In The Grip of Ronniemania

The deal was set in stone, and yet so much could go wrong - dreadfully so. The historical reputation of a feeble-minded, former "B" movie actor named Ronald Reagan depended on the Election Day victory of the idiotic son of the man who had for eight years served as the Gipper's loyal vice-president. The archives of his two terms of office were scheduled - by law - to be made public for scholarly research on January 20, 2001, the twelfth anniversary of the end of his presidency. Fortunately, although Al Gore actually won the election, an ideologically perverted Supreme Court would install the fortunate son as commander-in-chief. When George W. Bush finally took the oath of office (an oath he would violate tens of thousands of times in the next seven years) his very first act was to sign an executive order that sealed indefinitely the papers of not only the Reagan administration, but those of his father's as well - curiously omitting the papers of William Jefferson Clinton at the same time. The fix was in. The truth about Reagan's reign of error would be hidden from history's harsh glare. The American people would be able to - for the time being, at least - stupidly slumber on under their self-imposed delusion of all the wonderful things Ronnie had meant to the country he had all-but-destroyed
`

Now it can be told: We, the people got screwed by Ronald Reagan.
.
The time has come for us to take a deep breath and explore the psychological meaning and implications of what can only be described as America's sick, dysfunctional love affair with this racist, inarticulate and utterly clueless man. Why his archives have been hidden from posterity is perfectly clear. When the truth is finally revealed about the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by this "amiable dunce" and his VP, the both of them will be hurled permanently - mercilessly - onto history's trash bin. The hideous truth of the matter is that the damage that this dirty old bastard did to our beloved nation is so immense, it will never be accurately gaged. It is - quite literally - beyond estimation.
.
That the blame for the near-destruction America's social infrastructure can be laid directly at the feet (now thankfully pointed eternally skyward) of Ronald Reagan, only a fool would deny (as so many fools on the right continue to do). Through the use of an absolutely Orwellian propaganda machine which was later mastered to near-perfection by Karl Rove, he was able to convince a huge segment of the electorate that what was so right about America was, in fact, very, very wrong. It was while he slept in the Oval Office that the word, "Liberal", once an honored and respected term, became an expletive. It was during his presidency that the rape of the middle class in this country began. It has been going on, unabated, for over a quarter of a century now.
.
They called him "the great communicator". So useful would the skills he learned as a third-rate Hollywood actor turn out to be, he was somehow able to lull the American people into believing that the programs brought into being a half a century before by the Roosevelt administration (programs that virtually created a middle class that hadn't even existed prior to FDR) were in reality a bad thing. Government wasn't the answer to our problem, he told us, government was the problem. At a time when the population of this country was fast approaching a quarter of a billion, he told us that he was going to solve all of our woes by cutting back on public services, shrinking the size of the federal government - and the American people actually thought that this was just a swell idea! After nearly twenty-seven years of voodoo, Reaganomics (which were aided and abetted by Bill Clinton - don't you dare deny it), the America that you and I grew up in is as dead as a door nail. That "shining city on a hill" is a mirage; it's a dream. Wake up. Wake up. WAKE THE FUCK UP.
.
The people swallowed Reagan's act from the moment he announced his candidacy - or at least white people did. African Americans were never able to trust this man and for damned good reason. They were never able to forget the fact that it was his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that brought him into the spotlight of national politics during the long ago, futile campaign of Barry Goldwater. Indeed, the big kick off of Reagan's 1980 race would be in the small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, a putrid, rat hole of a place whose only claim to fame was the murder there of three civil rights workers seventeen years earlier. He was merely pandering - sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly - to America's irrational racial fears and hatreds. His message in Philadelphia that day (meant to be subliminal but, in reality, disturbingly clear) was that in a Reagan administration, Jim Crow would get the red carpet treatment at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Why do you think it is that whenever people of color are polled with respect to the legacy of Ronald Wilson Reagan, his numbers are in the single digits? Are these people just ignorant? Or might their bitterness be based on a terrible truth? Quite possibly it might have a little something to do with the fact that black people in America suffered terribly under Reagan. Call it a hunch on my part.
