No...it is not marriage that is threatened, but the sexuality of a lot of windbags and frantic virtuecrats.
And when their sexuality fragile though it is, is threatened it's strictly Katey-bar-the-Door!
It'll be anarchy I tells yuh.
And not for nothing, but if Willard Mitt Romney really IS a Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, and IF he agrees that marriage is a "sacred institution", shouldn't he recuse himself from any discussions about the issue?
Isn't this the very picture definition of a conflict of interest?
Granted the LDS defines his Bishopric as a "lay" position but it is still a position within the hierarchy.
The current word is, that Romney will offer an amendment to the State Constitution blocking gay marriage entirely.
Woo! That didn't take long!?
No doubt Eric Fehrnstrom was up all night polling and tabulating results.
JohnIAT@aol.com
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
London's Bawling
A mere seven months ago, George Bush was strutting around the flight deck of the Carrier Abraham Lincoln like he was Pappy Boyington or something.
The illusion managed to last quite a while thanks to groveling little bastards like Chris Matthews screeching his praises all summer long even as the body count inched up higher and higher every day in Iraq.
Now today we are presented with the edifying spectacle of a President of the United State forced to turn London into a armed camp for the duration of his visit to Olde Blighty due to the hordes of protesters on hand to "greet him".
This is a long way from "Mission Accomplished" lemme tell you...
And not for nothing but something is seriously wrong when the President of the United States has to surround himself with a brigade of armed sharpshooters and secret agents before visiting the capital of our closest ally.
The notion that "our" President can move about London only under the protection of a shoot-to-kill order is a sad commentary of the state of western civilization.
Still none of this will have any affect on Bush's outlook on the war, fanatics such as himself are famously immune to self reflection or doubt.
Having a view of militaryoperations gleaned seemingly from childhood games with G.I. Joe dolls, no doubt the President finds all the armed guards and gulag pageantry secretly thrilling.
The whole sordid affair begins to take on the appearance of mad old Gaius Caligula "inspecting" the Roman Empire's garrisons on the Rhine.
It's almost pointless to protest, almost.
I mean, Bush is exactly the sort of monochromatic mentality that never changes it's mind no matter who gets hurt or how much the cost.
This sort of narcissism is called "Texas Hardheadedness" by the likes of George Will.
Sick
Demented
Typical
I remain, you obedient servant....
A mere seven months ago, George Bush was strutting around the flight deck of the Carrier Abraham Lincoln like he was Pappy Boyington or something.
The illusion managed to last quite a while thanks to groveling little bastards like Chris Matthews screeching his praises all summer long even as the body count inched up higher and higher every day in Iraq.
Now today we are presented with the edifying spectacle of a President of the United State forced to turn London into a armed camp for the duration of his visit to Olde Blighty due to the hordes of protesters on hand to "greet him".
This is a long way from "Mission Accomplished" lemme tell you...
And not for nothing but something is seriously wrong when the President of the United States has to surround himself with a brigade of armed sharpshooters and secret agents before visiting the capital of our closest ally.
The notion that "our" President can move about London only under the protection of a shoot-to-kill order is a sad commentary of the state of western civilization.
Still none of this will have any affect on Bush's outlook on the war, fanatics such as himself are famously immune to self reflection or doubt.
Having a view of militaryoperations gleaned seemingly from childhood games with G.I. Joe dolls, no doubt the President finds all the armed guards and gulag pageantry secretly thrilling.
The whole sordid affair begins to take on the appearance of mad old Gaius Caligula "inspecting" the Roman Empire's garrisons on the Rhine.
It's almost pointless to protest, almost.
I mean, Bush is exactly the sort of monochromatic mentality that never changes it's mind no matter who gets hurt or how much the cost.
This sort of narcissism is called "Texas Hardheadedness" by the likes of George Will.
Sick
Demented
Typical
I remain, you obedient servant....
