"The Rant" by Tom Degan

Newt's Family Values

2012-01-22T09:54:00.034-05:00

It was the Newster all the way in South Carolina last night. This wasn't as big a surprise as you might think. Newt had spent the entire primary subtly pressing all of the right racial buttons and it worked out for him better than even he anticipated I'm sure. You see, South Carolina Republicans don't really care for black people that much. When you enter a place where the Confederate flag still waves proudly over the statehouse, you'll be encountering people with - "issues" shall we say? John McCain learned this lesson the hard way in 2000.

After handily winning in New Hampshire that year, McCain came into South Carolina with a healthy lead over the dim-witted son of a failed ex-president. The Bush Mob were not to be deterred. They spread the nasty rumor that McCain's adopted, dark-skinned daughter was the product of a liaison between him and a black prostitute. It worked. That's just the sort of thing that would work in that state I'm sorry to say. The momentum he had gained heading into the Super Tuesday Primary all-but-died and his campaign was toast from that moment on. Thanks to the stupidity and racism of the average South Carolinian Republican voter, America got saddled with the worst president since James Buchanan. Nice.

From this point on anything can happen - and probably will. Gingrich has an unfortunate tendency of going ballistic and flaming out just as things are beginning to look up for him, and I haven't a doubt in my mind that history will repeat itself very soon. It will probably be Mitt Romney who receives the coronation next summer - but I haven't given up hope for Newt. I want him to get that nomination so badly it makes me drool buckets! Can you imagine what fun his campaign would be to watch? Oh, please, fate!

It matters little at this stage who gets the nomination. It's a fairly safe assumption to say that the election of 2012 is essentially over. Are Romney and Gingrich secretly working for Barack Obama's campaign? That would seem to be the case given their behavior in recent days. They've done so much damage to one another (and their party) that his reelection in November is almost written in the stars.

Here's another thing to take to the bank, boys and girls: Romney (assuming he will be the nominee) will be placed in the same position that McCain was forced into in 2008. In order to bring out "the base" he will will be forced to place on the ticket with him someone (like Sarah Palin) who is such a right wing extremist that he or she is in serious danger of falling off of the face of the earth. Remember how well that worked out for them last time 'round? As it did four years ago, the choice of running mate will scare the living shit out of moderate Americans. Just you wait and see.

Here are the Cliff Notes: The Republican party is imploding before our very eyes. Life is beautiful.

Which brings me back to the thrice-married Newt: In an eleventh-hour interview with Marianne (the second Mrs. Gingrich) in which she revealed that when she found out about Newt's affair with Barbi-doll-wannabe Callista (the third Mrs. Gingrich) Newt informed the poor gal that from that point on, he wanted their marriage to be an "open" one. Shortly after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Newt served Marianne with divorce papers - much in the same manner he had served the cancer-stricken Jackie (the first Mrs. Gingrich) with divorce papers a decade earlier. The day after he unloaded the bad news on her, Newt gave a speech highlighting the traditional values of American families.

Are you following this?

Newt's history as a serial marrier did didn't mean a thing to the "Family Values" mob in South Carolina, All that matters to these clowns is the fact that old Newt really despises that Big, Black, Bolshevik Boogieman in the White House. That's good enough for them. He told these nutty people that he didn't merely want to bloody Barack Obama's nose, he wanted to "knock him out". Bop the coon! He'd have done much better in the final tally had he just told this crowd that he was in the mood for a good old fashion lynching. String 'im up!!! That would have brought out the base alright - in droves.

But he did the next best thing. By constantly referring to "food stamps" and "welfare", Gingrich lassoed the imaginations of these jackasses and was able to paint a black face on nearly every issue. He knows that the only way the Republicans are going to take back the White House next January will be by appealing to the very worst in America's historical character - and Newt Gingrich is the world's outstanding authority on the subject of bad character. All he needs to do is exploit the irrational prejudice toward the most oppressed people in the history of the human race. And to do so under the guise that he has the Almighty on his side? My goodness. Hell must be beckoning.

If there's any doubt in your mind that 2012 is going to be the nastiest political year of our lifetime all I can tell you is, hang onto your hats, folks. This is gonna get ugly. Very ugly indeed. It might very well get violent in some places. This Tea party crowd has lost their minds. As Al Jolson liked to say in his day, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED VIEWING/LISTENING:

This is a link to a tender little lullaby to the GOP that I came across during my meanderings through cyberspace:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OE-8emw39fA

It really tugs at the old heartstrings, doesn't it?

Cheers!

I-Ronnie of I-Ronnies

2012-01-17T08:30:00.056-05:00

"Where collective bargaining is forbidden, freedom is lost."

-Ronald Reagan

I'm almost at a loss for words. Who knows whether or not Reagan really meant what he was saying when he made the statement. My guess is that he did not. That utterance was made during the campaign of 1980. Candidates say a lot of things they don't really mean. Less than a year later when as president he fired the air traffic controllers, he pretty much hammered yet another nail into the coffin of collective bargaining in this country. Still, it speaks untold volumes that thirty-two years ago a Republican candidate could say such a thing and not lose an ounce of support from "the base". It also perfectly illustrates the devolution of "the party of Abraham Lincoln".

Thirty-one years ago this coming Friday, the American people sent to the White House a corrupt, feeble-minded, failed "B" movie actor. Do you wanna hear the punchline? The Republican party has sunk so deep into the ideological cesspool since January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan is starting to look like Theodore Roosevelt! As Jack Parr was fond of saying in his day, "I kid you not."

Isn't life strange?

During Ronald Reagan's reign of error I was living in New York City. I was really into writing song parodies then. I would occasionally perform them on guitar at a place I loved which was right around the corner from where I lived - Ye Olde Tripple Inn on West 54th Street - directly across from the fabled Studio 54, a place I never frequented. One of the songs I lampooned was called "And Nixon, I Miss You". It was sung to the tune of Bobby Goldboro's 1968 hit, the delightfully maudlin "Honey"

One time I thought that Richard Nixon's Presidency
was the worst thing possible
But that was many years ago
and nowadays that sentiment seems laughable
In nineteen-eighty somehow
the electorate coughed up a brain-dead movie star
I never had faith in the voters
but I never realized how dumb they are

And Nixon I miss you
and I'm feeling blue
I've lost all of my senses
I'm nostalgic for you

That was then. This is now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way reformulating my opinion of Reagan or his presidency. As I've said too many times to count, the damage that the hideous old freak did to this once great nation is so immense it will never be accurately assessed. It is incalculable. After all, it was the insane policies of deregulation championed by Ronald Wilson Reagan that set us upon the road toward the economic mess we find ourselves in today. He told us he could increase spending, cut taxes and balance the budget - and that he would do it by 1982! Anyone with a remedial grasp of arithmetic knew what utter bullshit that was. The reason his successor George H.W. Bush was defeated in his reelection bid by an unknown named Bill Clinton was because he was forced to raise taxes ("revenue enhancers" he called them) in an attempt to clean up the mess he inherited from Reagan.

And I'm also not implying that I "miss" Ronald Reagan anymore than I was missing Richard Nixon when I wrote that parody in 1988. It's just that (Jeez Louise) the two of them are starting to look pretty good - at least when placed in comparison to the insanity junkies who now populate that disgusting party. Imagine that you're a kid who's just arrived home from kindergarten. You switch on the TV to find that Bozo the Clown has been replaced by the John Wayne Gacy Show. It's kinda the same thing.

And see the debt how big it's grown
But friends it hasn't been to long it wasn't big
In early nineteen-eighty one
The debt that's now a redwood tree was just a twig

What a difference three decades makes.

This is sheer speculation on my part but I imagine that even a dirty old dingbat like Ronnie would be horrified to see where the so-called "Reagan Revolution" has taken us. Then again maybe not. It was always hard to figure out where der Gipper was coming from. Even his own children couldn't figure the old bugger out. He was always an aloof and distant figure to them, even when he was present. I just learned something this morning that floored me. On the day his half-witted kid Michael was married, his dad and Nancy opted out of the festivities and went instead to Tricia Nixon's wedding at the White House! It makes one seriously wonder about the man's inner character.

When even some "liberals" are expressing a sense of teary-eyed nostalgia for the likes of Ronald Reagan, that's all the proof you need to understand that the political wheels have come of the planet. And the fact that a Casper Milquetoast moderate like Barack Obama is viewed by many as a left wing radical is further proof that the American people have lost their bearings - to put it as mildly as possible.

The fact of the matter is that the dead conservatives of another era - Barry Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan - could not get nominated to run as sewer inspectors in the current environment of the grand old party. At the end of his life Goldwater had turned his back on the right wing movement - a movement he helped bring into being when he was nominated by the Republicans at the convention of 1964. And remember, this was a man who in his day was known as "Mr. Conservative"! That speaks volumes, doesn't it? It's a good thing for Barry that he didn't live to see the Tea party - although I do wish Reagan had lived to see a black man in the White House. The very sight of Obama in the Oval Office would have given the old racist a fatal case of spastic apoplexy. That would have been oodles of fun to watch. Can you imagine?

Unless they succeed in stealing a whole lot of elections this November (Don't put it past them; they're working on it as I write these words) 2012 is not going to be a particularly good year for the Republican party. It's a fairly safe bet that the Democrats will be able to take back the House in spite of themselves. Not that I'm jumping with joy over that little prediction. The best that can be said of these present-day Dems is that they're not quite as incompetent as the GOP. Certainly they're not one/tenth as corrupt as them. We can only hope that the new batch of freshmen won't be in the pockets of corporate America. We can also pray they remember that they are in fact the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yeah, right.

Did you ever think you'd live to see the day when this once-great nation would be reduced to such a sorry and pathetic state? Hold onto your hats, kiddies! The worst is yet to come! Somewhere, Ronald Reagan must be laughing.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

This is a paragraph I wrote on this site about three years ago:

"What must be remembered is that Ronald Reagan was essentially a mask, with a twinkle in it's eye and a fine, Irish smile. Remove that mask and what is revealed is the twisted, hideous smirk of George W. Bush. That's the real face of the 'Reagan Revolution'".

For more of my thoughts on Ronald Reagan, here is a link to a little ditty I wrote almost a year ago on the occasion of the centennial of his birth:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2011/02/ronnie-at-one-hundred.html

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

"Peace on Earth"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8stkqssLYc

In 1939, a group of writers and animators at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer came together to produce this little gem. How it got past the eye of uber right winger Louis B. Mayer (head of the studio) is anybody's guess.

Pray for peace.

The 2012 Shoo-in - Maybe

2012-01-11T08:12:00.036-05:00

Well over a year ago I predicted on this site that the religious bigots and crazy people who long ago hijacked the "the party of Abraham Lincoln" would never nominate Mormon Mitt Romney. "David Duke will be named head of the NAACP before that ever happens" I speculated at the time. It appears that I might be forced to eat a healthy dish of crow on the occasion of Mitt's victory in the New Hampshire Primary last night. This is not to imply that the half-witted "base" of that party are happy about what happened last evening. Anything but. Let me put it to you this way: The Republicans just got the news that they're pregnant and they're trying to fall in love as rapidly as possible.

Yes, with the honorable exception of Jon Huntsman, the most impressive GOP candidate to come along since Teddy Roosevelt a century ago, the contenders for the nomination were just too bat-shit crazy for even the right wing to stomach. That takes some doing.

Although the polls show Romney with a healthy edge in the South Carolina primary on January 21, it is by no means a done deal. Anything can happen in that state and usually does. John McCain learned that lesson the hard way in 2000. At this moment, the Gingrich campaign is bombarding the palmetto state with an anti-Romney propaganda blitzkrieg so fierce it's liable to take a heavy toll. Whether or not it will prove fatal is open for speculation.

Which brings me to the nasty subject of Newt Gingrich. He will probably save the Obama campaign a million or more in advertising this year by making the case for them why Mitt Romney should never be sent to the White House. The Republican "cause" - such as it is - means not a damned thing to him. He can't be so delusional that he honestly believes that he'll ever be president. His is a scorched earth, take-no-prisoners policy. The only thing that matters to Newt is Newt. If he has to bring the Republican party down in flames with him, so be it. GO FOR IT, NEWT!

"I love firing people"

-Mitt Romney
New Hampshire primary, 9 January 2012

That little Freudian slip didn't do him much good. As someone pointed out recently, Mitt Romney doesn't "create" jobs. He cremates them. The jolly good work he did for Bain Capital all those years ago by buying up companies and liquidating them - throwing thousands of people out of work in the process - will surely come back to haunt him when he faces President Obama in the general election. It was a very telling - albeit unfortunate - choice of words. It is what defines Mitt and his party. It's all about making the largest amount of profit for the smallest number of people. Who gives a shit if their policies wreck havoc over the social landscape of the nation? Money is everything. Chris Matthews has compared him to the Gordon Gekko character played by Michael Douglas in the film "Wall Street". It's an apt comparison to be sure. Greed is very good indeed to these clowns.

Assuming he will be the 2012 nominee, Romney has a few hurdles to overcome. Let's face some uncomfortable facts here, campers; even his own people can't stand him. He doesn't come off as the most sincere guy - and that's being generous. In fact he's the most superficial candidate who ever sought the office. He reminds a few people of the host of some lame, 1970's game show. He's not likely to inspire "the base" to show up at the polls en masse. Not only is his religion a hindrance, but there's also the fact that this former governor of "Taxachusetts" is seen by these knuckleheads as the worst kind of bleeding heart liberal. Isn't that a hoot? And you wonder why I get such a kick out of politics.

But it's not as if Barack Obama himself doesn't have an uphill fight to deal with. His position at the moment is envious despite the economic mess - which he inherited. His problem is that the Governors and legislators of Republican-controlled states all over the country have been passing unconstitutional laws that will make it nearly impossible for the people who tend to vote Democratic to pass their ballots in November. Their reason is the non-existent plague of voter fraud. Although I'm placing my money on Obama, I'm certainly not going to bet the farm on him.

The president also has the problem of the Democratic base to deal with. He's been a huge disappointment in too many areas to count. I can understand the frustration people are feeling. I would only hope that traditional Democratic voters will remember that the alternatives to Obama are just too depressing to even think about. Maybe in a second term he'll start behaving like a real progressive. Maybe.

This much is certain: 2012 will be the most interesting political year of our lifetimes. To paraphrase Pete Townsend:

"Gotta feeling 2012 is gonna be a weird year."

Indeed it will be. Fasten your seat belts.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED VIEWING

Paris at Midnight
a Film by Woody Allen

If you love Woody Allen you'll love his new film, just out on DVD. If you don't, you won't. That's the curious thing about Woody. There seems to be no middle ground.