.
What always amazed me more than anything else was how the American people - the white ones - fell for that whole, sham Ronnie persona. Why were they not able to see through it? It was all an act! HE WAS A AN ACTOR, FOR PETE'S SAKE!! Didn't they see the transparency? The stagecraft? No administration had ever used television so effectively to distort reality than this one had. No administration would surpass it in it's ability to "catapult the propaganda" until the second Bush administration a generation later. Reagan's career as a screen actor was pretty much kaput by the mid sixties. His very last film, made in 1964 and called "The Killers" (which contained an interesting scene of him beating the bleeding mortal shit out of poor little Angie Dickinson) barely registered with the public. He had come to the point in his life where he needed to make a major career change. Within two years he would be the Governor of California; fourteen years after that he was living in the Executive Mansion. From being a perfectly mediocre actor to being the president of the United States of America....I'm not makin' this stuff up!
.
It is said that he was bitter toward the film industry for its not having recognized his talent. He could not understand why he was never even nominated for an Academy Award! If you've ever seen even one of his films, you'll laugh out loud over the absurdity of that last sentence. Truth be told, Reagan couldn't act himself out of a brown burlap sack. If you've never seen one of his films, by all means rent one! You'll understand what I mean. All politicians are bad actors and Reagan was no exception. But while he might have been perfectly awful by Hollywood standards, he was actually pretty damned good by Washington standards. So good was he, in fact, that he was able to cheerfully lead his likewise cheerful country down the path of ultimate ruin.
.
Honestly, folks, I really wish I was makin' this up.
.
When he died on June 5, 2004, like with the death of Richard Nixon ten years before, the gushing tributes - especially out of the mouths of those who should have known better - can only be described as sickening. Reagan was not a very good friend to the American people. In fact, to the average, working class person, he was their worst nightmare. My greatest fear is that it will take at least a century or more for us to finally figure out what has been blatantly obvious to anyone who has bothered to pay attention all these years: Ronald Reagan planted the seeds of America's destruction and George W. Bush harvested the crop. We should all expect and demand that the next president sign an executive order making the Reagan papers public.
.
One can only hope that the entire truth about the Reagan White House will eventually see the light of day. It's easy to imagine the Bush Mob working overtime, long into the night, their shredders going at full blast, obliterating the hidden details of all the documented crimes that we know were committed by Reagan and Bush 41. I can just see Dubya's sycophantic henchmen in the House, trying to sneak a provision into some future budget, making it legal for a president to destroy government archives - that's assuming he hasn't just ignored the law by attaching one of his "signing statements" to it. He's been known to do that sort of thing, you know.
.
One of the more encouraging signs of late is that the American people are starting to wake up to the realization that sending a corrupt, disgusting, half-witted little piece of shit like Bush to the White House was the worst electoral mistake in American history. And yet these same, silly Americans still retain a maudlin, nostalgic, almost retarded affection for Ronald Reagan. As I have stated on this very site before, everything that Bush has done to you, Reagan tried to do to you - and would have done to you had he had control of all three branches of government. Reagan was, essentially, a mask with a twinkle in its eye and a fine Irish smile. Remove that mask and you have the twisted, hideous smirk of George W. Bush.
.
That's the real face of the Reagan Revolution.
.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
.
SUGGESTED READING:
Sleepwalking Through History
by Haynes Johnson
.
The Acting President
By Bob Schieffer

For more recent postings on this French-loving, latte swirling, Apple pie-hating site, please go to the following link:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com 

I TELLS YA, THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAW!!!

Shh! They're working on that....  

SING, SCOTTY, SING!!!