Monday, November 17, 2003
The Hercules Putsch:
Seizing power in a coup is a pretty undignified messy business most everywhere else in the world.
This is despite the fact that the old fashioned coup with it's flags and tanks is the accepted manner of changing governments for something like 75% of the world.
Thanks to Good Old Fashioned American Know-How, we've even managed to standardize this peculiar foreign custom.
And so we come to November 17th 2003, a day in which thanks to an obscure law written by well meaning goo-goos in the 1900's Arnold Schwarzenegger, a vain preening lout, is seizing power in the State of California.
I'm sure his inaugural address with be mercifully bereft of the usual truculent threats that have characterized Arnold's movie work to date.
"I'll be back" and junk like that.
No it'll be naught but indigestible rubbish about the free market, opportunity, and the California Way of Life.
And amidst these bloviations the Golden State will be whisked off on a waltz with yet another tedious demagogue.
There is a tiresome cliche on the neocon right to the effect that the states are "fifty little thrifty beehives of social policy experimentation".
Hence they should be allowed the widest possible latitude in order for a "hundred policy flowers to bloom".
This is of course errant nonsense on a cosmic scale.
They are less fifty little social policy labs and more like fifty nasty semi-bankrupt banana republics mostly presided over by the lowest most contemptible scoundrels on Ghod's Green Earth.
In fact most of the nation's demagogues and dictators have been state governors not U.S. Presidents.
A President has precious little time to set up a really effective tyranny, he's got to be fund-raising for re-election practically from the moment he takes the oath.
And he's watched like a hawk even by his own so called supporters and sycophants, there is nowhere to go but down once you are in the White House.
Plenty of people are gunning for you...
Not so being a state governor a man can safely don jackboots and a Sam Browne belt and rate nothing more than a snarky picture in "Time Magazine".
The Gubernatorial roll of dishonor features many such stalwarts as Huey P. Long, Herman Talmadge, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Pete Wilson, James Rhodes (who pumped the National Guard up to a shooting frenzy just prior to Kent State) and of course lets not forget Massachusetts own James Michael Curley.
Yup not only are all politics local, but all Dictatorships are local as well.
That is a consequence of Federalism that the Heritage Institute would rather not deal with.
Or maybe when they say "laboratory" they mean "gulag"....who can tell in today's rhetorically debauched times?
Sick
Demented
Typical
Seizing power in a coup is a pretty undignified messy business most everywhere else in the world.
This is despite the fact that the old fashioned coup with it's flags and tanks is the accepted manner of changing governments for something like 75% of the world.
Thanks to Good Old Fashioned American Know-How, we've even managed to standardize this peculiar foreign custom.
And so we come to November 17th 2003, a day in which thanks to an obscure law written by well meaning goo-goos in the 1900's Arnold Schwarzenegger, a vain preening lout, is seizing power in the State of California.
I'm sure his inaugural address with be mercifully bereft of the usual truculent threats that have characterized Arnold's movie work to date.
"I'll be back" and junk like that.
No it'll be naught but indigestible rubbish about the free market, opportunity, and the California Way of Life.
And amidst these bloviations the Golden State will be whisked off on a waltz with yet another tedious demagogue.
There is a tiresome cliche on the neocon right to the effect that the states are "fifty little thrifty beehives of social policy experimentation".
Hence they should be allowed the widest possible latitude in order for a "hundred policy flowers to bloom".
This is of course errant nonsense on a cosmic scale.
They are less fifty little social policy labs and more like fifty nasty semi-bankrupt banana republics mostly presided over by the lowest most contemptible scoundrels on Ghod's Green Earth.
In fact most of the nation's demagogues and dictators have been state governors not U.S. Presidents.
A President has precious little time to set up a really effective tyranny, he's got to be fund-raising for re-election practically from the moment he takes the oath.
And he's watched like a hawk even by his own so called supporters and sycophants, there is nowhere to go but down once you are in the White House.
Plenty of people are gunning for you...