And the winner is - Santoromney?

2012-01-04T10:22:00.057-05:00

Look! Up in the sky! It's Mitt! It's Rick! NO! IT'S SANTOROMNEY!!!

So Mitt Romney is pleased as punch after beating Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses by a mere eight votes, huh? Mitt's jubilation needs to be placed in check. To end up in a virtual tie with a basket case like poor old Rick is an ominous portent of things to come I'm afraid. With the South Carolina primaries just around the corner, Willard Mitt should be getting fat with worry. And who would blame him? The jackasses in that state who identify themselves as "Republicans" are so out-of-touch with fundamental reality, they perceive a conservative hack like Mitt as a radical left-winger. And you wonder why I get such a kick out of politics? Life is beautiful.

FLASH! THE MIDWEST IS THE NEW DEEP SOUTH!

Another example of the spreading intellectual rot of the United States of America; a country which at one time (Hold onto your hats, generation Xers!) was the best place in the world in which to live. It's not anymore. It ain't even close. Still, we do have the best reality shows on the planet. Stand proud, America!

It boggles the senses that so many voters in the Hawkeye State would have bothered to venture out in the freezing weather to vote for any of these clowns. Their sense of civic responsibility truly astounds. If I had my way, the first caucus would be held in Wisconsin. Those folks have awakened to what is being done to the working people of this country. Iowans obviously haven't a clue.

I fail to understand the importance that is being given to the Iowa caucuses. Does anyone seriously believe that a relatively isolated state near the center of the country is a microcosm of American ideals and political opinion? Or that the people who live there - a lot of whom are just-a-tad reactionary, uninformed and out of touch - are an indication of who the nominee will be? With regard to the Republican caucus, Iowa has a fairly reliable history of getting it wrong. I strongly suspect that the "momentum" that Mitt 'n' Rick will be receiving out of their "victories" won't amount to a hill of garbanzo beans in the long run.

"I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."

Rick Santorum
Sioux City, Iowa
January 1, 2012

Ohhh, Lawdy! Lawdy! Thank you, massah!

Ah, Rick! What an asshole. That a halfwit like Rick Santorum can go as far as he's gone proves only that this really is a white man's world. It also shows a Herculean act of desperation on his part to play the race card in Iowa of all places - a state with fewer African Americans than any other in the union - about two percent. Take that moronically insensitive comment as a sneak preview of what's in store for us as the Hilarious Campaign of 2012 gets underway. No doubt about it, kids, this is gonna get ugly. You don't want a front row seat for this fight; it's liable to get a bit messy. The mezzanine is your best bet.

The right wing wants to take back 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue so badly, nothing's going to stand in their way, not even common decency. They can't win on the basis of their ideas because those ideas are beyond reprehensible. The only chance they have is by appealing to the darkest dysfunction in white America's tormented soul: its irrational fear of the dreaded KNEE-GROW. The Republican governors of thirty-four states are now in the process of "legally" denying them the vote by mandating that they purchase voter ID's. This is what is known as a "poll tax" - and it was ruled unconstitutional almost a half-century ago. Oh, yeah, this is gonna get very ugly indeed.

PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE:

No race of people in the history of this country have suffered more - and with less good reason - than have our fellow citizens of African heritage. I would imagine that there is a special place in hell for any politician who would exploit white America's paranoia simply for political gain.

NOTE TO THE GOP: Knock it off.

If you had any doubt that the Roberts Court's obscene Citizens United ruling of two years ago might seriously harm our republic, those doubts should have been dispelled in Iowa. I never thought I would live to see the day when I would feel a tinge of sympathy for the likes of Newt Gingrich but - so help me Mitch Miller - that day has come. For the past week Romney's super-secret, political action committee has bombarded the Iowan airwaves with anti-Newt propaganda. Gingrich's popularity, which had been rising in recent weeks, crumbled amid the onslaught. We don't know who paid for those ads. We may never know. The court of John Roberts has seen to that.

So it's off to New Hampshire and South Carolina. I must admit to you that I'm feelin' just a little blue at the moment. None of the candidates I was praying for (the bat-shit crazy ones) will be getting the nomination. Herman Cain is gone and forgotten. Rick Perry has headed home to Texas to "think things over". Maybe he'll be back. Maybe not.

Ron Paul's campaign is still in full-tilt-boogie mode. It has recently been revealed that in the eighties, the congressman was responsible for some perfectly hideous, racist newsletters. I find it quite interesting that his opponents for the GOP nod are using every issue they can think of to bring him down a notch or two - every issue but that one. It's not too difficult to figure out the reason for this. Ron Paul is a reactionary racist? That would make him VERY appealing to the knuckleheads who constitute the "base" of that disgusting party. Can't have that, can we.

Just an hour ago as of this writing Michele Bachmann announced that she will be "suspending" her campaign. She has seen the writing on the wall I suppose. At some of her appearances over the weekend, the crowd numbers were in the single digits. And she was born in Iowa! This is a real let-down. I was pinning my hopes on her candidacy more than anyone's. Can you imagine what a scream her campaign might have been? Alas, it was never meant to be. I'm gonna miss Michele like nobody's business. All of that sweet, accidental humor is now ashes to the wind. I wonder what the future holds in store for her. FOX Noise? Dancing with the Stars? Reality TV? I can see her hosting a game show: The Price is Reich.

It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up, the piper must be paid
The party's over; it's all over, my friend....

My male friends have always been puzzled by my indifference to sports. This is true. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of articles in the sports pages that I have read in my life. It is also a sad indicator that, as a political writer, I'll never be considered Hall of Fame material. The great ones - every single one of them - were all stone-cold sports fans. But what good is sports when compared to the incredible spectacle that comes only once every four years - the race to the White House??? No contest comes close to it in terms of a pure adrenaline rush. None.

So let the 2012 Republican Clown Car Race-to-the-Bottom begin. Gentlemen, start your rhetoric.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
by Hunter Thompson

The Boys on the Bus
by Timothy Crouse

Thompson and Crouse were both correspondents for Rolling Stone Magazine during the McGovern/Nixon race of 1972. Their respective memoirs of that campaign are essential reading for any self-respecting political junkie. I'm happy to say that both books are still in print.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Rick Perry has just announced that he will be entering the South Carolina primary. YES!!!

2011: The Worst of The Rant

2011-12-30T09:10:00.030-05:00

Ring out the false; ring in the true
Ring out the old; ring in the new

-George Harrison

Heavens to Betsy! Can it possibly be? Another year come and gone??? Well, goodness gracious me! Time certainly flies when you're trying to save the world, ya know? And speaking of time; it's time once again for another annual recap of the Worst of The Rant. Happy reading, campers!

January 4:
Tomorrow marks the start of the One-hundred and Twelfth Congress. For a person who makes his or her name and livelihood by commenting on the ineptitude and corruption of American politicians, this is indeed wonderful news. We are beside ourselves with giddy anticipation. For regular working people, however - particularly those hardest hit by the economic catastrophe we currently find ourselves in - this bit of news is as nasty as can be. PREDICTION: You thought the One-hundred and Eleventh Congress was beyond awful? OH, BROTHER! This one will be remembered as the worst in history. Anyone care to make a little wager on this point? I'm taking on all comers.

[12/30/11: My goodness! I nailed that one, did I not?]

January 10:
The extremism of [November 22] 1963 was pretty much isolated to a few southern cities. Forty-eight years later it's gone national. What happened in Arizona over the weekend [the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords] is only the beginning. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but America's political discourse has been hijacked by half-wits and crazy people. Their spokespersons make their names by inflaming their clueless masses with the language of hate. That's their job. Then again, I'm not giving away any state secrets here, am I?

January 20:
I can still remember what my father was wearing when he told me, "The president's been shot." He had just pulled in the driveway and had the car radio on. I was arriving home from Mrs. Peevey's kindergarten class. I distinctly recall that, despite it being late into the autumn, it was an unseasonably warm day. Something wonderful ended on November 22, 1963 - not just John F. Kennedy's life - but America's youthful optimism as well. I don't believe this country ever got over the assassination of President Kennedy. Maybe it will one day. Maybe not.

January 25:
Since the demolition of the Fairness Doctrine thirty years ago, the progressive point-of-view on America's airwaves has diminished to the point that it's now almost non-existent. For every Thom Hartmann you have at least twenty Rush Limbaughs. It's a dire situation that is getting worse with each passing year. And it wasn't exactly a spirit-lifter when Air America failed a couple of years ago. The people's airwaves have been stolen by the plutocracy, and they don't plan on giving it back. Take it back.

January 31
Much of the blame for the "scourge" of Michele Bachmann must be laid at the door of Chris Matthews. I love the man. He is just about the smartest son-of-a-bitch commenting on politics today. But I really have to chide him for "discovering" her. Ms. Bachmann was a deservedly unknown congresswoman in October 2009 when he invited her on his program "Hardball" for an interview. It was there that she called for an investigation of all the Democrats in congress for their "un-Americanism". Under normal circumstances such an idiotic statement would have hurled her right back into obscurity. Instead, the GOP made her a star. Life is funny that way, you know?

February 6:
On February 6, 1911, one-hundred years ago today, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Unlike most of the country however, I won't be spending this day looking back on his presidency with any degree of nostalgia - trust me. I'm not celebrating the life of Ronald Reagan. I hold the hideous old bastard in complete and utter contempt.

February 17:
Could this be the beginning of a revolution that might spread nationwide? I'm hopeful. Unlike the clueless tea party types, the good people of the state of Wisconsin realize that the blame for the problem lies not with those naughty, bleeding heart Liberals, but with the plutocrats and greed heads who long ago hijacked not only our government, but both political parties - including the one that Lincoln helped found in 1856. Bob Dylan once said, "A hard rain's gonna fall." Indeed. I hope you have an umbrella at the ready. The shit storm has arrived.

February 28:
There is a certain kind of schadenfreude that comes with seeing a people getting exactly what they deserve, and I imagine that I'm going to love every minute of it. It's also a much better thing to come to terms with the shit storm that is just around the corner than to delude oneself into believing that some nameless secular messiah is going to lead us all to the beloved Candy Land of our fantasies. A lot of us (myself included) made that mistake with Barack Obama and our hopes exploded right in our faces. It's almost like anticipating that knock-knock-knocking sound to be Winston Churchill - only to open the door to find Neville Chamberlain standing there - utterly clueless and befuddled. And unless Obama is challenged in the primaries by the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt, I'm afraid we're stuck with him.

March 11:
It will be recorded [of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker] that no other single human being was more responsible than he for inspiring the people to finally rise up and revolt against the economic injustices they had been suffering under for over three decades. When Walker and the GOP legislators in the Wisconsin State House illegally signed away the collective bargaining rights of union workers, did they really believe that that would be the end of it?

Like it or not, the Madison Revolution is here. Get the fuck out of the way.

March 16:
Newt Gingrich is one of those "lowest common denominator" politicians that litter the pages of American history. Like old Joe McCarthy, he is unable to appeal to the best in his fellow Americans because there is not a heck of a lot of substance there. But all that aside, Newt wants to be the next president of the United States so badly he can hardly contain himself. He's hell-bent on seizing the nomination at the GOP convention in 2012 - and nothing and NOBODY is going to get in his way. This is gonna be good!

April 5:
I hate to be seen as a cheerleader for the Democrats, I really do. I often feel like I'm in a restaurant and the waiter is asking me, "Would you like a nice cool glass of donkey piss to wash down that juicy plate of elephant shit you've ordered, sir?" Our choices these days are sparse - no question about it. But when everything has been sliced and diced, I feel that am left with no choice but to side with the Dems. The alternatives are too depressing too even think about. "Stick with Tweedle-dee", I tell myself, "Tweedle-dum is brain-damaged." He's also a bit of a pervert.

May 19:
I'm going to do something I've never done before (and will never do again - I promise!) I'm going to say something in favor of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis: When they took power in March of 1933, they at least didn't fuck with the electoral process. Hitler's ascendance to power was achieved legally and in conformity to the German constitution as it stood at the time. That's right; I'm comparing the Nazis favorably to the Republican party. Things have gotten that weird.

May 24:
I've been thinking a lot about Ronald Reagan lately. Less than two weeks from now will mark the sixth anniversary of his passing. Six years! Can it possibly be? I'm sorry he's no longer here. I wish he could have lived to see the presidency of Barack Obama. I really do. The sight of a black man in the Oval Office would have given the old bugger a severe case of spastic apoplexy or maybe worse. That would have been so much fun to watch.

May 31:
Let us face some serious and undeniable facts here. A politician as deliciously sleazy as the Newtster should be cherished - if only for the scads of unintentional comedy his very presence in the national limelight inspires. As you might imagine, I have been following Newt's presidential campaign - or what's left of it - with a longing I'm hard-pressed to describe. I soooo wanted him to get the GOP nomination in 2012 I could almost taste it. I was even contemplating sending the hideous old freak a check. I might as well not waste my money. It's very clear to everyone (except Gingrich of course) that he's not going to get his party's nod next year - or any year for that matter.

June 20
By privatizing the American prison system these assholes have created a brand-spanking-new corporate class whose very existence will depend upon those prisons being filled to the rafters with human beings - FOREVER! As a result the owners will send lobbyists to Washington, who will then bribe our representatives into passing more-and-more punitive laws that will ensure that those prisons are booked to capacity. How will they make a profit? Forced industrial labor - which will be just another drain on American jobs. Think about that: Forced labor. It's something that was officially terminated in this nation one-hundred and forty-six years ago. It was called "slavery". Remember that "peculiar institution"?

Mah! Mah! The ol' plantation sho has changed!

June 28:
In the meantime the Republicans in Congress are doing everything humanly possible to ensure that the economy crashes. That is the reason - and the only reason - they are trying to prevent the raising of the debt ceiling in August. If America goes into default the proverbial shit will hit the economic fan. When that happens, all bets are off for the president. Their goal is to bring on an economic catastrophe in order to take back the executive and legislative branches of your government on January 20, 2013. That is what human slime like Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are banking on. Our livelihood and well being doesn't matter in the least to these bastards. Wake up.

July 7:
The right wing has been in serious denial throughout its long and weird history (You may recall the "peculiar institution" of slavery). Modern times are no different for these freaks. Here's what they need to (but won't) understand: America's financial affairs are in shambles. There is only one way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves - and it's going to involve taxes: Decades of SERIOUS taxation. The people who benefited the most from the thirty-year financial drunk - the Plutocracy - will be the ones who will have to bear the burden of the shovel. And that will mean bringing the tax rates for the richest two-percent back to where they during the Eisenhower era when many of them were in a ninety percent bracket. That is the only way out. Deal with it.