This is really, really bad - I mean, really, really good. In his yet to be released memoirs (due to be published next April), former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is starting to spill an entire troth of some extremely nasty tasting beans. He is now stating that when he stood in front of the Press Corps last year and proclaimed that no one other than Scooter Libby was involved in the outing of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plaime Wilson, he wasn't telling the truth. In fact he is now claiming that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were involved in the cover up. It appears that McClellan, a devout Christian, is starting to get a long overdue pang of conscience. Good for him!
`

That's the good news. Are you ready for the bad? What should be a front page story is barely being recognized by the Corporate Media. As far as I know, this might even be the first time you're even hearing about it. All of the New York dailies chose to either bury it deep inside their pages (as in the case of the New York Times) or ignore it completely (the Post and the Daily News). And in the electronic media, the only network giving this story the coverage it deserves is MSNBC (Chris Matthews, David Shuster and Keith Olbermann to be precise). That's the only cable news channel worth watching and it's only worth watching between the hours of seven and nine PM, EST. If you're still a habitual viewer of FOX News....What am I saying??? If you're addicted to FOX, you're definitely not reading my stuff! Never mind.

.

I've said it on this site before and I'll repeat it here: out of the entire army of walking excrement that comprises this disgusting administration, the only person with whom I ever felt any degree of sympathy for was poor old Scott McClellan. That the guy was in over his head there can be little doubt. I always got the distinct impression that he knew he was nothing more than the First Fool's chief liar and that he was uncomfortable in the roll. As I always suspected would happen, the first person to blow their cover would be McClellan. Incredibly, Rush Limbaugh dismissed the story by implying that all one had to do was look at Scott's record of distortions as spokesman for the Bush White House to see that he's a known liar. Why believe him now? I wonder; did Rush even bother thinking that one through before blurting it out? It's the drugs; it must be.

.

The administration has found itself in a tricky predicament to be sure. In the past, whenever anyone had the nerve to stand up and expose the corruption of and incompetence of the Bush Mob (Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Scott Ritter, John Kerry....the list is endless) that person's reputation was seriously damaged by the Karl Rove propaganda machine or, as in the case of Wilson and his wife, their ability to make a living was put in jeopardy. Now how the hell are they going to be able to tarnish squeaky clean little Scott McClellan? He's a guy who is not only a deeply religious family man, but he was also - for three years - the voice of the Bush White House! This is going to be REALLY interesting to watch. It's a fairly safe wager that Rove is manufacturing some non-existent dirt at this very moment.

.

The Corporate controlled media will only be able to ignore the implications of McClellan's book for so long. Five months from now when it is finally released, they're going to have to deal with it, like it or not. My biggest fear is that Scotty is going to cave in to the pressure that Bush's henchmen will undoubtedly place on him. A person who comes under the disapproving smirk of our hideous president has a good many reasons to be fearful to be sure - for his or her life even. Is that too bold an accusation to make? Not at all. Don't forget that these are the same people who are responsible for the slaughter of over a million Iraqi men, women and little children - not to mention almost four thousand dead American servicemen and women; three of whom lie less than a quarter of a mile from where I now sit, at the Orange County Veteran's Cemetery in Goshen, NY. Honestly, what's one more dead body to these murderous assholes? Seriously!

.

Incredibly, the right wing insists on maintaining the fiction that the news media is being controlled by a secret cabal of extremist liberals - and the American people (most of them anyway) are just dumb enough to believe it. The fact that most of the so-called "reporters" in the main stream press have been acting as mere stenographers for this administration for almost seven years now hasn't seem to have gotten through to them. As of this writing, the highest rated cable news channel is still - incredibly - FOX Noise. Is it any wonder that we are the laughingstock of the entire planet? This deplorable situation would not be but for the deregulation of the communications industry during the eighties and nineties. The American people had a clear choice between enlightenment and stupidity. They chose to remain stupid.

.

A lot can happen (and probably will) between now and April of 2008. My funniest dream is that the White House gets hold of the manuscript and deems it "CLASSIFIED" to prevent its publication. If you think that that's a stretch, you obviously haven't been paying close attention to George W. Bush and company all of these years. As has been demonstrated time and time again, these treacherous bastards will stop at nothing to carry out their corrupt agenda. Just look at what they're doing to your country! For over seventy years, whenever they have managed to achieve executive power, the GOP was only able to whittle away at the legacy of the New Deal. Except for a brief, two year period in the fifties, they hadn't had control of the presidency and both houses of congress since the early thirties. All of that changed on January 20, 2001. Although the timid, pathetic Democrats were able to regain control of the House and Senate back in January, the damage had already been done. It is obvious to anyone paying attention that the goal of the Republican party these last seven years has been to loot our national treasure to the point of bankruptcy, forcing the American people to do away with the social safety nets put into place by President Roosevelt all those decades ago. While they were carrying this grand theft out, they were able to distract their clueless constituency with phantoms of gay marriage and flag burning. The result will be the collapse of our entire social and economic infrastructure - and it's going to happen any day now - COUNT ON IT.