Not so being a state governor a man can safely don jackboots and a Sam Browne belt and rate nothing more than a snarky picture in "Time Magazine".
The Gubernatorial roll of dishonor features many such stalwarts as Huey P. Long, Herman Talmadge, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Pete Wilson, James Rhodes (who pumped the National Guard up to a shooting frenzy just prior to Kent State) and of course lets not forget Massachusetts own James Michael Curley.
Yup not only are all politics local, but all Dictatorships are local as well.
That is a consequence of Federalism that the Heritage Institute would rather not deal with.
Or maybe when they say "laboratory" they mean "gulag"....who can tell in today's rhetorically debauched times?
Sick
Demented
Typical
Friday, November 14, 2003
Friday Notes:
The lowest most simple-minded jobber will tell you that one of the best ways to move up in the game of politics is to get yourself noticed.
No less a solon as the Late Tammany Hall Sachem George Washington Plunkett preached as much all his livelong days.
Plunkett spent most of his time at street fairs, religious holidays, wakes, funerals, baptisms and whatnot passing out boons and perks and courting public approval.
It wa axiomatic that the State Senator could beat most fire-engines to a house fire in his district....it was said he could hear a fire bell ten blocks away.
Truly the successful politician is a ubiquitous politician.
And so we come to the ghoulish spectacle of Pennsylvania Senator Rick "high pitch Rich" Santorum in the well of the U.S. Senate pounding the podium and smacking his lips with relish at the thought of outlawing "partial birth abortion".
Rich's moment was a hand last week a nice juicy incremental blow to a woman's right to choose, a feast for any main chance GOP politico.
And what the hell he got his way, the Senate transformed itself from a den of thieves, brutes, and fixers and into a medical commission just long enough to outlaw a rare surgical procedure.
Rich then stood behind the President grinning like a Mongoloid as GWB signed the bill and made the usual effusive remarks about the culture of life and other hallucinations.
This week Rick helped Fox News stage manage the Senate GOP's 30 hour filibuster highlighting Democratic obstructionism on Bush's judicial nominees.
As we all know Bush watches Fox News as often as possible so no doubt he is beginning to take notice of the fighting young reactionary from Pennsylvania.
It helps being one of the Capitol's most resolute Bush idolators...his call ins to the Imus program set a new standard for public sycophancy of the lowest and crudest type.
So I have to ask...what does Rick Santorum want in the quickening autumn of 2003?
He is already a telegenic, sought after U.S. Senator, his sinecure seems secure.
I think Rich wants to take his screechy psychotic whine into the office of Vice President of the United States.
Yup you heard it here first, Rick wants to be veep.
Currently Dick Cheney holds that position but the famed Halliburton rain-maker is looking mighty shopworn these days...this Iraq thing was all his idea after all.
Rick has to sense the President might be looking to change up come next summer's GOP convention...
If I had to guess Santorum has probably already done some polling to buttress his popularity in other states and among the sought after cohorts.
His GOP bona fides are perfectly sound, he's all for giving carefully selected groups (poor women and queers) as hard a time as the law will allow...which is sound conservative thinking in the 21st century. Certainly Rick would have no problems running on a platform of fag-bashing and limitless military pre-emption....hell he has been dreaming all his unnatural life of campaigning on such morbid nonsense.
As the Senate goes, he does have some competition in the complex game of Vice Presidential Ambitions, chiefly Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.
But Orrin is old and sounding more than a little querulous lately....that prissy little voice of his sounds impotent and school-marmish compared to Rich's Mick Jagger-ish shrieks of studied outrage.
Bush-Santorum in 2004...how does that sound?
Prefectly dreadful in every way.
The lowest most simple-minded jobber will tell you that one of the best ways to move up in the game of politics is to get yourself noticed.
No less a solon as the Late Tammany Hall Sachem George Washington Plunkett preached as much all his livelong days.
Plunkett spent most of his time at street fairs, religious holidays, wakes, funerals, baptisms and whatnot passing out boons and perks and courting public approval.