July 14:
I have been desperately trying to write a poem about the train wreck that Rupert Murdoch's life has become but I've run into a bit of a brick wall. Please, could somebody give me a word that rhymes with schadenfreude?

July 21:
The Republican party is at this very moment mounting a campaign that, if successful, will disenfranchise the the voting rights of African Americans - and everyone else who tends to vote left-of-center - all across America. Isn't that sweet? They understand all-too-well that the mysterious and unknowable segment of the population that the sociologists describe as "moderate" or "swing voters" (I call them "purple agitators" myself) are starting to become disgusted by the extremists who hijacked the Grand Old Party decades ago. What to do? Not to worry! Just bypass that nasty ol' Voting Rights Act of 1965. That'll learn 'em!

July 28:
The problem with the Republicans is that they have forgotten that they are the party of Roosevelt - Theodore.

The problem with the Democrats is that they have forgotten that they are the party of Roosevelt - Franklin D.

August 2:
The Tea party owns Washington DC. This radical, right-wing fringe group now sets the agenda for this country, isn't that a scream? Mike Lupica put it well in yesterday's New York Daily News: "These are the crackpots who have designated themselves to speak for Conservative America. Only they don't act like conservatives. They act like anarchists." I can relate. I never dreamed I would live to see the day when I would feel a sense of tender nostalgia for Alan Simpson. These surely are interesting times to live in.

August 10:
In the meantime our downward spiral will only continue. This is as it should be. A people moronic enough to squander the treasure of their once-great nation as they have been doing for the past thirty-one years deserves everything that happens to them. There is an indescribable joy - call it "schadenfreude" if you must - in watching people who are losing their homes and pensions while simultaneously complaining about "those goddamned liberals". It's quite a funny thing to witness. As America continues to slide into the depths of destruction and despair, I can console myself with the knowledge that there will be no shortage of entertainment value in its decline - for me at least. Life will still be beautiful, thank you very much.

August 22:
According to these plutocratic handmaidens, the tax code simply isn't fair. People who live at or below the poverty level have to start chipping in! A family of four making $22,000 a year (or less) will have to shell out to the feds. Can you believe that? Think about it: That single mother who barely scratches out a living assembling Big Macs at the McDonald's down the street? If these hideous bastards and bitches have their way, she will now have to send a check (assuming she has a checking account) to the IRS every April 15. Of course that will mean she and others in her income bracket will have a lot less money to pump back into this already-feeble economy - a fact that apparently has not been taken into consideration by the knuckleheads who govern us.

And they call us "elitists"!

August 31:
Dick Cheney is back with his "long awaited memoirs". Awaited by whom they won't say. I won't be reading it. I've read enough about it and heard enough about it (primarily from the Dickster's own mouth) to form my own assessment of the drivel spread generously within. In fact I won't be reading any of the flood of books that have been written, are being written, and will be written by the Bush Mob. It's always an amusing thing to watch these bitter, dirty old men attempt to cleanup their putrid little corners in the Hall of Infamy. Robert McNamara tried it fourteen years ago and it didn't work out too well for him. Cheney will fare no better I suspect. What he is attempting here is the equivalent of putting a smiley face on a decomposing pig:

"Well lookie thar, Martha! Ain't that purdy?"

September 15:
Two debates in the space of five days? Somebody up there must like me. In the midst of the first one I asked myself out loud, "Am I hallucinating this?" I wasn't. This was very real indeed. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology I was able to record both spectacles onto DVD for posterity. Looking at them again last evening was not the ordeal you might imagine. To the contrary it was loads of fun to watch! Unintentional comedy always is - and these twits are the Marx Brothers of unintentional comedy.

September 21:
Here's a little something you can bet the farm on. The next thirteen months will see the right wing beside themselves as they scramble - like sadistic little mice - to change the topic of discussion from that of economic fairness, to the subject of that BIG, BLACK, BOLSHEVIK BOOGIEMAN in the Oval Office. They won't be able to take back the senate and the White House - nor will they be able to retain control of the House of Reprehensibles - without exploiting the worst racist tendencies deep within America's tormented soul. That is their biggest hope. That is their only hope. 2012 might very well turn out to be a most interesting political year. Talk about understatement!

In addition to playing the race card, it's a fairly easy guess that they'll drag out their moth-eaten bag of "family values" for good measure, as hard as that argument is for many of us to swallow these days. The Republicans don't give a shit about American families - or the families who gross somewhere under a million per. This is a party that cares about one thing only - that the obscenely rich get obscenely richer. To hell with the rest of you.

October 1:
Since the voters of this country foolishly handed over the reins of executive power to a feeble-minded, failed "B" movie actor a generation ago, the rape and plunder of America's financial infrastructure has been going on at full speed. Politicians of both parties rigged the laws in order to make the theft perfectly legal. That mournful chiming that is now emanating from deep within Wall Street is the death knell of the orgy that the plutocrats thought would never end. Americans are taking their country and their economy back.

October 12:
Here is a question that I am hard-pressed to avoid: Is there a bigger asshole slithering though the halls of congress than Eric Cantor? If there is I'd sure-as-hell would like to know about it. It has always amused me to watch him on the tube trying to defend the morally indefensible. He always has this weird look of cherubic contentment on his clueless face. It really is something to behold. To the credit of Mitch "The Plutocracy's Bitch" McConnell, he at least has the decency to look somewhat ill-at-ease when having to vomit forth their nonsensical talking points . Cantor, on the other hand, is right at home with their delightfully twisted agenda. Too weird!

October 15:
If the next president is a Republican and is able to make one or (God forbid) more appointments to [the Supreme] court, it will ultimately lead to the end of democracy in America. Does that sound a tad paranoid on my part? Maybe it is. Let's all vote Republican next year and see what happens.

October 21:

Folks, that is not a political party. That's an organized criminal enterprise. Those aren't statesmen. Those are the plutocracy's hired goons. This isn't America any longer. This is something else entirely; something dark and ominous. That's why what is happening down on Wall Street - indeed all across the land - is so important. We are now into the second month of the occupation. It won't be going away any time soon. This is only the beginning of something really, really big, baby! A hard rain's a'gonna fall. Forgive me if I seem giddy.

November 20:
When people have been subjected over long periods to injustice, it's only a matter of time before they revolt. Revolution is not something that can be swept away by think tanks or police riots. It's a bit more complicated than that. Revolution-in-reaction-to-human-cruelty is as natural as the sun rising in the eastern sky. All the king's pepper spray and all the king's soldiers can't stop a rising sun either. Try it sometime.

November 29:
Yeah, I'll fess up - I get awfully sentimental when it comes to the subject of the Beatles. On the night George died I remember pouring my heart out over the telephone to my friend Terri Sager. I admire her patience. She listened gently while I waxed inebriate on the news of his passing, and what a drag it was that two of the Beatles were now dead, and how this was possibly the end of the world, and blah blah blah....But it moves me to realize that today the two survivors are elderly men, and that eternity is now beckoning them. When I was a boy, John, Paul, George and Ringo were the undisputed princes of the planet earth. They seemed to be invincible. The passing of the decades reminds us that the Beatles were as frail in their mortality as any of us. They really were a bit like you and me.

December 15:
I am the person of the year. So are you.

You don't have to be down in Zuccotti Park. You don't have to be on the streets of Oakland, California or Madison, Wisconsin or Austin, Texas or South Bend, Indiana. You won't have to be out in Ulme Park in Poughkeepsie, NY this afternoon at 4 PM in order to be a part of this movement. That's why the worldwide Occupy movement is so frightening, not only to the corporate media, but to our "rulers" as well. Jello Biafra is the former lead singer of the legendary political punk band The Dead Kennedys. He is today a lecturer who has released a number of spoken-word CD's on his Alternative Tentacles record label . Ten years ago, in a statement that is truly sunning in hindsight, he advised us, "Don't criticize the media, become the media!" A decade ago his words left some of us scratching our clueless heads. Today we know what he was talking about. We are the media. The revolution is being televised!

Thank you, Steve Jobs.

December 21:
Was Iraq worse than Vietnam as some have implied? Certainly not in terms of lives lost, thank goodness. But in terms of the damage done to our economy and infrastructure, Iraq clearly wins out. Also we need to be reminded that Vietnam only gradually evolved into the quagmire it eventually became. In the case of Iraq America stupidly dove headfirst and smiling - eyes wide open - into the muck. For the first time in history, taxes on the rich were actually lowered during a time of war. Saddam Hussein was going to destroy us we were led to believe. It was a lie of course. We destroyed ourselves quite handily thank you very much. We didn't need Saddam Hussein.

December 25:
Keep your eyes wide-open for the miracles all around you. And remember the simple truth that there is more music to be found in the laughter of a single child than can be found in all of the symphonies ever composed by all of the composers who ever lived.

*******************

But now the days are short
We're in the winter of the years
And now I think of this place
As Wonder Bread turned green from mold
To rocks from gold
We were gripped by fear
It was a very weird year....

Whew! And what a year that was, huh? Do you think that the next year will not possibly get any weirder than the one which is now mercifully ending? I wouldn't take that bet for anything.

Happy New Year, everybody!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED VIEWING/LISTENING:

Ding Dong! Ding Dong!
by George Harrison

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJR44H48POo

Like George says, "Ring out the old, ring in the new!"

And finally, here is a little seasonal treat for you, It's my all-time favorite Popeye cartoon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI0gH-W0dQw

Let's Celebrake!

The Obama Family's Commie Christmas

2011-12-25T07:10:00.035-05:00

Fall on your knees
Oh hear the angel's voices
Oh night divine
Oh night when Christ was born

What a disgusting sight on oh-so-holy a night. The Photograph at the top of this piece is from the Obama family's Christmas card. Aren't you positively revolted by this sickening image of Bo the cowardly Kenyan/Communist Canine desecrating the floor of the house where the sainted Ronald Reagan once lived? You're not? That's okay, I didn't think you would be. I wasn't either. I was just pulling your leg!

Whatever your political persuasion, it would be kind of hard to find fault with the tranquil scene depicted above. And yet, predictably, the right wing scream machine went into full-tilt, freak out mode the moment they had their first look at it. Sarah Palin was just beside herself on FOX Noise. They all were! No mention of Jesus. No mention of Christmas. Just a picture of their mangy pooch snoozing away by the fireplace. Our gal Sarah called the photo "strange". It's Christmas day. I'll refrain from calling the woman an idiot. T'is the season, you know what I mean?

I don't get it. As much as I despised the administration of George W. Bush, it never even occurred to be to find a molecule of fault with any of the eight Christmas cards he sent to the American people during the eight Christmases he occupied the Executive Mansion. That would have been quite foolish - not to mention a tad petty on my part. One of the Bush family cards was a sketch of the White House that depicted a bunch of Scotch Terriers frolicking in the snow on the south lawn. There was no mention of Christ or Christmas in that card either. The right wingers didn't make a peep at the time. That was then. This is now.

Having gotten that little bit of stupidity off of my chest....

Let me savor this moment to wish all of you - left, right or center - a happy Christmas/Holiday season. Another year over and a new one's just begun. To tell you the truth, I just haven't the "Christmas spirit" this year. There are a number of reasons for this, the most obvious one being the deplorable state of the country I love more than any other on earth. Since I have nothing upbeat and optimistic to leave you with in 2011, I'll close with something I wrote four-years-ago on Christmas Day 2007:

Keep your eyes wide-open for the miracles all around you. And remember the simple truth that there is more music to be found in the laughter of a single child than can be found in all of the symphonies ever composed by all of the composers who ever lived.

Much better. I never wish anyone a "merry" Christmas. Drunks and drug addicts are often quite merry, but they're seldom - if ever - "happy". Happy Christmas, one and all!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

The Christmas Box
by Richard Paul Evans

SUGGESTED VIEWING/LISTENING:

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
by Bing Crosby and David Bowie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCQwwCRiDZQ

This is Bing Crosby and David Bowie in a duet from Bing's 1977 Christmas show. We see Crosby at the very end. Less than two weeks after this segment was taped, he collapsed and died on a Madrid golf course of a massive heart attack. He was seventy-four. The program aired posthumously.

Out of Iraq

2011-12-21T07:53:00.047-05:00

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

George W. Bush
State of the Union address
28 January 2003

My! My! What a difference sixteen little words makes!

"It was a stupid fucking war."

-Molly Ivins on the subject of Vietnam

There will be no Life magazine photo of a fired-up sailor embracing an unwitting passerby in a spontaneous, passionate kiss. There will be no jubilant celebration in Time Square or at the Hollywood Bowl or the Boston Commons - or anywhere else for that matter. There will be no ticker-tape parades. The brave men and women who were used as pawns by these dirty old men should be honored and respected, but there is no reason to feel good about any of this except for the fact that it's finished. This stupid fucking war - a war that should never have been fought - is over and done with.

There is a tiny stretch of real estate where I live in Goshen called "Triangle Park". It borders North Church Street and Delta Place. It is directly across the street from the childhood home of my old pal Kevin Swanwick. When I need to do some serious thinking about something or other, I'll go there in the late afternoon and early evening; I just park my van, sit in the dark and think. That's where you would have found me last night. How was I going to write about the stupidest military blunder in the history of this country? Where does one even find the words? Do the needed adjectives even exist? This was gonna be tricky.

"Bring 'em on."

The question is determined to rear its ugly head: Why the hell were we there to begin with? Oh, right. Saddam Hussein had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction that he was about to unload on the helpless American people. The smoking gun would "come in the form of a mushroom cloud". Remember that line? Anyone with half-an-eye open at the time knew what a load of shit that claim was. Those of us who bother to pay attention to affairs of state knew damned well the reason George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were literally hellbent on going into that country: Iraq sits on an ocean of oil. Their scheme failed miserably. The American occupation of Iraq got horrifically out-of-control within three months of its start. By the summer of 2003, the mission became a pathetic attempt to save face. When the premise for invading was finally and irrevocably exposed as the lie it was, the mission became one of "nation building".

Nation building? Just take a good look at the "nation" these homicidal assholes have "built".

George W. Bush. It still infuriates me that this half-witted little bastard called the White House "home" for eight, long years - the same house that Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt once lived in. Here's a clip from the very first piece I ever posted on this site on June, 2, 2006:

"In November of 2000, when the voters of the United States of America foolishly sent this moron to the executive mansion, we effectively pointed the proverbial loaded pistol at our own collective head. Four years later, on Election Day 2004 - make no mistake about it- we pulled the trigger."

My opinion hasn't changed in five-and-a-half years.