.

In the mean time we can all look forward with juicy anticipation to the publication of Scott McClellan's autobiography. It's a certainty that in the next four or five years, the book stores around the country will be flooded with books such as this: desperate attempts by desperate people, trying to cleanse their place in history by explaining away their exposure to and association with the worst president in American history. While most of these people will portray themselves as innocent bystanders to horrific felonies, McClellan will be one of the few who can reasonably take that position. The Press Secretary serves only as a conduit for explaining the policy, he doesn't make it. Ron Ziegler (Nixon's beleaguered Press spokesman) might have been mean and stupid, but as far as the crimes of the Nixon Gang were concerned, he was a pure as the driven snow.

.

From my very first posting on this site a year and a half ago on June 2, 2006:

.

"PREDICTION: George W. Bush will be remembered in history, primarily, as the first (pray last) former chief executive to go to federal prison. Sound crazy? Stay tuned."

.
Let me add this one, further thought to the discussion:
He will die there.
I promise you that.
.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY.
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
.
SUGGESTED READING:
Static
by Amy and Mark Goodman

Remembering RFK 1925-1968

Last night I finally had the opportunity to view Bobby, a film based on the events of the horrible night of June 5, 1968, when Robert Francis Kennedy, candidate for the Democratic nomination and the man that common political sense dictated would be the next president of the United States was gunned down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. When I woke up early this morning I was struck by the sudden realization that tomorrow would have been his eighty-second birthday.
.
The passage of nearly forty years does little to erase the feeling of loss and despair not only for the dreams of what might have been but - almost as importantly - of what might not have been. One need only look into the man's personal history to know that he no doubt would have been an able and conscientious (if imperfect) chief executive. Contemplating how history might have judged his term of office would be like, as someone once remarked, throwing darts into a fog. There is every possibility that he would have remained the figure of debate and controversy that he was from the moment he entered the public arena in the mid 1950s - much as Franklin D. Roosevelt is to this very day. "Ruthless" was the word his detractors liked to use in describing him. But he was also capable and willing to take unpopular stands for the greater public good and, unlike his timid and pathetic Democratic heirs, Bobby Kennedy was unafraid to take bold and courageous action. If the assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963 had a stunning impact on progressive politics in America, the murder of his younger brother four and a half years later would ultimately prove to be the fatal blow. Nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing.
.
He was so unlike the caricature of what we've come to expect from most politicians: his voice was soft and he spoke with a slight lisp. In spite of his much heralded "toughness" there always seemed to be an almost fragile vulnerability about him. When talking to an audience of farm laborers or inner city youth, he could quote George Bernard Shaw or the ancient greek playwrites Aeschylus and Sophocles without showing even the slightest hint of condescension. Said his most recent biographer, Evan Thomas:
.
"He seemed so young when he died. He was young - only forty-two, a year younger than JFK had been upon his election as the second youngest president in the nation's history. But Robert Kennedy somehow seemed younger, more boyish. With his buck teeth and floppy hair and shy gawkiness, he sometimes came across like an awkward teenager. At other times, he was almost childlike in his wonder and curiosity."
.
He also had the political courage to tell the American people the hard and bitter truths they would have preferred to ignore. During the ill-fated campaign of 1968, during a question and answer session after a speech, a smug member of a mostly college-age audience sarcastically asked the Senator just who he thought was going to pay for all of these of these proposed programs of his. Kennedy looked the guy dead in the eye and said, "You are."
.
They just don't make Democrats like that anymore, do they?
.