It wa axiomatic that the State Senator could beat most fire-engines to a house fire in his district....it was said he could hear a fire bell ten blocks away.
Truly the successful politician is a ubiquitous politician.
And so we come to the ghoulish spectacle of Pennsylvania Senator Rick "high pitch Rich" Santorum in the well of the U.S. Senate pounding the podium and smacking his lips with relish at the thought of outlawing "partial birth abortion".
Rich's moment was a hand last week a nice juicy incremental blow to a woman's right to choose, a feast for any main chance GOP politico.
And what the hell he got his way, the Senate transformed itself from a den of thieves, brutes, and fixers and into a medical commission just long enough to outlaw a rare surgical procedure.
Rich then stood behind the President grinning like a Mongoloid as GWB signed the bill and made the usual effusive remarks about the culture of life and other hallucinations.
This week Rick helped Fox News stage manage the Senate GOP's 30 hour filibuster highlighting Democratic obstructionism on Bush's judicial nominees.
As we all know Bush watches Fox News as often as possible so no doubt he is beginning to take notice of the fighting young reactionary from Pennsylvania.
It helps being one of the Capitol's most resolute Bush idolators...his call ins to the Imus program set a new standard for public sycophancy of the lowest and crudest type.
So I have to ask...what does Rick Santorum want in the quickening autumn of 2003?
He is already a telegenic, sought after U.S. Senator, his sinecure seems secure.
I think Rich wants to take his screechy psychotic whine into the office of Vice President of the United States.
Yup you heard it here first, Rick wants to be veep.
Currently Dick Cheney holds that position but the famed Halliburton rain-maker is looking mighty shopworn these days...this Iraq thing was all his idea after all.
Rick has to sense the President might be looking to change up come next summer's GOP convention...
If I had to guess Santorum has probably already done some polling to buttress his popularity in other states and among the sought after cohorts.
His GOP bona fides are perfectly sound, he's all for giving carefully selected groups (poor women and queers) as hard a time as the law will allow...which is sound conservative thinking in the 21st century. Certainly Rick would have no problems running on a platform of fag-bashing and limitless military pre-emption....hell he has been dreaming all his unnatural life of campaigning on such morbid nonsense.
As the Senate goes, he does have some competition in the complex game of Vice Presidential Ambitions, chiefly Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.
But Orrin is old and sounding more than a little querulous lately....that prissy little voice of his sounds impotent and school-marmish compared to Rich's Mick Jagger-ish shrieks of studied outrage.
Bush-Santorum in 2004...how does that sound?
Prefectly dreadful in every way.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
A Zombie's Defiance:
There is nothing funnier than false braggadocio...really nothing.
Some loudmouth seething with truculence promising dire vengeance at some future date when all the time the audience knows this hammerhead would sh*t himself at the first gunshot.
Such a sublime moment occurred spontaneously on the Imus Program yesterday.
The upper west side's most notorious ambulatory corpse was staggering through an interview with "Bias" author Bernard Goldberg.
Bernie is a whiny bore whose critique of CBS News alleged liberal slant amounts to little more than the usual Allen Drury style boilerplate.
His insistence that "reporters write the news for their elite pals at Elaine's and not Middle America" could well have come verbatim out of "Capable of Honor" or one of Spiro Agnew's speechs.
All of which proves that originality is no requirement for successful on the "conservative poormouth circuit".
Imus then tried to liven things up going on a hysterical screed impugning Dan Rather's cowboy credentials before he wound himself up into a delirious fury asserting that he'd "quit" if Mel Karmazin ever tried to alter the content of HIS show!!!
Now usually I ignore Imus as a personality, he is old, incoherent, decrepit, and mean...his show is chiefly a means to get a concentrated dose of whatever rubbish the media whores are peddling this week.
However this "I'd quit!" stuff was actually laugh-out-loud funny-never has a more spineless dependent wretch sounded more hilariously defiant.