Was Iraq worse than Vietnam as some have implied? Certainly not in terms of lives lost, thank goodness. But in terms of the damage done to our economy and infrastructure, Iraq clearly wins out. Also we need to be reminded that Vietnam only gradually evolved into the quagmire it eventually became. In the case of Iraq America stupidly dove headfirst and smiling - eyes wide open - into the muck. For the first time in history, taxes on the rich were actually lowered during a time of war. Saddam Hussein was going to destroy us we were led to believe. It was a lie of course. We destroyed ourselves quite handily thank you very much. We didn't need Saddam Hussein.

What is the final tally of American servicemen and women killed? Four-thousand? Five-thousand? I lost count a long time ago. The amusing thing is that they still tell us (with faces as straight as a two-by-four I swear) that these unfortunate victims "died to keep us free". Here's a fact that no one wants to acknowledge: They died in vain. Every single one of them. They only died to increase Halliburton's coffers. They only died so that Corporate America might score some megabucks on the killing fields of Baghdad. Operation Iraqi "Freedom" will be remembered as the world's first privatized war. They died to keep us free? Bullshit. I'm a lot less free than I was on the night of March 20, 2003 when the United States invaded the (like it or not) sovereign nation of Iraq. You're a lot less free, too. You don't believe me? Three words: "The Patriot Act". Need I elaborate?

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-Benjamin Franklin

Hardly any of us knew anyone doing the actual fighting in this debacle. In almost a decade of war, I only knew one serviceman stationed in Iraq, and only casually at that; a guy named Irving Media. He was killed when the vehicle he was riding in hit an Improvised Explosive Device. His broken body lies about two miles from where I now sit, at the Orange County Veterans Cemetery which is located at the edge of the village of Goshen, New York. Irving Media died in vain.

What is the final tally of Iraqi men, women and little children killed in this atrocity? Here's the punchline: Nobody seems to know. Nobody bothered to keep an eye on the numbers. They can't even give us a rough estimate. Isn't that a scream? Some human rights organizations believe that the number is well-over a million souls lost to the Bush Mob's greed and stupidity. We'll never know how many innocents died in that stupid fucking war.

And finally, what is the final tally of men and women whose injuries on the battlefield were so severe they will be dependent upon assisted living for the rest of their lives? Somewhere around thirty-thousand or more. How many men and women have been so psychologically damaged by the trauma of Iraq that all they can look forward to are lives fraught with emotional dysfunction? No one has any idea. We'll be living with the sick legacy of the Iraq war for a long time into the future. Here is something you need to keep in mind: The last surviving American veteran of World War One ("The war to end all wars") passed away only a couple of months ago. A long time indeed

War is over
If you want it
War is over - NOW

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Given the fact that he was murdered during the Christmas season, this is the time of year when I feel John's absence from our lives the most. I often wonder what he would have had to say about all of this. No doubt he would have written a song or two about that stupid fucking war. We really could use him now. A tip of the hat to the jackass who decided that his life had to be terminated,

So let's try to be optimistic. "Always look on the bright side of life", as Monty Python instructed us. The war in Iraq - or American involvement in it anyway - is finally, mercifully over. Now we need to set ourselves to the task of putting our house back in order. How do we do that? It's Easy!

VOTE REPUBLICAN!

I'm sorry, I was only kidding

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING (or viewing)

"Fair Game"

Valerie Plame's excellent book recounted the persecution she and her husband Joe Wilson were subject to after he revealed to the world that the Bush Mob's justification for invading Iraq was a goddamned lie. It has been made into a movie which is out on DVD. Read it. Watch it.

And so, happy Christmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Vfp48laS8

Happy Christmas, folks!

For more recent postings on this disgusting commie blog, please go to the link below:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

See you there!

We are the People of the Year

2011-12-15T08:00:00.056-05:00

When FOX Noise got the word, they predictably hit the rhetorical roof. How dare they compare those filthy hippies in Zuccotti Park to the good people of the Arab Spring who are fighting for the rights that have been denied to them for too long! Uber-dunce Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of FOX and Friends, giddily noted that Time Magazine had in the past awarded the "Man of the Year" title to the likes of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler. It went right over the head of this jackass that the title "person of the year" is not necessarily a judgement of someone's "niceness", but rather that person's capacity as a news-maker. That's why the Ayatolla Khomeini was named Time's 1979 Man of the Year - and not the cast of One Day at a Time. What an idiot.

I am the person of the year. So are you.

You don't have to be down in Zuccotti Park. You don't have to be on the streets of Oakland, California or Madison, Wisconsin or Austin, Texas or South Bend, Indiana. You won't have to be out in Ulme Park in Poughkeepsie, NY this afternoon at 4 PM in order to be a part of this movement. That's why the worldwide Occupy movement is so frightening, not only to the corporate media, but to our "rulers" as well. Jello Biafra (photo left) is the former lead singer of the legendary political punk band The Dead Kennedys. He is today a lecturer who has released a number of spoken-word CD's on his Alternative Tentacles record label . Ten years ago, in a statement that is truly sunning in hindsight, he advised us, "Don't criticize the media, become the media!" A decade ago his words left some of us scratching our clueless heads. Today we know what he was talking about. We are the media. The revolution is being televised!

Thank you, Steve Jobs.

The order is rapidly fading. We are no longer reliant on the three-network-monte game for our news and information. It's no longer just the cable news channels that corner the market of ideas. The old media is now almost irrelevant. You and I are now the nightly news. You and I are now Huntley and Brinkley. You and I are now the managing editors of this broadcast. ABC, NBC and CBS no longer hold all the cards. Although I do miss the Ed Sullivan Show - I gotta tell ya.

With our laptops and our iPhones we are grabbing this country by the lapels and shaking it back into consciousness. Fifty years ago all we had to rely on were a handful of antique mimeograph machines. This is something else entirely. This is an information revolution. Will the plutocracy try to shut us down? Maybe. They'll never know what hit them if they do though. Yesterday Mitch McConnell was threatening - once again - to shut the government down. That's nothing! We can shut this entire country down if we want to. I know we can do it, too. They may have the money; we've got the numbers. Power to the people, ya dig? This is for keeps, baby! We are the media. We are their worst nightmare come-to-life a thousandfold. We are tens-of-millions of Hunter Thompsons risen from the dead. Wow! Just picture that! That's what I call a Ralph Steadman sketch waiting to happen! Ralph???

I've had enough of reading things
By NEU-rotic, PSY-chotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is some truth!
Just gimme some truth!

-John Lennon

Get the message out. You don't need to be a rock star or a journalist or a reporter or a poet laureate. You don't need to be a bestselling author or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist or an Oscar-winning actor. You don't need to be Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore or Noam Chomskey or Keith Olbermann (although it helps). You don't need to own a computer. You don't even need access to one. Spread the message the old fashioned way: Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. I had one published just last week. And if all of the above fail, go to your nearest mountaintop and shout the truth from there!

"How long? NOT LONG!"

-Martin Luther King

These are the salad days of a movement that is going to turn America - and the planet earth - around. How long it will take is anybody's guess; but I cannot help but be inspired by the good Doctor King's words. I'm also reminded of Supreme Court Justice Lois Brandeis when he said that America will either have one of two things: extreme income inequality or democracy. It cannot - it will not - have both. Yeah. We're gonna have democracy alright. You can take that to the bank. On second thought, stuff it under the mattress. It's probably safer there.

You want all the proof you need that we are now living in a plutocratic dictatorship? Here it is:

Just suppose for a minute that I was the supervisor of a small village somewhere in upstate New York. I once ran for supervisor of Goshen so we'll make that our hypothetical location. Now imagine that at a Town Hall meeting one night, I cheerfully announced to the hardworking citizens of that lovely little burg that I had "misplaced" a hundred-thousand dollars in taxpayer money - their money. What do you think would happen to me? They would drag me out of the place in handcuffs. They would then hang me from the nearest tree. Come to think about it, that's probably what would have happened eventually. I'm awfully glad I lost that election. Honestly.

Now picture this if you will: Just a few days ago, former New Jersey Governor and billionaire John Corzine admitted to a panel of lawmakers that the investment firm that he was the head of "misplaced" over a billion dollars in investors' money. Now just what the hell do you think happened to him? He was allowed to walk out of the place, free as a freakin' bird. Does it puzzle you just a tad that no one from Goldman Sachs is not at this moment rotting in federal prison - or has even been brought up on charges??? We're living under a plutocratic dictatorship. Open your eyes. Take action NOW.

Wasn't deregulation a really neat idea? And they say they can't understand our rage? HELLO???

The Democrats in general - and President Obama in particular - would be foolish to try and capitalize on this rage. If they had bothered to remember a long time ago that they are (or were) the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had had the guts to stand up to the right wing extremism of the last three decades, we probably wouldn't be brow-deep in the economic quagmire we find ourselves in today. That worthless party is within five years of finding themselves where the Republicans are at this moment; beyond redemption. If they know what's good for them they'll clean up their act - pretty damned quick. They have got to stop nominating these pathetic, right wing Blue Dogs. Otherwise, within the next five years a new party will emerge from the wreckage of their incompetence and indifference.

This week the spokespersons for the plutocracy have been predicting the end of the movement which is now engulfing the world. The joke's on them. I really hate to be quoting the Carpenters here but Frank Zappa doesn't have anything apropos for this particular moment: "We've only just begun".

Everybody sing!! "SHARING HORIZONS THAT ARE NEW TO US!!!" I'm sorry. I'll stop.

See you at the occupation, kiddies!

Tom Degan
Defeated 2000 Candidate for Supervisor of Goshen, New York
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

Lincoln at Gettysburg
by Gary Wills

"....and that government - of the people, by the people, for the people - shall not perish from the earth."

Imagine that.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

I'm not the only person ranting out there in cyberspace, folks. Here is a link to a new blog by a guy named Bryan Raines. It ain't too shabby:

Time to Rant

It's time for all of us to do some serious ranting. Seriously.

Please, join me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/tomdegan

Cheers!

Tom Degan's Fantasy Flashback

2011-12-08T18:00:00.017-05:00

Imagine....

UPI, Washington DC - September 20 1969:

John Lennon, the most "far-out" of the Fabulous Beatles, met with President Richard M. Nixon today in the Oval Office at the White House.

During the two-hour meeting Mr. Lennon and the president discussed among other things, world peace, the famine in Bangla Desh, the aspirations of American youth and the best way removing resin from a Chinese water-pipe. After presenting Mr. Nixon with a copy of "Two Virgins" a record he made with his Japanese wife Yoko Ono, the president gave Mr. Lennon a copy of the album, "Mantovani Plays the Music of Victor Herbert and Sigmund Romberg". According to Chief of staff H.R.Haldeman, the two men also shared four tabs of blotter acid.

At the meeting's conclusion Mr. Lennon told the assembled press in the Rose Garden, "He's not a bad fellow deep down, I think. He just needs to expand his mind a little, you know?"

An hour later Mr. Nixon was found by his aid Charles Colson under the large conference table in the cabinet meeting room, singing "Everybody's Got Something to Hide 'cept for Me and My Monkey", trying to amputate his own feet with an antique emery board.

******************

In memory of Doctor Winston O'Boogie (1940-1980) who left this word thirty-one years ago tonight.

Tom Degan

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BslpXO4oha4

Wherever you are, you are here....

Join me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/tomdegan

John Lennon and Richard Nixon would have approved.

PROOF: Corporations are not People

2011-12-05T16:36:00.011-05:00

Corporations - corporations who need corporations

Are the luckiest corporations in the world....

I wrote this little ditty nearly two years ago, just a few days after the Roberts Court's disgusting Citizens United v FEC ruling. I've taken it out of the archives and given it a dusting off. It's proof - legal proof - that corporations are not persons. This is such a no-brainer that it's awkward having to explain it to certain people. It's almost like having to explain to a grown adult why it gets dark at night. Here it is:

Ascribing humanity to a corporation, to a company like Exxon or Disney for example, raises too many questions to even list here. But let's at least attempt to ask a few of them, shall we, boys and girls? Here goes....

Are corporations really persons?

Do corporations think?

Do corporations weep?

Do corporations fall in love?

Do corporations grieve when a loved one dies as a result of a lack of adequate health care?

Do corporations have loved ones?

Are corporations even capable of loving?

Do corporations sometimes lose sleep at night worrying about disease, violence, destruction, and the suffering of their fellow human beings?

Do corporations feel your pain?

Can a corporation run for public office?

Is a corporation capable of having a sense of humor? Is it capable of laughing at itself? (EXAMPLE: "So these two corporations walk into a bar....")

If a corporation ever committed an unspeakable crime against the American people, could IT be sent to federal prison? (Note the operative word here: "It")

Can a corporation register to vote?

We all know that corporations have made a shit-load of cash throughout our history by profiting on the unspeakable tragedy of war. But has a corporation ever given its life for its country?

Is a corporation capable of raising a child?

Does a corporation have a conscience? Does it feel remorse after it has done something really bad?

Has a corporation ever been killed in an accident as the result of a design flaw in the automobile it was driving?

Has a corporation ever written a novel or a dramatic play or a song that inspired millions?

Has a corporation ever risked its life by climbing a ladder to save a child from a burning house?

Has a corporation ever won an Oscar? Or an Emmy? Or a Tony? Or the Nobel Peace Prize? Or a Polk or Peabody Award? Or the Pulitzer Prize in Biography?

Has a corporation ever performed Schubert's Ave Maria?

Has a corporation ever been shot and killed by someone who was using an illegal and unregistered gun?

Has a corporation ever paused to reflect upon the simple beauty of an autumn sunset or a brilliant winter moon rising on the horizon?

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise if there are no corporations there to hear it?

Should corporations kiss on the first date?

Could a corporation resolve to dedicate its life to being an artist? Or a musician? Or an opera singer? Or a Catholic priest? Or a rabbi? Or a Doctor? Or a Dentist? Or a sheet metal worker? Or a gourmet chef? Or a short-order cook? Or a magician? Or a nurse? Or a trapeze artist? Or an author? Or an editor? Or a Thrift Shop owner? Or a EMT worker? Or a book binder? Or a Hardware Store clerk? Or a funeral director? Or a sanitation worker? Or an actor? Or a comedian? Or a glass blower? Or a chamber maid? Or a film director? Or a newspaper reporter? Or a deep sea fisherman? Or a farmer? Or a piano tuner? Or a jeweler? Or a janitor? Or a nun? Or a Trappist Monk? Or a poet? Or a pilgrim? Or a bar tender? Or a tar bender? Or a used car salesman? Or a brick layer? Or a mayor? Or a soothsayer? Or a Hall-of-Fame football player? Or a soldier? Or a sailor? Or a butcher? Or a baker? Or a candlestick maker?