Like all great men, he was riddled with contradictions. This son of privilege - who while growing up had never had even casual contact with poor people or minority groups - would become their most passionate, vocal advocate in a Senate crammed to the rafters with rich, White men. A very serious and introspective man, he was also in possession of a riotous sense of humor. This champion of freedom would begin his political career as a legal advisor to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. His role as Attorney General in John F. Kennedy's White House would alternate between being the president's attack dog/enforcer, to being the gentle voice of his conscience. Although "ruthless", there were still in his personality the faint remnants of the alter boy he had been as a child. Jack was Joe's son; Bobby was Rose's. The differences in personality between the two brothers may be summed up in their choice of friends: Jack's great buddy was Frank Sinatra; Bobby's was Andy Williams. That speaks volumes.
.
November 22, 1963 would change him forever. His faith shaken, his friend Charles Spalding would remember hearing his sobbing voice from behind the closed door of a White House bedroom, mournfully imploring, "Why, God, why?" In the months to follow, he would seem to many like a ghost of what he had once been. It was at this time that he began to devour philosophical and theological texts, desperately trying to come to terms with and make sense of the tragedy that had befallen himself and the entire country. It was only in March of 1965, when he became the first human being to reach the top of the 13,900 foot mountain that the Canadian government had rechristened, Mount Kennedy, that he was able to accept the loss. In a moment filled with emotion and symbolism, after walking alone up the last fifty yards and reaching mountain's summit, the party of professional climbers who had accompanied him, saw him drop to his knees and make the sign of the cross. The burden had been lifted.
.
Eight months later he would be elected as Senator from the State of New York. This was the beginning of his most visible and prolific period as spokesman of America's poor and dispossessed. He literally became the conscience of the nation, visiting the most poverty-ridden slums and farm worker dwellings - not only in New York but all over the country. He was trying to awaken his fellow countrymen and women to the fact that this situation just should not exist in the richest land in the world. Black people - millions of them - saw him as their last, best hope. Indeed, it has been remarked that Kennedy could talk to mostly Black audiences and mostly White audiences with equal credibility. Nobody even tries to do that anymore! Like the suffering endured by FDR while battling polio almost half a century earlier, his deep sorrow following Jack's murder had instilled in him a stronger empathy for the suffering of others. His desire to remake the United States into the country described by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, a nation where "all men are created equal" was as real as his unashamed love of America itself. And if he sometimes compromised for reasons of temporary political expediency, he was as incorruptible as the rising moon. He never pandered to fear or tried to appeal to the worst instincts palpable in so many Americans. When he spoke to people, he spoke up to them - as intelligent human beings - summoning the better angels of their nature. No one does that anymore either.
.
It is hard if not impossible to accurately gauge what was lost on that long ago, dark and hideous night in Los Angeles. To think where we might have gone but for the bullet of one deranged and confused mad man. A second Kennedy administration (which would have ended on January 20, 1977) would definitely have prevented eight years of Nixon and Watergate and might very well have prevented the dawning of the insane right wing era that began exactly four years later with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan - and has continued for twenty-seven years - an era which has ruined a country that used to be a nice place in which to live. We are a better people because, for one brief shining moment, Bobby Kennedy walked among us. Think how much better off we'd be today had he been allowed to stick around.
.
On the night of August 28, 1964, at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, Robert F. Kennedy was greeted by the delegates with a thundering ovation that lasted almost a half an hour. When the crowd finally calmed down, he paid tribute to his late, martyred brother, dead only nine months. Quoting Shakespeare in a passage from Romeo and Juliet, what he said that evening resonates across the decades. It might also be said for Bobby himself:
.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
.
SUGGESTED READING:
Robert Kennedy: His Life
by Evan Thomas

For more recent postings on this positively reprehensible, Commie-Loving site, please do go to the following link:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

Shameful, left wing propaganda. ENJOY!

With Democrats Like These....

This is the story 'bout Chuck and Diane

Two American pols screwin' up the whole land....

.