If tomorrow morning Mel Karmazin ordered Imus to get a sex change operation and give the show a "trannie perspective", the I-Man would be in surgery by noon screeching at the Doctors to "HURRY!!!"
Imus has nowhere to go at this point in his sad wasted life, his virago wife stays on only because the checks come in steady, he isn't talking to ex or his OTHER children...if Viacom-CBS cancelled his show tomorrow Imus would die of despair within a month.
"I'd quit" who does this vulgar senile fraud think he is kidding?
NOBODY quits today, the money is too good and too easy!
Still it was uproarious to listen in on his empty threats....
Such is the Kingdom of God
On the Congressionally Licensed Airwaves
And Elsewhere
11-13-03
God Save the Republic
There is nothing funnier than false braggadocio...really nothing.
Some loudmouth seething with truculence promising dire vengeance at some future date when all the time the audience knows this hammerhead would sh*t himself at the first gunshot.
Such a sublime moment occurred spontaneously on the Imus Program yesterday.
The upper west side's most notorious ambulatory corpse was staggering through an interview with "Bias" author Bernard Goldberg.
Bernie is a whiny bore whose critique of CBS News alleged liberal slant amounts to little more than the usual Allen Drury style boilerplate.
His insistence that "reporters write the news for their elite pals at Elaine's and not Middle America" could well have come verbatim out of "Capable of Honor" or one of Spiro Agnew's speechs.
All of which proves that originality is no requirement for successful on the "conservative poormouth circuit".
Imus then tried to liven things up going on a hysterical screed impugning Dan Rather's cowboy credentials before he wound himself up into a delirious fury asserting that he'd "quit" if Mel Karmazin ever tried to alter the content of HIS show!!!
Now usually I ignore Imus as a personality, he is old, incoherent, decrepit, and mean...his show is chiefly a means to get a concentrated dose of whatever rubbish the media whores are peddling this week.
However this "I'd quit!" stuff was actually laugh-out-loud funny-never has a more spineless dependent wretch sounded more hilariously defiant.
If tomorrow morning Mel Karmazin ordered Imus to get a sex change operation and give the show a "trannie perspective", the I-Man would be in surgery by noon screeching at the Doctors to "HURRY!!!"
Imus has nowhere to go at this point in his sad wasted life, his virago wife stays on only because the checks come in steady, he isn't talking to ex or his OTHER children...if Viacom-CBS cancelled his show tomorrow Imus would die of despair within a month.
"I'd quit" who does this vulgar senile fraud think he is kidding?
NOBODY quits today, the money is too good and too easy!
Still it was uproarious to listen in on his empty threats....
Such is the Kingdom of God
On the Congressionally Licensed Airwaves
And Elsewhere
11-13-03
God Save the Republic
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Hit someone, anyone...THEN make them good democracy consumers....
What color is the sky in Tom Friedman's world?
Can you smell colors therein and perform other extra-rational miracles?
All sorts of fantasies, grim and otherwise were implied from his call in to the Imus program yesterday.
His latest justification for the war (on the heels of "Saddam has a doomsday bomb" and "I saw skulls, Human Skulls!!!")
is that we must save that those stalwart progressives, the House of Saud.
Yup...Tom Friedman insists that 9-11 was cooked up by Bin Laden as part of a scheme to embarrass Saudi Arabia by loading up the operation with suicidal Saudi terrorists.
Never mind the fact that Saudi Arabia has been exporting terrorists for years, bankrolling them, and is perfectly happy as the world goes up in chunks as long as their tribal hegemony is not attacked.
Nope we are doing all this to save that olde tyme religion in Riyadh.
As usual, Tom sounded scared, and when Friedman is scared he starts spouting "complex" theories about foreign policy and quoting ad nauseam from the "Arab Human Development Report".
His conclusion? The yokels are starving, stupid, fertile, and angry...and that represents a threat to "our open society".