Could a corporation choose to opt out of all the above and merely become a bum? Living life on the road, hopping freight trains and roasting mickeys in the woods?

I realize that this is pure theological speculation on my part but the question is just screaming to be posed: When corporations die, do they go to Heaven?

Our lives - yours and mine - have more worth than any goddamned corporation. To say that the Supreme Court made a awful decision in Citzens United v FEC is an understatement. Not only is it an obscene ruling, it is an insult to our humanity.

Tom Degan
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

Join me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/tomdegan

For more recent postings on this disgusting, commie site, go to the link below:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

Newt? NEWT???

2011-12-04T12:17:00.049-05:00

"Start with the following two facts: Really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash' - unless it's illegal."

Newt Gingrich, December 1, 2011
as quoted yesterday in Charles Blow's New York Times column
(I saw it on TV, too!)

Poor people don't work. Poor children only work at doing things that are illegal. Ya gotta love 'im. You just gotta!

It's official and unavoidable: My man Newt Gingrich is SURGING ahead in the polls! To make matters worse (or better - depending upon where you're coming from) since Herman Cain announced the end of his train wreck of a campaign yesterday, his supporters are now looking for a new home. Call it a silly hunch on my part, but methinks most of them will find a kindred soul in the Newtster. Has my luck really gotten this good? Eek Gads! This is too good to be true. Thank you, fate!

Certain people on "THE LEFT" went into a bit of a tantrum after hearing a comment made the other day by Bill Clinton. When asked why Gingrich's poll numbers were shooting up so rapidly, Clinton replied (and I'm paraphrasing) to the effect that Republican primary voters were merely reacting to Newt's "sensible" ideas. "What?" they cried out in unison, "Sensible ideas? Has Clinton lost his mind???" Sure he has. Old Bill is crazy - like a fox.

That's what I love about Bubbah. The man is one smoooooth operator, baby! They didn't call the guy "Slick Willie" for nothing, that's for sure. If I were a more widely-read writer (Yeah, I'm barely a cult figure, I'll admit it) I would never say this out loud for fear of jinxing Newt's momentum. Here's what's happening, folks: Old Bill knows damned well that he's one of the most popular and admired ex-presidents in history. If he comes out and publicly states that Gingrich's ideas are not all that outrageous - but are, in fact, "sensible" a lot of the halfwits within the GOP's constituency will holler:

"Whoa! Lookie yonder, Martha! Even ol' Bill Clinton thinks Newt's a'barkin' up the right tree! He's got mah vote!"

He's one wily sum'bitch, that Bill Clinton!

Poor Mitt Romney. It's easy to feel sorry for the guy. Not that I would ever vote for him you understand. I would drink a cocktail of vodka and battery acid before I ever voted for the likes of Mitt Romney. Still, there is a certain....Oh, what's the word...."Pathos?"....in the spectacle of a man coming face-to-face with the ugly reality that even his own people can't stand him. It's obvious that he wanted to settle some old scores for no other reason than the honor of his late father. In the summer of 1968 Governor George Romney of Michigan was in a fight-to-the-death struggle with old Dick Nixon for the Republican nomination. At a campaign appearance somewhere, the senior Romney was asked how he had changed his position on the Vietnam war from that of staunch supporter to viciously opposed. His answer? "I was brainwashed."

Brainwashed? A man seeking the presidency admits that he can be "brainwashed"? George Romney's campaign was as dead as a doornail from that moment on.

Mitt hasn't given up hope and for damned good reason. Poor old Newt has the nasty habit of flaming out just as things are starting to look up for him. It's only a matter of time before he foolishly blurts out something too weird even for the right wing extremists who are now the "norm" in that disgusting party. Or worse - he might say something thoughtful and intelligent - the kiss of death for any Republican candidate these days. That's what destroyed the Rick Perry campaign. When he claimed that anyone who would separate an illegal immigrant from his or her family "has no heart" his campaign was toast and jelly. It wasn't all of the idiotic things emanating from his mouth that killed his chances. It was one genuine moment of human compassion. That's what kind of party the Republicans have become.

It's oodles of fun these days to watch a moderately intelligent guy like Romney stumbling around the country saying all sorts of mind-jarringly stupid things. He knows that this is the only way to appeal to the chowderheads - particularly in the Deep South and Midwest - who vote in Republican primaries. Say what you want about Mitt Romney, unlike most of the contenders for the nomination the man knows what he's doing.

Newt Gingrich can win the Iowa caucuses later this month very handily if he plays his deck-full-of-jokers right. After that it's onto New Hampshire where the rabidly right wing paper, the Manchester Union Leader, endorsed his candidacy last week. This was an embarrassment from which Mitt has yet to recover. He is, after all, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts. If Newt is able to take New Hampshire, the next major contest is in South Carolina, where Romney hasn't the chance of tadpole in boiling water. By then the Gingrich Express will be an out-of-control, unstoppable freight train. George Romney must be doing somersaults in his grave.

Ain't politics fun?

From "The Rant" March 16, 2011:

"It isn't very often that one happens upon a politician as delightfully sleazy as Newt Gingrich. The man is a walking, talking caricature. Thomas Nast - the legendary nineteenth-century political cartoonist most famous for his drawings of New York's corrupt Boss Tweed - would have loved the Newtster! This is the same guy who had eighty-four ethics charges filed against him during the four years he served as speaker of the House of Representatives."

And it's not merely his questionable past when it comes to the tricky subject of ethics that he'll be dealing with. Overt corruption seems not to mean a damned thing to a lot of conservative voters. What he does have to worry about will be the fact that he's been married three times - which is not likely to play too well with your average Tea partier - trust me on this one, boys and girls. To quote the great Cuban conga player and band leader Ricky Ricardo, Newt has "got some "splaining to do".

Here is a guy who served his first wife with divorce papers while she was layiug in a hospital bed recuperating from cancer surgery! Although the poor gal did not die (and is still very much alive I'm happy to say) for all Newt or anybody else knew, she might very well have been on her death bed - cancer being such an iffy thing. But wait, it gets worse - or, for my purposes - better:

In 1998, while he was leading the charge to remove Bill Clinton from office for lying about having an affair with a half-witted intern, Newt himself was was cheating on his second wife - whom he would eventually divorce before marrying the woman he was having the fling with. Class act that Newt Gingrich, huh?

And with Newt Gingrich as their nominee, how would it look to the family values mob, knowing that their potential First Lady was just some damned common hussy who had fooled around with a married man? This act might not play too well down in Dixie - but you never know with this bunch. They are drooling so to get this Socialist/Kenyan/Negro out of the White House, they'd probably forgive Newt if it was revealed to them that he was a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association.

Barack Obama is the luckiest politician in all recorded human history. I envy the man. Think about it: First, fate generously places as his opponent for the senate a genuine headcase like Alan Keyes. Then a few short years later he makes a try for the presidency and has the good fortune to be faced against befuddled John McCain and Fascist Barbie. And now, four years later....I mean, just look at these people!

This is gonna be as easy as shooting a school of half-witted fish in a leaky barrel. President Obama is the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Lou Gehrig must be smiling, I just know it.

I am looking forward to the campaign of 2012 like a seven-year-old kid looks forward to Christmas morning. All my bets are on Obama. The GOP nominee will be Newt or Mitt. Gingrich will scare the bejeezus out of moderates and Romney will not - under any circumstances - inspire "the base" to come out en masse. The religious bigots who have hijacked that party hate the idea of a Mormon in the White House almost as much as they do the idea of a black guy living there. Also there is the fact that Romney is viewed by these clowns as - WAIT FOR IT - a "liberal". It doesn't get much stupider than this. It really doesn't.

This morning on CBS's Face The Nation, Bob Schieffer referred to to this comical mess as the "wackiest Republican primary ever". He wasn't exaggerating. For someone that makes his or her name commenting on the masterpiece of stupidity and incompetence that American politicians now embody, these are grand days indeed to be alive. When George W. Bush was wrecking havoc upon the land, I never dreamed that things could ever again get as weird as that. I'm am happy to tell you that the current crop of mediocrities seeking the highest office this side of the Milky Way have proven me wrong. In fact, I'm not just happy to tell you this, I'm downright giddy about the whole thing.

Somebody pinch me please.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

SUGGESTED READING:

Here is a link to a very cool Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Republican-Bigotry-Hate-Fear-Lies-and-Distortion/174612345903369?sk=wall&filter=1/"

Here is a link to Charles Blow's column on Newt quoted above:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/opinion/blow-newts-war-on-poor-children.html?_r=1

Have a grand week, everyone!

Within George, Without George

2011-11-29T04:17:00.062-05:00

Such foolishness in man
I want no part of their plan

-George Harrison

I miss George Harrison.

The telephone rang over two hours before sunrise, awakening me from a deep slumber in the early hours of 29 November 2001 - ten years ago today. It was my brother Pete on the other end. "George Harrison is dead", he told me.

I heard the news today, oh boy.

Unlike the death of John Lennon twenty-one years earlier, this was no jarring shock. We knew that he was mortally ill and that the end was not far away. Within a half hour, Pete called me back, telling me that he was at Strawberry Fields in Manhattan, the Central Park monument to Lennon's memory. The place was deserted - except for him and a small news crew from ABC. He told me that he was about to be interviewed and asked me to videotape it for him. For the first couple of hours on the morning that George Harrison died, brother Pete Degan was the spokesman for bereaved Beatles fans all across the planet earth.

Sunrise doesn't last all morning
A cloud burst doesn't last all day....
It's not always gonna be this way
All things must pass
All things must pass away

Every time I reach a ten-year milestone, the decade that has just transpired seems shorter than the last. It is almost inconceivable to me that George Harrison has been dead for this long.

He might have survived his final illness. He might still be with us today. George was being treated for cancer in 1999 when on New Year's Eve of that year, he was attacked and stabbed several times by a deeply disturbed person who broke into his house in the middle of the night. He was only saved by the quick action of his wife Olivia who was able to subdue the attacker with a fire poker. Olivia and their son Dhani both believe his severely weakened condition as a result of that assault hastened his death less than two years later. I don't doubt it. Two of the Beatles are dead today because of mindless violence. The cruel irony is that these two men are most associated in the public mind with peace and love. Whenever I see a film or video of that band performing all those years ago, I am always somewhat haunted by the image. Gone forever is the pure, undisturbed joy of watching the Fab Four perform. When I watch those films today, always lurking at the fringe of my consciousness are the tragedies that awaited John Lennon and George Harrison.

I've got no time for you right now
Don't bother me

Almost from the very beginning when they were introduced to the British public in the autumn of 1962, he was known as "the quiet Beatle". Those who knew him best would laugh at that description. According to close friend and Monty Python alumni Michael Palin, he was many things - "quiet" was not one of them. The fact is, George Harrison was never comfortable being a public figure and guarded his privacy very rigorously. I am what you might call a Beatles Scholar. I have spent many years researching and reading about them. But I know next-to-nothing about George's life outside the recording studio. I only recently discovered that for many years he battled alcoholism. I had no idea! In the almost forty years he was in the public eye, glimpses into his private world were rarer than a lunar eclipse. He was - and remains - enigmatic.

He seemed to show so much promise when he, John, Paul and Ringo went their separate ways in 1970. His debut album, "All Things Must Pass", was by far the finest record of that year. But the sad truth of the matter is that George Harrison's career subsequent to the Beatles' breakup is disappointing in many ways. Although he would have more-than-a-few moments at the mountaintop, a number of his recordings as a solo artist are mediocre at best.

The absolute creative rock-bottom of his career would be 1981's "Somewhere in England". I have played that record twice. The first time was when I purchased it; the second time was twenty years later on the evening he passed away. On that night, I decided that I would give the album a second chance. Maybe George Harrison was reaching a new plateau in his musical evolution that I just couldn't comprehend in 1981. I was correct in my initial assessment. Somewhere in England is beyond awful. In fact (and it hurts like hell to say this) it is unlistenable. Spell Check is informing me that "unlistenable" is not even a word. It is now. There is no other word to adequately describe that record. The followup LP, a forgotten relic from 1982 called "Gone Troppo", is almost as bad. He would not release another recording for five years.

He finally reemerged in 1987 with a minor masterpiece called "Cloud Nine". George Harrison was back and better than ever! His admirers all over the world waited in anticipation, wondering what he would come up with next. We waited....and waited....and waited. Nothing. Not until the very end of his life would George produce an album of new material. We shouldn't complain though, He owed us nothing. We owe him a lot.

As nothing in this life that I've been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying
Do you believe me?

And then there were two....

I am old enough to remember the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 - a long time ago when they was fab. On that night, the eldest member of the band was twenty-three. Ringo Starr turned seventy-one last July. Paul McCartney turns seventy next June. Four years ago, on the fortieth anniversary of the release of the Sgt. Pepper LP, I wrote a piece on this site called, Why the Beatles Still Matter:

"In 1995, the night the video "Free As a Bird" premiered on national television (the first "new" Beatles song in over a quarter of a century) I watched it with a young woman who was born in 1970, the year they broke up. Hearing them sing together again - Paul and George sounding strong and clear; John, by that time long dead, his voice transferred from an old and faded cassette tape, sounding as if he were singing from far, far away - was a very moving experience. When she noticed my reaction, she laughed and said, "Oh, Tom! What's the big deal"? I told her that no one who didn't live through that turbulent era, could possibly understand what that band meant to their troubled generation."

Yeah, I'll fess up - I get awfully sentimental when it comes to the subject of the Beatles. On the night George died I remember pouring my heart out over the telephone to my friend Terri Sager. I admire her patience. She listened gently while I waxed inebriate on the news of his passing, and what a drag it was that two of the Beatles were now dead, and how this was possibly the end of the world, and blah blah blah....But it moves me to realize that today the two survivors are elderly men, and that eternity is now beckoning them. When I was a boy, John, Paul, George and Ringo were the undisputed princes of the planet earth. They seemed to be invincible. The passing of the decades reminds us that the Beatles were as frail in their mortality as any of us. They really were a bit like you and me.

When you've seen beyond yourself
Then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we're all one
And life goes on within you and without you

I imagine I'll be spending a good part of this fine Autumn day listening to the Beatles in general and George's music in particular. I might even scoot up to the mall in Middletown and purchase the new Martin Scorsese documentary on George's life, Living in the Material World. Whatever the medium, this is a good day to reflect on his legacy.