From my posting on "The Rant", November 8, 2006, one day after last year's mid-term elections:

"One week ago, we had every right to be pessimistic. All of that has changed....Come January 1st, it's all over - and when I say "over" I'm not merely referring to the Bush presidency, I'm referring to the entire right wing movement that began with the so-called "Reagan Revolution" over a quarter of a century ago."
.
What a difference a year makes.

.

One year ago last week, the American people (or, at least, the ones who bothered to vote) sent a clear, unmistakable message to their elected Representatives. The message could not have been misinterpreted: We're sick of the corrupt, reactionary fools and thieves who are at present running our beloved, once-great nation into the dirt. We're outraged that this country's tax burden is now being carried by the poor and middle class (a middle class which is quickly disappearing). We're fed up with the corporate greed that is throwing millions of our citizens into grinding poverty. We want the House and the Senate to act as the Constitution mandates they act: as overseers of the executive branch of this government. And, most importantly: We demand that American involvement in the obscenity that our "rulers" are at this moment committing against the men, women and little children of Iraq be ended - NOW!

.

That's fairly clear and concise, don'cha think? Now what part of that message did these stupid fucking Democrats not get?

.

The spineless timidity with which these pathetic, gutless assholes have shown in confronting the worst president in history and his nightmare of an administration's assault on American democracy can only be described as nauseating. All the hope that every thinking American was feeling on Election Day last is dead. On January 1 of last year we wanted to believe that the 110th Congress would do their constitutional duty and end George W. Bush's reign of terror and error. So cowardly have they turned out to be, they couldn't even bring themselves to vote for Dennis Kucinich's proposed articles of impeachment this week against Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney! A man whose approval ratings are now in the single digits! When the opportunity finally presented itself where they could take bold, decisive action, these goddamned crybabies folded up like a set of burlap lawn chairs.

.

Note to John Hall (my congressman, who voted with his timid colleagues to kill the Cheney impeachment): Don't make any plans for the 111th Congress, Buster! By the way, John, that band you fronted in the Seventies? Orleans? You guys were awful! "You're Still The One" still sucks! There. I feel better already.

.

While all of this was going on, Charles Schumer and Diane Fine-stain (thank you, Jello Biafra) voted during confirmation hearings to allow the name of Attorney General designate Michael Mukasey to go to the floor for a full vote. This is a guy who during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, was unable to say whether or not waterboarding was legal, and thus, constituted torture. Said Senator Feinstein: "I really believe this person will be an independent source of fresh air in the department."

.

Come again???

.

Or how 'bout this little gem of enlightenment that Chuck Schumer added to the conversation: "For the Senate to make a bold declaration about torture and waterboarding is appealing. But to defeat him would abandon the hope of instituting many of the reforms called for by our investigation."

.

Huh??? Does Chuckles actually believe that Bush's latest hack is going to reform the Department of Justice? Is he so naive that he thinks for even a moment that Mukasey is going to hold the Bush Mob accountable for their crimes - too vast to adequately catalogue - against the people of the United States? He's joking, right? He's gotta be!

.

Am I missing something here?

.

The argument seems to be that we need an Attorney General to manage Justice - regardless of that person's competence. That's a fallacy too ridiculous to even comment on (but I will - what the heck!) It would probably be better off for the country as a whole to have that department leaderless for the foreseeable future then for them to install someone who will do even more damage than has already been done. A rudderless ship will drift for a while - but it rarely, if ever, sinks outright. Think about it: We've gone from John Ashcroft (bad) to Alberto Gonzalez (worse) to, quite possibly, Michael Mukasey (worst?) That's a chance that really shouldn't be taken. Unfortunately for us, the Democrats are just positively giddy to take these reckless chances. You see, they think that the more the GOP destroys America, the easier it will be for them to be elected next year. I kid you not, they actually believe such nonsense. That they would allow these despicable people to run roughshod over our government for no other reason than to satisfy their own, naked political opportunism is one of the most shameful things I've ever witnessed. These people have some nasty surprises in store for them come November of 2008.

.

Leave it to good ol' Russ Feingold to put things in their proper perspective! I'm told that he once failed an examination in High School. That may very well be the case but he's been pretty much right on target ever since. Said he:

.