He also loads up his discourse with gratingly trite cliche's like "empower", "invest", "alternative energy", "shareholder" and my favorite "stake-holder".
As if the voters of the once proud republic are a bunch of grizzled miners a'la Gabby Hayes.
To Tom, it is a mere matter of weaning John Q. Public-Iraq off the local roast and enticing him across the street to the new Starbucks franchise wherein the coffee is just more reliable.
I've called Friedman a lot of names down through the years, "hopeless naive' hack" being a fave, I've also derided him as spineless and a passive aggressive yutz.
But yesterday I finally figured it out, Tom's real problem is that he is a helpless utopian, he really believes in his heart of hearts that the global free market can create nothing but positive change for the man on the street in Baghdad.
In truth, it is not all Tom Friedman's fault.
He came of age in a fiercely illiberal age and feels the only alternative to being a mindless reactionary is to assert patently liberal utopian ends can be achieved by simply cheerleading the free market.
After a while if you mumble this patent nonsense to yourself often enough, you begin to believe it.
It's called auto-suggestion and Tom has it bad.
Meanwhile he goes on prattling nervously about "our free society" ....that once glorious polity in which elections are overturned and recalled on a moments notice....this blessed plot in which thieves run amok in high places, louts make the laws, and young Americans die for a policy summarized as "hit someone anyone!".
Tom looks at all this and sees a utopia....
Me?
I'm looking into cheap plots of land in the Baja.
What color is the sky in Tom Friedman's world?
Can you smell colors therein and perform other extra-rational miracles?
All sorts of fantasies, grim and otherwise were implied from his call in to the Imus program yesterday.
His latest justification for the war (on the heels of "Saddam has a doomsday bomb" and "I saw skulls, Human Skulls!!!")
is that we must save that those stalwart progressives, the House of Saud.
Yup...Tom Friedman insists that 9-11 was cooked up by Bin Laden as part of a scheme to embarrass Saudi Arabia by loading up the operation with suicidal Saudi terrorists.
Never mind the fact that Saudi Arabia has been exporting terrorists for years, bankrolling them, and is perfectly happy as the world goes up in chunks as long as their tribal hegemony is not attacked.
Nope we are doing all this to save that olde tyme religion in Riyadh.
As usual, Tom sounded scared, and when Friedman is scared he starts spouting "complex" theories about foreign policy and quoting ad nauseam from the "Arab Human Development Report".
His conclusion? The yokels are starving, stupid, fertile, and angry...and that represents a threat to "our open society".
He also loads up his discourse with gratingly trite cliche's like "empower", "invest", "alternative energy", "shareholder" and my favorite "stake-holder".
As if the voters of the once proud republic are a bunch of grizzled miners a'la Gabby Hayes.
To Tom, it is a mere matter of weaning John Q. Public-Iraq off the local roast and enticing him across the street to the new Starbucks franchise wherein the coffee is just more reliable.
I've called Friedman a lot of names down through the years, "hopeless naive' hack" being a fave, I've also derided him as spineless and a passive aggressive yutz.
But yesterday I finally figured it out, Tom's real problem is that he is a helpless utopian, he really believes in his heart of hearts that the global free market can create nothing but positive change for the man on the street in Baghdad.
In truth, it is not all Tom Friedman's fault.
He came of age in a fiercely illiberal age and feels the only alternative to being a mindless reactionary is to assert patently liberal utopian ends can be achieved by simply cheerleading the free market.
After a while if you mumble this patent nonsense to yourself often enough, you begin to believe it.
It's called auto-suggestion and Tom has it bad.
Meanwhile he goes on prattling nervously about "our free society" ....that once glorious polity in which elections are overturned and recalled on a moments notice....this blessed plot in which thieves run amok in high places, louts make the laws, and young Americans die for a policy summarized as "hit someone anyone!".
Tom looks at all this and sees a utopia....
Me?
I'm looking into cheap plots of land in the Baja.
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