I miss George Harrison.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

All Things Must Pass (1970)
The Concert for Bangla Desh (1971)
Living it the Material World (1973)
Thirty-Three and a Third (1977)
George Harrison (1978)
Cloud Nine (1987)
Brainwashed (2001)

Here's a link to listen to George Harrison from 2001. It is one of the final recording sessions of his life; a great rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2IV9gxHhwM

When George left this world he was tappin' his toes!

Here are some other Beatles-related pieces I've written on "The Rant" through the years:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/05/were-off-to-abbey-road.html

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/05/excellent-adventure-at-abbey-road.html

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-beatles-still-matter.html

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2009/09/hey-kids-meet-beatles.html

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/07/happy-birthday-ringo_07.html

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/10/its-johnnys-birthday.html

http://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/12/december-8-1980.html

A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Happy Thanksgiving - I think

2011-11-24T08:17:00.045-05:00

I was strolling through the park, I remember
In the merry, merry month of November
When I saw a weird display
By a cop with pepper spray
In the merry, merry month of November!

EXTRA! EXTRA!
READ ALL ABOUT IT!

PRESIDENT PARDONS THANKSGIVING TURKEY!
RIGHT WING CRIES "FOWL!"
RICK PERRY SAYS OBAMA SOFT ON DEATH PENALTY!

Well, I guess we still have much to be thankful for. We could be living in Iraq, a country that has been systematically destroyed courtesy of our tax dollars. Say what you want, the United States is still a pretty nice place in which to live - comparatively speaking that is. The undeniable fact of the matter is that it used to be a whole lot nicer. While we were merrily destroying Iraq, we were also destroying - not only our economy - but our future as well. I would imagine that if I were an Iraqi citizen, I would view this as poetic justice. Hi ho.

Certainly I'm thankful for the Occupy Wall Street movement. I can't tell you how grateful I am that the American Left - sound asleep for decades - is today wide-awake and on the move. These are good days to be alive, no question about it. The events of the past two months have been enough to give even me, the eternal cynic, a renewed sense of optimism for the future. This much is certain: If America is to be saved, weeda peeple will have to be the ones doing the saving. Forget about our elected representatives. To foolishly rely on either of the two major political parties would be a fatal mistake. They threw us overboard a long time ago. We don't need them. We don't need any political party. What we need a movement. That movement has arrived. Don't look back.

So let's be thankful for what we've got, and hope that ten years from now America will be a better place to raise the children who have yet to be born. At this moment down in Zuccotti park, history is being made. The talking heads on the extreme right love to whine that historians have always told the story of America with a progressive bias. This is true. In fact its one of the few things they have gotten right - and why not? What is history anyway if not the story of human progress?

Yes, in spite of everything, we can still be thankful today, and hopeful. Let's all hope and pray that one day our friends on the far-right side of the aisle will understand this. In the meantime, liberals and conservatives alike:

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

The Thanksgiving Song
by Mary Chapin Carpenter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NSQLMPUK-8

A message from my friend Tracy Murphy:

Spare the life of some poor turkey. Go veggie!

The Buffalo Vegetarian Society

I'm in love with a gal I've never even met.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Tomorrow is "Black Friday". Do you want to send a stern message to the plutocratic thugs who are raping the infrastructure of this once-great nation?

DON'T GO SHOPPING.

OCCUPY AMERICA

2011-11-20T07:05:00.055-05:00

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

-Bob Dylan

The mayors of Oakland, California and New York City apparently have no understanding of human history - not to mention human nature. They attempted this week to shut down the Occupy Wall Street movements in their respective cities through means of violence and intimidation. It didn't quite work out too well for them. Quite to the contrary. Not only have they not weakened the movement, they have instead strengthened it - tenfold.

When people have been subjected over long periods to injustice, it's only a matter of time before they revolt. Revolution is not something that can be swept away by think tanks or police riots. It's a bit more complicated than that. Revolution-in-reaction-to-human-cruelty is as natural as the sun rising in the eastern sky. All the king's pepper spray and all the king's soldiers can't stop a rising sun either. Try it sometime.

The comedian-turned-activist Dick Gregory once compared revolution to a boiling coffeepot. When the pot starts to boil, it protests by making a whistling sound. It is giving us a fair warning and a choice: We can wisely take that pot off the fire, or we can plug up the spout that's making all that hideous racket. If our choice is the latter, eventually that pot is going to explode, burning everybody in the room.

The people who are now in the process of occupying this once-great nation can be likened to that boiling coffeepot. They are sending the "rulers" of this country a clear and unmistakable warning: Give us economic justice or be prepared to live with permanent civil unrest. Here's another pearl of wisdom courtesy of Dick Gregory:

"Repression is more detrimental to the ones who are doing the repressing than it is to the ones who are being repressed."

Something to think about. The ground of the planet earth is littered with the graves of regimes and ideologies that fell of their own, bloated weight. The times they are indeed a'changin'. Get out of the way or get rolled over.

It would seem to me that “the suits” don’t take the power of the American people all-too seriously. That shouldn't surprise us. Sooner or later they’ll realize that we have the power to shut this country down. They don’t. In fact, even if they did have the power, they wouldn’t dare shut it down. The need for the machine to keep churning out bodies. Lots and lots of bodies.

And as is usually the case, most of the main stream media refuses to understand what is happening. Rupert Murdoch's propaganda empire has been busy portraying the movement as a cabal of thugs and perverts. The main charge that has been leveled by the talking heads against the Occupy movement is this little gem:

"THEY CANNOT DEFINE AND DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS THEY'RE PROTESTING AGAINST!"

Sure they do. I do not attempt here to define myself as a spokesman for this movement. One of the neat things about Occupy Wall Street lies in the fact that, unlike their Tea party counterparts, there is no cult of personality. We do not have our own Glenn Beck - and that's a good thing, I promise you! But let me take just a brief moment to step into the roll of interpreter. First, a quote:

"Governments are instituted among men [and women - fess up!] deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

NOTE TO SEAN HANNITY:

NO, that wasn't from the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Nor is it from the pens of Che Guevara or Stokely Carmichael. That nasty little bit of revolutionary screed was written by none other than Thomas Jefferson, and is from a document which was ratified on 4 July 1776 and now rests snugly in our national archives. When this country was formed, those present - and succeeding generations of Americans - were given an instruction manual called the Declaration of Independence. It may be found at all public libraries and any computer search engine. I'm also certain you can find it in audio form on CD. Hell, it might even be available on 8-Track tape somewhere for all I know. Its message is as clear as sunlight. When those who govern become destructive toward the happiness and well being of the governed, revolution is not merely an option. It is a duty. Ting-a-ling-a-ling!

Thirty-one years ago this month, on Election Day 1980, the American people were placed on a path that would eventually lead to the destruction of their social and economic infrastructure. Deregulation of the marketplace - and tax cuts for a class of people who already had more money than they knew what to do with - were the new and seemingly permanent reality in America.

We are now learning the extent to which private banks went to gamble on and squander the money - our money - only to be bailed out of the mess by the same people whose treasure was squandered in the first place. We had no say in the matter, and not a single condition was placed upon the corrupted banks. In the meantime the middle class, the engine that once fueled our economy, is falling apart. The American dream is as dead as a doornail.

And they're wondering why we're pissed off. Imagine that.

What do we want? We want economic justice. When do we want it? NOW, BABY! But we're realistic. We can wait them out for as long as it takes. The plutocracy has one of two choices. This is black or white. There are no subtle shades of gray that can be misinterpreted. Either the wealth of this country will be redistributed via the route of taxation - or they can expect civil chaos for as long as it takes to wake America up from its stupor. If it takes decades, so be it. If it takes a century, so be it. If it means the complete and utter destruction of the Republican and Democratic parties - even better. For as long as it takes. In the long run it will cost them a hell-of-a-lot less to give in than to keep obstructing the will of the majority. To paraphrase Mick Jagger (0r was it Keith Richards?) Time is on our side - yes it is.

You say you'll change the constitution,well you know
We'd all love to change your head
You tell me it's the institution, well you know
You'd better free your mind instead

-John Lennon

But if you go carrying pictures of Rush Limbaugh
You ain't gonna make it anyone anyhow

-Me

We are at a point (according to the pollsters) where the popularity of the congress is at an all time low (hovering just below nine percent). They're telling us that Paris Hilton and Communism have better numbers. I'm not surprised. What is surprising, and in spite of the propaganda aimed against it, is that the Occupy Wall Street movement's numbers are comparatively high, and rising by the hour. This movement ain't no fad, boys and girls, and the good people out in the streets are in it for the long haul. I was just reminded of a great quotation from Mahatma Gandhi:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

We win. Isn't this a neat time to be alive?

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

In an appearance this morning on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, Ron Paul made the following statement:

"To argue that they attacked us on 9/11 because we are free and prosperous is dangerous because it's not true"

Old Ron is correct here on more levels than he realizes. We are neither free nor prosperous. Hi ho.

SUGGESTED READING:

AFTER THE TEA PARTY IS OVER:
Creating the Founding Fathers' Vision of America
by Devon J. Noll

Special thanks to John Harragin and Brother Jeff Degan for the photograph at the top of this piece. To John for taking it; and to Jeff for doing all that cool stuff to it!

In the words of Lenny Bruce: "Is that an album cover or what???"

For more recent postings from this LIBERAL CESSPOOL OF IMPUDENT, COMMIE PROPAGANDA, kindly go to the link below:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for reading this stuff!

Our New "Occupation"

2011-11-14T07:52:00.078-05:00

Zuccotti Park is Morphing in the rain.

I got the phone call from Harragin on Saturday morning, the twelfth of November 2011. He was on his way to Zuccotti Park to be part of the occupation that is the focus of the nation. Would I like to come along for the ride?

When history is being made so close to where one sleeps, it is the duty of all true patriots to make their presence known. When the times call on one to choose sides, it is better not to hide within the comforting walls of blissful anonymity. Wherever people gather to confront the forces of greed and destruction, those of good conscience must enlist in the armies of righteousness. This is not a time to be anchored by quiet desperation. Now is the time to stand up, my friends! Now is the time! CAN I GET A WITNESS!!!

"Uh, New York? This morning??? Um, well, um....Aw, shit, Johnny, I've got nothing better to do. I'll come along, what the heck."

First a few words about John Harragin. Other than Kevin Swanwick and Mike O'Connor (both of whom you might have read about within these pages) he is one of my oldest friends in the world. It's hard for me to even fathom this but we go back almost forty years. He's always had a keen awareness of injustice and hypocrisy which makes him the ideal traveling companion to witness the Wall Street Occupation in "real time" so to speak. He's also proving to the world that solar power is a viable form of energy. He is now installing panels on his house and in six months time, the entire place will be powered by the sun. He says, "If I can do it, that means we as a society can do it."

He picked me up at around ten o'clock at my house across the road from the adult book store and the tattoo parlor, and we were on our merry way. Traffic was unusually light, even for a Saturday morning, and we made it to lower Manhattan in less than an hour-and-a-half. Parking our car at the corner of Clarkston Street and the West Side Highway, we hoofed it toward Zuccotti Park.

Somewhere along the way we became a bit disoriented and John inquired of a police officer, "Excuse me, sir. Can you tell us how to get to Zuccotti Park?"

"No." was his gruff answer. We were in fact less than three blocks away. John flashed his mile-wide grin and began to gently tease the cop: "Aw, c'mon! I know you know where it is!"

"What do you wanna go there for?" he asked, obviously exasperated.

"We're going there for you!" said John. The guy just rolled his eyes. It was clear that he was fed up with this revolution, and that he just wanted things to get back to normal. How could we get him to understand that things would never be "normal" again? Best not to even try, I thought to myself. He'll find out soon enough, poor bastard.

I tried to convince him that we were important and respected journalists on a dual assignment representing the National Review and FOX News, but it was all to no avail. It was blatantly apparent that neither one of us were dressed for the part. We looked more like correspondents from Mad Magazine. We'd have to find our way to Zuccotti Park on our own. Fortunately for us this proved to be not-too-difficult a task.

Arriving at this gathering is hard to put into mere words. If you've ever been an eye-witness to something you were certain historians will be discussing a century after your death, you'll know what I'm talking about. There is an energy that is palpable. The people here know very well that collectively they are the seed that will eventually produce the fruit that's going to turn this country around. No doubt about it: Zuccotti Park is the place to be. Y'all come down now, ya hear?

We ran into a guy named Ryan Michael who was giving away purple peace signs (for a small, optional donation) which John and I both purchased. "I give a lot of credit to the people who stay down here at night", he told us, "It's cold!" Indeed a good number of these faithful have been here since the occupation began on September 17. I'll be down here again, of that you can be sure. But if the weather starts to get out-of-hand, or if some "private security" army like Blackwater rolls into town with violence on their minds, I always have a cozy apartment on the corner of 8th Avenue and West 52nd Street that I can retreat to. These people are the real article. They have no intention of leaving regardless of the personal cost. You gotta love 'em. You just gotta!

If you're naive enough to rely on Rupert Murdoch's propaganda empire for your news and information, you'll be forgiven for having a warped understanding of what is now happening down in Zuccotti Park. In this morning's New York Post Toasties, they ran a front page photograph of some guy they identified as a "Occupy Wall Street protester" being dragged out of some event he was disrupting - in Queens! Obviously he was not part of the Wall Street occupation, but that's how the Post and FOX operate. They send their cameras down there and seek out the most disreputable looking (in their minds) people they can find, broadcasting the images as your typical Wall Street Occupier: Filthy, unkempt radicals.

BREAKING NEWS: THEY'RE LYING TO YOU. Film at eleven.

All of the people that John and I encountered on this day were very kind and well behaved. About the weirdest thing I saw was a young woman in a pink dress who ran passed me at full-speed yelling, "I've gotta pee really badly!!!" Other than that little incident it was a very relaxed scene. And if some of them were a tad "untidy", well, how tidy would you be after almost two months of being exposed to the elements? I tip my hat to them all. Forgive the cliche, but these are beautiful people.

We came upon a young and intense African American kid named named Dee Jackson who was giving away granola bars. He is going to be turning twenty-one on the twenty-fifth of this month. When we happened upon him, he was in the middle of a debate with a plump young woman who had come all the way from Oregon in an apparent attempt to convert us heathen who would dare try to overthrow America's sacred financial institutions. From New York she was headed straight to Washington DC to volunteer - full time - for the Ron Paul campaign. It was clear that Dee Jackson was not about to be converted. After she politely walked away in frustration, John and I talked to him.

"What people need to understand is that this revolution is in the embryonic stage", he told us. "I'm only twenty-years-old and I've been waiting for this moment my entire life."

Dee Jackson is in it for the long haul.