"If judge Mukasey won't say the simple truth, that this barbaric behavior is torture, how can we count on him to stand up to the White House on other issues?"

.

The very fact that someone of Senator Feingold's stature and intellect still walks the floors of that body is one of the few (very few) things that give me hope.

.

The disgusting behavior this week of our Democratic Representatives only reinforces the rightness of my decision to bolt that worthless party almost a decade ago. They have all but abandoned the ideals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal that set this country on the path to a near middle class utopia seventy-five years ago. The fact that only a miracle of fate will prevent them from nominating a candidate as visionless and clueless as Hillary Clinton to be their standard bearer at next summer's convention is all the proof you need to smell the ideological sewer into which they have fallen.

.

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?

.

Fifty-one years ago, John Fitzgerald Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize in Historical Non-fiction for his book, Profiles In Courage. Were he writing that book today, where would he look for inspiration while casting his eyes upon the current, miserable state of his party? There is no doubt that he would be as embarrassed as you and I at the sorry, gnarled condition of the party of FDR. Their "base" is as angry as it's been in a very, very long time. Unless they get their act together soon and start showing the kind of courage that Jack Kennedy wrote so eloquently about half a century ago, they should expect another Green/Third Party uprising at the polls next November. That's not a vague threat. That's an absolute fact. Count on it.

.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

.

SUGGESTED READING:

Profiles in Courage

by John F. Kennedy

.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Many of you who are regular readers of "THE RANT" have more than likely read the comments of Stoney Browning. You really ought to have a look at his blog, "Stoney's Rage". He's mad as hell and he's not gonna to take it anymore! Here's a link:

http://www.stoneysrage.blogspot.com/

There's No News Like Fake News

I love it! It just keeps getting stupider and stupider and stupider! Just when you thought this nightmare of an administration couldn't slip any lower into the realms of unintentional, black comedy, they cheerfully do it again! Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in a pathetic attempt to put a good face on on a bad situation, decided to hold a news conference in order to answer questions about the wild fires raging on the west coast. Here's the kicker: instead of inviting the news media, they decided that the questions would be posed, not by professional reporters, but by the FEMA employees themselves - guaranteeing an unending barrage of tough, hardball questions:
`

"How happy are you with FEMA's results?"
`

Which would be followed by tough, hardball answers:
`

"Oh, very happy indeed! Thank you so much for your question!"
`

Is that a laugh riot, or what? I think that it is illustrative of this White House's unprecedented arrogance that they really believed they could get away with something this bold. Come to think of it, why should they not have thought as much? For the last seven years, the corporate news media have been letting these guys get away with bloody murder - literally!

Here's something to ponder: there is, no doubt, reason to pine for the likes of Edward R. Murrow and John Chancellor in this era of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. They were men who held up a mirror to America's conscience and reflected to the people - not what they wanted to know - but what they needed to know. The fact that the deregulation of the Reagan years ushered in an era where CBS (Murrow's old network) could be purchased by arms manufacturer, Westinghouse, and NBC (Chancellor's old network) could be obtained by arms manufacturer, General Electric - should give every thinking person pause.

All the reasons why the main stream news media, the fourth estate, has utterly failed in its responsibility to keep the public informed on matters of policy and affairs of state were laid out in depressing detail in Bill Moyers' recent PBS report, "Selling The War" (It's available on DVD. If you haven't seen it, you should). In the run-up to the obscenity we are now committing in Iraq, the very few news organizations that got the story right (read that to mean: Invading Iraq is a monumentally stupid idea) were those that operated outside the Washington beltway, cocktail party mentality - Knight Ridder, for instance. What happened in the months leading up to America's illegal occupation of that country was nothing more than the Washington Press Corps acting as stenographers on the one hand, and cheerleaders on the other.
`

In the good old days, the news divisions of most radio and television networks, operated outside the dictates of corporate policy. Any owner of a broadcast entity was obliged, by FCC mandate, to keep the people up-to-date with news and information - regardless of whether or not the news department made the company a profit (and in most cases it did not). If an owner was going to have the luxury of making his or her fortune by selling consumer goods over the people's airwaves, making sure that those same people remained informed citizens was the price they had to pay - like it or not.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.
`

