This is something that I found that is too cool. More people need to check it out. Cliche action movie dialog is layered with killer classic rock in a way that creates a compelling narrative. This one is a wicked bit of agitprop that is possibly in violation of a multiplicity of copyrights. Attorney / lobbyist / character actor / United States Senator, Fred Thompson features prominently all over this thing.
Bush’s eight years as President really kicked into high gear after 9/11’s big boom and this little dillio does the same. Bullshit braggdocio promises of vengence like the kind that comprise Mr. Bush’s legacy assure us that the bad guys are going down and then…..it’s on! I was all wtf as I sat there for two and half well spent minutes, and then again to make sure. It is true! This joint is rawkin’!
“And it don’t know who’s problem it is, but somebody needs to get their ass on the plane and figure this out!” -Some dude interviewed in New Orleans during the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina.
Let’s not forget that when FEMA finally began figuring the situation out it was three days later, and all hell had broken loose throughout The Big Easy. Michael Brown, the head of FEMA at the time, betrayed his own ignorance of the situation’s gravity, live on CNN. Of course maybe those complainers down at the convention center who chanted, “we need help”, wouldn’t have been so quick to bitch, if they knew the kind help they were going to get.
Trailers eventually provided by FEMA for the families displaced by Katrina’s in discriminant wrath actually turn out to be toxic. It’s true, the plywood in the trailers gives off toxic levels of formaldehyde gas and that is no good for the people who are trying to live inside. It makes them sick. I digress.
“This kind of government knows how to help business to encourage it.” -Indicted. Enron CEO Ken Lay
Royals and the Uber rich know about the the pill and, how at the last minute you can take it to prevent your world from being snatched away. Officially the death certificate says that Ken Lay died from a heart attack, but it is likely that he took his own life, the one he grown accustomed to, to prevent a hostile takeover.
I imagine Ken popping a tiny latch on the locket contained in his signet ring to reveal the pill inside, before he throws his head back and tosses it down his gullet. There would be no more long weekends in Aspen, and no more expense account lunches, but it was on his terms and not theirs.
“This will not be an age of tyranny.” -GWB
Why anyone would want to be President I am not sure. In GW’s case his motivation most likely involved a choice between resistance and a lack there of. In three weeks someone else is going to get the job that makes a President age rapidly in increments proportionate with the perils they are forced to contend with. Regardless of who wins, I hope that the future, former President is right, and that it will not be an “age of tyranny”, the last eight years of that kind of crap was enough.
“I want to read good news. I want to be innocent again”
from the song Good News by Something Corporate. It can be found on their excellent 2002 record that I love; Leaving Through The Window.
When I pick up a newspaper, the shenanigans and shady dealings that fill the pages, motivates me to pause and consider that perhaps things are finally spiraling completely out of control. For the most part this is entirely true, and the catch is that there is very little that any of us can do to make things right. For the last seven years our ship of state has served only as a pirate vessel coercing other countries to join our battle against elusive, invisible specter that is supposedly hell bent on our complete demise. With the rallying cry of “Never Forget” Americans have been lured into lazy, simplistic reasoning that allows us to view others as different than, and possibly a threat to; us. I refuse to accept this spirit of fear that has been loosed, instead choosing to see people of different races and nationalities as fellow humans like myself who, through no choice of their own, are utilized as mere pawns in a global game that makes the rich more wealthy, and bestows power upon entities who already have far more influence than is necessary.
I have heard it said that if Hillary Clinton gets elected that there will be one third of Americans who have never had a President who was not a member of the Bush or Clinton families. I do not know whether this statement is true or not but it certainly seems reasonable to believe that it could easily be. The fact that we choose our candidates from such a limited pool of contenders and the fact that they have to pony up ginormous amounts of money just to be considered as a part of the process seems to undermine the democratic myth and reinforce the idea that class ranking is the key to success in American politics.
In the 2000 election the combined total earnings for the candidates was 500 million, in 2004 we are talking 800 million, and in this years election the candidates are on track to raise a combined 1 billion bucks. (http://opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp) Now for a guy who made about twenty grand last year, you can see how I have come to feel disassociated from the political process and how I can easily feel like I have no representation from my national political leaders. America has become an aristocracy that is no longer concerned with the peoples will, instead our political system represents only the wealthy and the powerful, two groups that are more foreign to me than any person born and raised in another country.
“And did we tell you the name of the game boy? We call it riding the gravy train.” from Have A Cigar by Pink Floyd