When the movie of the Wall Street occupation is made, the soundtrack CD will have drums - lots and lots and lots of drums. Having taken part in more-then-a-few drum circles in my day, I was in my natural element. I have my dear pal, the noted magician Jeff McBride to thank for this. The guy is seriously into communal drumming. Some believe that the continual, rhythmic pounding drives away the evil spirits. I think these different drummers might be onto something. If the spirits haven't exactly been driven away, they're definitely in a blind panic at this hour.

Bom-boom BA-DUM!
Bada-boom BA-DUM!

It's almost hypnotic - and very beautiful. Yeah, something is happening here and I do know what it is. Honest, Mr. Jones. Unlike their counterparts out in Oakland, California, the cops on this day - for the most part - were very nice. I think a lot of them sympathize with the aims and aspirations of the protesters. and why shouldn't they? They are, after all, a part of the middle class that is in the process of being obliterated. And if the cops in Oakland don't yet understand what is happening, I have a funny feeling they'll be understanding it soon enough. I'm just guessing

It would be a mistake for anyone to interpret what is transpiring down on Wall Street as a fad that will blow over the moment the weather hits the freezing mark. The fact of the matter is that weeda people are doing what we should have done twenty-five years ago. This imbalance between rich and poor cannot possibly continue. I don't know about you but I'm not particularly crazy about returning to a new Gilded Age. This is not just an American phenomenon. This is happening all over the world. OCCUPY THE PLANET EARTH, BABY! Anyone who thinks they can put a stop to this is in for a seriously rude awakening. A historical tide cannot be turned back. Try it sometime.

"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart."

-Dorothy Day 1897-1980

We might be near to that point. This is a revolution that is inspired and nurtured by love - love of country, and a boundless compassion for a suffering humanity. On November 12, 2011, John Harragin and Tom Degan saw it with their very eyes. Come down to Zuccotti Park and see for yourselves! Just be sure to bundle up.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

A People's History of the United States
By Howard Zinn

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE:

This tune had me bouncing around the freaking room! It is by a guy from Hawaii called Makana. The song is called "We Are the Many" Here's a link to watch and listen to it on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xq3BYw4xjxE

"We will occupy the streets
We will occupy the courts
We will occupy the offices of you
Till you do the bidding of the many
Not the few."

Thank you to Natalie Miller for sharing this one with me.

Thane Plowman: Giving Despair a Face

2011-11-09T06:54:00.058-05:00

Oh, can you see their world is crashing

Crashing down around their feet
And angry people in the street,
Are telling them they've had their fill
Of politics that wound and kill

-The Moody Blues

"They Call it the "American Dream" because you have to be asleep to believe it."

-George Carlin

Thane Plowman was born on August 7, 1968 and died on October 27, 2011 at the home he shared with his mother in Felton, California. His earthly remains were cremated yesterday.

Depressed and in utter despair, he had come to believe that the so-called "American Dream" he had believed in all of his life was just that - a dream. He was correct of course. It's a farce. It's a sham. It's a three-card-Monte hustle. Get a grip. And if the plutocratic power brokers who rule our lives have their way, in a decade this goddamned country won't be worth the paper the maps of it are printed on. Don't count on either of the two political parties to come to your rescue. The Democrats are littered with corruption and the Republicans have become so thoroughly corrupted that they're no longer a political party. They've become an organized criminal enterprise.

And yet these disgusting whores for the plutocracy refuse to comprehend the anger of the people who are occupying Wall Street - who are occupying America - who are occupying the fucking planet, baby! I'll use that contemptible Buddy-Holly-lookalike, Eric Cantor as an example of what I'm talking about. This asshole dismisses these patriots as a "mob". What he fails to understand - indeed what most of Washington doesn't even come close to getting - is that the American left has awaken from a very long and troubled slumber. This isn't a fad. This isn't some kind of mass, childish temper tantrum that will pass the moment the weather hits the freezing mark. This is for keeps. Wake up and face the dawn.

MEMO TO THE ONE PERCENT:
You may have the money, but the people whose economy you've destroyed have the power - lots and lots of power. And they're going to give you a example of their power on the day after Thanksgiving - "Black Friday" as you call it. On that day, which is usually such a boom for the economy, enough of them to make a marked difference will not be going shopping. As a matter of fact they won't be spending a dime. Think I'm kidding? That day will merely prove to be a nasty harbinger of things to come. Eventually the American people will bring you to your knees. In fact you won't even know what hit you. They have the power to shut this country down. You don't. Black Friday indeed. I get as giddy as a school girl just contemplating the possibilities. Forgive me.

"We need to keep his image in the brackets of our vision, and his memory in our hopes for the future. We need to remember Thane to appreciate the best parts of the past, and to keep alive our hopes for a better future."

-Lance Hames

Thane Plowman lost everything - his means of living, all of his benefits, his self esteem - everything. He was a victim of a system that threw all of us overboard three decades ago. On the twenty-seventh of October his mother became so alarmed at his visible deterioration, she momentarily left his side to get him the help he was in such desperate need of. When she returned a short time later, he was dead by his own hand. I won't go into the details of how he ended his life. He's gone. We'll just leave it at that. In an e-mail yesterday, his mother Christine told me:

"He was my best friend, my soul mate and my prankster in crime....He was in great despair. I want to fight back for him and for all Americans who are hurting so deeply right now. I don't believe Congress has a clue. My dream would be to speak before them. It's a tragedy beyond my ability to express."

I'll bet. I've always had this immense talent for empathy but this one is way out of my league. I won't even attempt to interpret this tragedy for you. Christine's words will have to speak for themselves. I cannot imagine the grief that she and Thane's family and friends are going through.

It's time to take sides, folks. You're either going to be on the right side of history or you're going to be left standing in the sewer. The choice has not been this stark in a century-and-a-half. We've got to put hideous bastards like the Koch brothers on notice. We need to make all of them realize that the people are standing up and they're not going to stand down under any circumstances.

Call it a silly hunch on my part but I've got a feeling that Thane Plowman would have approved.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair

The problem with the American people is the fact that there is no one left alive who remembers what life for ordinary working people was like in this country when this book was published in 1905, in the days before unions and workplace regulations. When Upton Sinclair died on November 25 1968, both he and his most famous book were pretty much forgotten. Recent years have seen a resurrection. Do you want to understand where the right wing wants to bring us back to? Read "The Jungle".

Here is a link to a Facebook page dedicated to Thane'e memory:

THE THANE PLOWMAN REMEMBRANCE PAGE

Stop by if you can and offer his family and friends a word of condolence and support.

There Goes Rick!

2011-11-02T12:58:00.040-04:00

"This is such a cool state. I mean, come on: 'Live Free or Die'. You gotta love it, right?....I come from a state, you know, where they have this little place called the Alamo, and they declared 'Victory or Death'....We're kind of into those slogans 'Live free or die', Victory or Death'. Bring it."

Rick Perry

"Republican Rick Perry is a tough-talking Texan, but he was a good ol' giggler in New Hampshire on Friday - prompting pundits to speculate he'd had a few pops before giving his pep talk."

Byran Browdie
New York Daily News, 11/2/11

There he stood on the mountaintop. Here was the man who had been called upon by history to lead his people out of the desert. He was the new Moses - re-visioned for the twenty-first century. This man of the Texas plains called out to the multitudes, "I will lead you to the precipice of this mountain of righteousness. Follow me." The people were overwhelmed by his very presence. Surely, they felt, here was a man who would do battle, in their name, against the evil forces of liberalism. They knelt at his feet, some of them weeping in joy and gratitude. He found himself at the height of his life's mission, standing proud. "I am at fate's alter", he quietly said to himself, "Nothing and nobody will hinder my quest." And there he proudly stood on the mountaintop of history, prepared to go forth to do battle. At that very moment something horrible happened....

Rick Perry opened his mouth.

You know your candidacy is pretty much blued, screwed and tattooed, when a certified headcase like Herman Cain is leading you in every poll. This is terrible news for me. I so wanted Governor Perry to be named standard bearer at the Republican Convention next summer, I could almost taste it. What a wondrously stupid and twisted campaign his would have been! I'm almost beside myself in my grief and frustration.

But where there is even a wisp of life there can still be an abundance of hope. There are still two months before the primary season begins. Maybe there is time for him to get his act together. I know this is probably wishful thinking on my part. I have a history of self-delusion when it comes to my political hopes and dreams. Michele Bachmann's campaign has warped and died like rancid fruit on the vine. The Hermanator is about to be done in by a sexual harassment scandal he thought was long-forgotten. Rick Santorum petered out the moment he announced his candidacy. Newt Gingrich is diseased and brain damaged. Mitt Romney is just plain boring. Mr. Rick is my last and only hope.

Oh, please, dear and blessed fate. O cruel and wicked fate! Why dost thou torment we mortals so?

Talk about your luck of the Irish. You've really got to hand it to O'Bama. No, that wasn't a typo. This son-of-a-bitch has been so lucky throughout his career he must be a descendant of the Emerald Isle! In fact we now know he is! Certainly he's got to be the luckiest politician in American history! First he had the extremely good fortune to run against a stark-raving lunatic like Alan Keyes for the senate, then only a couple of years later he faces down blubbering John McCain and Fascist Barbie for the presidency. And now? Just have a gander at the insane clown posse that wants to take his job from him! I've said it before and now I'll repeat myself: Barack Obama is the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Somewhere beyond the curtain of that unknowable void, Lou Gehrig must be smiling. I hear you sigh.

Back on August 15, shortly after Rick Perry entered the race, I wrote the following on this site:

"The deeply disturbing similarities to George W. Bush aside, Rick Perry has also got that Ronald Reagan thing happening, have you noticed that? Good hair, telegenic, sunny disposition, smooth talker - and dumber than an empty box of Rice Crispies. Ronnie with a Texas twang. The perfect candidate in this era of soundbites and snake oil. Just when you thought that the 2012 clown parade could not possibly get any stupider, enter Rick Perry, stage right - extreme right."

Exit Rick Perry.

I have to stop kidding myself. This campaign is kaput. The irony is that it wasn't the mind-bendingly stupid things our man Rick was saying in the debates that did him in with "the base". Ignorance goes a long way with this crowd as you know. And not even when it was revealed that he had spent years frequenting a hunting camp called "Nigger Neck" did it register a molecule with these assholes. No, what broke the deal for Perry was a genuine (and touching quite frankly) moment of compassion when he told this mob of half-wits that Texas has a duty to educate the children of illegal immigrants, and anyone who thought differently "doesn't have any heart". That sort of decency doesn't really play too well with the Tea party types. For good or ill, that was the moment the Perry campaign began to whither and die.

Republican governors throughout the land have been working overtime in the last year, rigging their respective states' election laws in such a way that would make it next-to-impossible for the people who normally vote for the Democratic party to cast their precious ballots. Under such a scenario even a sadistic twit like Rick Perry could have waltzed right into the Oval Office. But now it looks as if that's not going to happen - and too bad for me. A Perry administration - while bad for this already irreparably damaged nation - would have been the best thing that ever happened to me. For at least four (or possibly eight) years, I would not have had to so-much-as touch my keyboard. These things would have written themselves. Now it looks as though I'll be working a little harder than I had hoped to in the years to come. Bummer!

Still, we do live in interesting times, do we not?

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

This Mother's Life
by Nina Mohadjer

Nina Mojadjer is a friend of mine who lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut. She has written a wonderful book that chronicles her thoughts and observations with regard to being a relatively new citizen of the United States and the joys and challenges of being a single mother, raising two precocious (but perfectly delightful) daughters. She was born in Iran in 1970, raised in Germany, and came to the Unites States in 1993. Her tri-cultural experience is not only truly amazing, but inspiring as well.

She is a tireless advocate of Women's rights - not only in this country but in her native Iran as well - and has written extensively and passionately on the subject. If you want to understand why immigrants are - and always have been - so essential to America's soul, just look to Nina Mohadjer. Her story is an example that can light the darkest American light. She is also very polite, did I mention that? A real lady to the manor born.

At the moment Amazon.com has no copies of her book in stock, but you can ask your friendly, independently owned book store (There must be one left) to order it for you. Or, better yet, contact Nina directly:

nina@ninamohadjer.com

As I said, Nina Mohadjer inspires.

NOTE TO THE TEA PARTY:

Nina is a legal immigrant. Chill.

Time to Get Moving

2011-10-27T05:06:00.057-04:00

"Now we're in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change - we're doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change - inch by inch, day by day."

Barack Obama

Yeah, but change I can believe in?

First of all let me emphasize from the outset that this president has been a disappointment in too many areas to count. When Barack Obama was inaugurated as the forty-fourth president on 20 January 2009, what I had envisioned for this troubled country was a radical, progressive firebrand, the likes of which we had not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It's been too long since we've had that kind of leadership in this country. Consider this: When FDR entered the White House in March of 1933, my late father was not quite two-and-a-half years old. Today would have been his eighty-first birthday. Too long indeed.

But we didn't get a liberal. Au contraire, mon frere. What we got instead was a cautious and timid moderate - sound asleep in the middle of the road. Not the place to find oneself in times of national crisis. It soon became apparent that Barack Obama did not have the stomach for the good fight; a key attribute contained within the character of every successful politician in history. That appears to be changing however. I never agreed with Barry Goldwater when he famously said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice", but I totally concur with the next line of that speech: "Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." It would seem to me in recent weeks that President Obama's week-kneed moderation is starting to give way to a bit of moxie. This has been welcome news indeed. This guy needs to engage in some serious political ass whupping. We shall see.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Paul Josef Goebbels 1897-1945
Hitler's Minister of Propaganda

Well, now! I have an idea where these people might have gotten their playbook. Call it a hunch. And speaking of the Big Lie....

One of the most incredible things of the last two-and-a-half-years was witnessing the conservative media's scream machine attempting to portray this president as a far-left socialist. What was even more incredible than that was the spectacle of so many Americans stupidly falling for the propaganda. They've heard the Big Lie - repeated over and over. They've swallowed the Kool-Aid. Show me a person who seriously believes Obama to be a left wing radical and I'll show you a person without the most basic, remedial grasp of American history. I can almost hear Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt giggling from beyond the void.

My theory (and I hope I'm right about this) is that Obama has been sailing cautiously with the wind in this first term, paving the way for an easy re-election, and that he's saving his best tunes for Act Two of this silly operetta. Maybe the reason he is not waiting until after Election Day to show some long-overdue chutzpah is due to the pathetic cast of characters that now comprises the Republican contenders for the nomination. It is becoming more clear with each passing day, that defeating any of this group of unintentional comedians will be as easy as shooting a school of half-witted fish in a leaky barrel.