FOX and Friends: News for Idiots
`

Every once in a while, I'll tape an entire, three hour segment of the morning "news" program, FOX and Friends. It is the modern equivalent of watching the old, 1965 movie, Hold On! starring the deservedly forgotten British pop group, Herman's Hermits: so mind-numbingly awful that it's actually fun to watch! The very fact that this lame assemblage of info-taining, trivial nonsense is the highest rated morning cable program is instructive when trying to get to the bottom of the question as to why the American people are the dumbest, least informed, unenlightened people in the entire western world and why we are - no doubt about it - the laughingstock of the planet.

Its three hosts are totally lacking in any real journalistic credentials. Indeed one of them, an amiable twit named Steve Doocy (whose last name will one day become a verb, I promise you), is a former TV weatherman. He now has the job of commenting daily on important matters of national and international concern - that is, when he's able to find the time to pry himself away from the latest Brittany or Paris scandal du jour. FOX and Friends is embarrassing any way you analyze it. It is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. It's message is as simplistic as it is unbalanced:
`

Conservative: GOOD. Liberal: BAD. Think of it as Mallard Fillmore in real time.
.
It was not like this in our parent's day. In that bygone, lost era, before the "Triumph of Mediocrity" (as Norman Corwin put it twenty years ago in the subtitle of his well-written book "Trivializing America" ), the greatest generation went to the polls with - at the very least - a remedial knowledge of the issues important to their country. Today we are so susceptible to political propaganda and corporate media influence, the main talking point of the last presidential campaign was John Kerry's innocent gaffe during the primary season: "I voted for the eighty-seven billion before I voted against it". A statement as innocuous as that one would not have made so much as a blip on the political radar screens of 1960 or 1972 or even 1984 for that matter.
.
Mah! Mah! The ol' plantation sho' has changed!
.
While the fact that the Washington Journalistic establishment has been showing a little pluck in recent months is somewhat encouraging, it does not take away from the fact that they are responsible for letting this dreadful situation metastasize. Forty years ago, George W. Bush would not have been taken seriously as a potential presidential candidate. He is only where he is today because a lazy and compliant press refused to ask him the tough questions and, instead, wasted their time (and ours) by debating whether or not Al Gore ever said that he had invented the Internet (NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: he never even implied it). And it might further be noted that they have already fouled the political waters by crowning Hillary Clinton as the Democrat's virtual heiress to next summer's nomination - consciously following the GOP's playbook to lull the Dems into nominating the one candidate who will - most certainly - lose in November of 2008. And the tragic fact of the matter is that very few people are able to see through what can only be described as a blatantly obvious political ploy.
.
It appears, at least from the vantage point of November 2008, that the electorate will, once again, send another corporate whore to the White House one year from today - regardless of who is elected. That very fact alone does not bode well for the future of democracy. If you want to deny the undeniable reality that we are now living in a Corporately Controlled State, consider the fact that, eighteen years after Exxon was fined 2.5 billion dollars for the Valdez accident, they have yet to pay one red cent to the people of Alaska and still refuse to do so! They know that they are not required to obey the laws that you and I are obliged to live by. They know that whoever wins the White House next year - Democratic or Republican - it will continue to be business as usual.
.
If that very fact does not enrage you, you're probably watching a lot of FOX and Friends - C'mon! Be honest!
.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
.
SUGGESTED VIEWING:
.
"Selling The War"
from Bill Moyers' Journal
.
"OUT-FOXXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism"
A Film by Robert Greenwald
.
For more recent postings on this atrocious, french-fry-eating, latte-swirling, Ted-Kennedy-loving, Karl-Marx-reading site, please kindly proceed to the link below:

"THE RANT" by TOM DEGAN

Disgusting, commie propaganda. THERE OUGHTTA BA A LAW, I TELLS YA! THERE OUGHTTA BE A FREAKIN' LAW!!!

Shh! They're working on that.