Think about it for a minute. Jon Huntsman is the most impressive candidate for the GOP nomination to come around in over a century - since that other Roosevelt (Theodore). He's smart, articulate, relatively moderate - and he's barely registering in the polls with these knuckleheads! Although I would never vote for him, he's the only member of this insane clown posse that I wouldn't lose much sleep over if he were to be elected. Huntsman's "problem" is that he's the only one of these nitwits with an IQ higher than room temperature. He also seems to be relatively sane. Intelligence and sanity don't really play too well with the Tea party crowd as I'm sure you've noticed. This is an organization of crazy people - and they now control the same party which one-hundred and fifty-one years ago nominated Abraham Lincoln!

I need a good dose of Demerol.

Needless to say, it is essential that the "base" of the Democratic party not engage in another mass hissy fit and stay home in a snit as they foolishly did on Election Day 2010. They have nothing to gain by doing so, and everything to lose. We won't be able to save this country if there's nothing left of it to save. It's time to get out there and make damned sure that Obama is re-elected next year.

It seems to me that our Republican friends have lost what was left of their small, incurious minds. It's no surprise that that disgusting party has been bending over backwards to see that the American people suffer in order that they achieve their radical agenda. What IS surprising is the fact that their efforts in the last year have become so overt. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. I guess they assume that as long as so many Americans continue to watch FOX Noise and listen to Rush Limbaugh for their news and information, they can work out in the open.

And as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the one, surefire issue that the Democrats are stupidly ignoring is that of the Supreme Court. If the next president is a Republican and is able to appoint even one more half-witted, right wing extremist to that bench, we might just-as-well blow a fond, farewell kiss to the United States of America. The wounds will be mortal.

But of course if the prez is reelected and the house and the senate wind up in the hands of the Republican party, his success at the polls won't amount to a damned thing. The Democrats need to understand that they have got to stop nominating these pathetic, conservative Blue Dogs. Conservatism is not he way to go if we're to get this once-great nation moving again. That's been proven time and again throughout history. As I've said on this site too many times to count, I left the Democrats in 1998 and never looked back. It became obvious to me then that they had forgotten that they are (or were) the party of FDR. Thirteen years later my opinion has not changed. If America is to be saved it needs to take a hard turn to the left - just as it did in 1932. Otherwise get used to living in a country in ruins.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

As I said, my dad Jack Degan (photo left) was born eighty-one years ago today in Brooklyn, NY. Someone recently said to me that she was sure that he and his dear friend and Notre Dame classmate Bob O'Connor went straight to Heaven. I had to gently disagree with her on this point. Knowing those two, they probably stopped in Purgatory for a drink.

Happy birthday, Dad. A tip of the hat and a raising of the glass to you and the Bobster!

SUGGESTED READING:

The Roosevelts: An American Saga
by Peter Collier and David Horowitz

I'm right in the middle of this one and can't put the damned thing down. A remarkable book that traces the roots of this more-than-remarkable American family. I cannot recommend it enough.

FOR THE RECORD:

Today is also the one-hundred and fifty-third anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt. I'm just sayin'. Here is a link to a piece I wrote nearly four years ago commemorating the life of this extraordinary American:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/2008/01/theodore-roosevelt-1858-1919.html

They just don't make Republicans like that anymore. Come to think about it they don't make Democrats like that anymore either.

Boehner and Cantor and Mitch - Oh, My!

2011-10-21T09:40:00.035-04:00

FUN FACT:
My maternal forebears called Kentucky home. My family is steeped in the history of the Blue Grass State. If you ever get a chance to visit the place, go and see the Lincoln Marriage Cabin. That is where Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks - old Abe's parents - were married on June 12, 1806. A plaque outside the structure says that it was donated to history by Walter Clements. He was my grandfather! That's a photograph of the two of us taken in the summer of 1971, right around the time of my thirteenth birthday. It was the last time I saw him alive. Today, he and my grandmother Loretta Doran lie beneath the Kentucky earth in a little Catholic cemetery in Hodgenville - Lincoln's home town.

I have spent enough time in Kentucky to know firsthand that it is populated by good, decent, hard working people. So why do they keep sending a despicable, corrupt little thug like Mitch McConnell to Washington? This I'm dying to know.

In fact, the same question would apply to the people of Ohio and Virginia with respect to John Boehner and Eric Cantor. What were they thinking when they chose this axis of reaction to represent them in Washington? Before Barack Obama had a chance to find the location of the White House linen closet, McConnell was telling the world that his main objective would be to ensure that this would be a one-term administration. In fact that has been the policy of the GOP since January 20, 2009. Early this year when the numbers of unemployed people in this country began to go down, Republican governors - in Republican-controlled states - began slashing-to-ribbons public sector jobs in order to make sure that those numbers went right back up.

BREAKING NEWS: THEY DON"T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!! Film at eleven.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTER THOUGHT, 10/23/11:

The modem on my computer went on the fritz before I was able to finish this piece. I said everything that needed to be said so I'll leave it as it is, what the heck. I am writing this from the adult living center - called "Glen Arden" - where my mother and aunt Audrey live. Long ago and far away it would have been referred to as an "Old Folk's Home". It's a nice place but the computers here are almost as old as the residents. The particular one I am using at this moment is so old it doesn't take CDs. It doesn't even take floppy discs. This one only accepts Edison Wax Cylinders.

Happy birthday to my dear and beloved friend Virginia Roman Casey. You're still the tops with me, kid. As the old Cole Porter tune will testify:

You're the Nile. You're the tower of Pisa.
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa!

It's a smile one could read at midnight by, too. Kelly is awfully lucky to have you as her mom. I'm lucky to have you as a friend. Meeting you was better than winning the lottery.

Contemplating the Supremes

2011-10-15T09:28:00.038-04:00

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

Louis Brandeis

That's a photograph of Justice Brandeis to the left of this column. He was a pretty astute guy from everything I've been able to discern. He understood - in a way that five present-day members of the Supreme Court do not - the dangers connected with the concentration wealth. The Democrats have been falling over each other in recent weeks, desperate to come up with reasons why the American people should send President Obama back to the White house next year. Incredibly, they have ignored the most blatantly obvious one. It's time we have a serious discussion regarding the ramifications of a Republican victory in 2012 - and what it would mean for the future of this Republic if even one more right wing extremist is appointed to sit on that court.

First things first: The Roberts Court sucks.

I'm not giving away any state secrets by saying this. Corporations are people? Money is free speech? This is the worst collection of guys on that bench (I exclude the women for obvious reasons) since the bunch that gave us Plessy vs. Ferguson - or even the Dred Scott decision of 1856. And I tell you this with no small amount of embarrassment. Incredibly, the Chief Justice who wrote that despicable ruling, Roger Brooke Taney, is an ancestor of mine. I'll be honest with you, this is not a fact we do much bragging about within my family. What an asshole!

There are four whores for the plutocracy who now reside on the Supreme Court (all appointees of either Reagan or the two Bushes). You know who I'm talking about - John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Uncle Thomas. Then there is the "swing vote", Anthony Kennedy, who far-too-often sides with the extremists on the far right. Some of them, like uber-brute Scalia, are not unknown for their political activism. William O. Douglas (photo left) was a Roosevelt appointee and the most liberal justice in the history of that court. He served as a judge from 1939 to 1975. After reading in the papers about the latest progressive crusade, he would wistfully tell his clerks, "Oh, if I could only get involved with this one." But he knew that to do so - while it may not have been illegal - it would have been most decidedly unethical.

In his lifetime Judge Douglas was also viewed as the most controversial Supreme Court justice in history. There was even an attempt made to impeach him that was led by then congressman Gerald R. Ford. Say what you want about William O. Douglas, the man was a class act.

And then there is the justice who is in a class by himself: Uncle Thomas. My knowledge of the history of the Supreme Court is not quite as detailed as I would like it to be (I'm working on that). But from what I do know, Clarence Thomas is the most overtly corrupt member of that body in its two hundred-plus-year history. He has been caught red-handed receiving certain "gifts" from certain billionaires seeking influence. I imagine influencing Clarence Thomas is not that difficult a thing to do. In addition to that, he has so many close ties with conservative groups and causes that it is difficult to catalog them all.

His wife Ginny makes her living and her name as an advocate for a group called "Liberty Central". Her half-witted hubby can always be counted on to vote on cases - no matter how insignificant - in a matter that appeases the Mrs. In an article from almost a year ago that appeared on the Huffington Post, Jacob Heilbrunn perceptively wrote:

"For the other members of the Court, however, it must be painful to watch the shenanigans of his wife, who is either witless or gratuitously nasty, or, more likely, both, tarnish the institution, which is already becoming dangerously politicized by its right-wing members, who appear to shrink at nothing when it comes to engaging in judicial activism, as long as it fits their own political predilections."

If I were a Democrat in the congress, I'd be working overtime to get the wheels in motion that would lead to impeachment proceedings bought against Clarence Thomas. He's not only an embarrassment to the judicial branch of our government, he's as contemptible as a person who does not molest small children in his spare time can be. There is a link at the bottom of this piece that details my feelings about Uncle Thomas.

If the next president is a Republican and is able to make one or (God forbid) more appointments to that court, it will ultimately lead to the end of democracy in America. Does that sound a tad paranoid on my part? Maybe it is. Let's all vote Republican next year and see what happens.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

This Mother's Life
by Nina Mohadjer

Well hey there! If you happen to find yourself anywhere near the town of Ridgefield, CT this afternoon (October 15) our friend Nina Mohadjer will be signing copies of her new book "This Mother's Life" - which is a damned fine title if you ask me ("Mommie Dearest" had already been taken).

The place is called, Books on the Common and it's at 404 Main Street in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The time will be between the hours of 2 and 4 PM EST (or 11 and 1 PM PST if you've just flown in from the coast and you're still on California time). So stop by and say hello to Nina, and maybe purchase a copy of her new book. There will be lots of free food and an open bar!

http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/theridgefieldpress/people/105285-single-moms-book-tells-of-struggles-and-successes-of-a-working-mother.html

DISCLAIMER:
There will be no free food. There will be no open bar. That was merely a cheap and cynical attempt on my part to get you to come. I'm shameless, I know.

SUGGESTED READING:

Here are my feelings on Clarence Thomas. This piece was originally published on this site four years ago. I've always considered it to be one of the best things I've ever written:

America's Favorite House Nigger

The man just provides me with so much inspiration. He's a hoot!

The Brethren
by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong

Although it's been quite a number of years since I read it, I do remember that I couldn't put it down. A great read.

For more recent postings on this disgusting site, pleas ego to this link:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

The Panic Sets In

2011-10-12T16:35:00.042-04:00

"If you read the newspapers today, I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town, have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans."

Eric Cantor

Damn! I nearly spit out my coffee when I read that one. At that exact same moment, the pot that I had brewed the coffee in called the kettle "black". Aren't these the most interesting of times? They are, you know. They really are!

Here is a question that I am hard-pressed to avoid: Is there a bigger asshole slithering though the halls of congress than Eric Cantor? If there is I'd sure-as-hell would like to know about it. It has always amused me to watch him on the tube trying to defend the morally indefensible. He always has this weird look of cherubic contentment on his clueless face. It really is something to behold. To the credit of Mitch "The Plutocracy's Bitch" McConnell, he at least has the decency to look somewhat ill-at-ease when having to vomit forth their nonsensical talking points . Cantor, on the other hand, is right at home with their delightfully twisted agenda. Too weird!

Consider Eric Cantor's burden if you will. The despicable little freak wants us to swallow his definition of the people down on Wall Street who now hold up a mirror to the plutocracy's face. Eric defines them as a "mob". He actually made a very good point - although I am certain that it was accidental on his part. This IS the pitting of "Americans against Americans". It's the ninety nine percent against the one percent. Cantor and his people are calling this "class warfare". Guess what. It is class warfare! And they've been waging it against us since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

For the first century it was a covert war. On January 20, 1981 (Guess what happened on that day? - photo left) it became completely and unabashedly overt. On 17 September 2011, the sleeping giant of the American Left was awakened from a long and troubled slumber. Cantor and his gang shouldn't even dream about putting an end to what is now happening. This revolution is unstoppable. The line it is drawn; the curse it is cast. The good folks whom at this very hour are occupying Wall Street are bearing witness for all the world to behold, what thirty years of deregulation - and the resulting economic plunder - have done to the working people of this once-great nation. The American people have had-it-up-to-here and they're taking long-overdue action. The old world is rapidly fading. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand.

MEMO TO CANTOR:

Yeah, you're absolutely correct, Eric. We are a mob. AND WE'RE FUCKING PISSED, BUSTER.

You can almost feel the panic reverberating from both sides of the aisle in congress this week. They're trying to convince themselves that this is a passing fluke, that we're not yet at the point of no return. If these people know a damned thing about history (and sometimes I wonder if these knuckleheads know anything) they must realize that - if this isn't the end of the right wing's thirty-year-long orgy - it is most definitely the beginning of the end. As the old song says:

It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up, the piper must be paid
The party's over
It's all over, my friend

This is the beginning of a new era. We'll either take America back for the middle class - and the poor, so they may once again aspire to be a part of the middle class - or we'll shut it down if we have to. It's as stark and as simple as that. We can do it, too. "Strength in numbers", you know what I'm saying? There are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them.

And thanks to the technology that was brought to us in part by the late Steve Jobs, the revolution will be televised.

Tom Degan
Goshen. NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

This past Saturday I was in Red Hook, NY visiting my friend Laura Pelosi. As we approached the entrance of a little place called "Taste Bud's Cafe", out of the loudspeaker came the angelic sound of a voice performing the most beautiful rendition of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" that I have ever heard in my life! Once inside, to our utter astonishment and delight, we were gently confronted by the artistry of Sandy Bailey. This might be the first time you have heard her name, but it won't be the last - trust me on this one. Here is a link to a site where you can listen to a few of her songs, and maybe purchase her new CD:

http://www.reverbnation.com/sandybailey

She wrote a tune called "If Only Dreams Were True". Dreams are still being made to come true, folks. Sandy Bailey is all the proof you need.

BREAKING NEWS, 10/14/11:

Tomorrow there will be a global show of solidarity for the brothers and sisters who occupy Wall Street.

Dear Lord, this is so beautiful! Here are a group of musicians and singers from all parts of the world, coming together as one, via the miracle of technology. The song they perform is Stand By Me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM&feature=player_embedded

Stand by the protesters all over the world. "No matter who you are. "No matter where you go." Stand by them. And while we're at it, let's all stand by each other. What the heck.

pray for peace

It's Murder, I Tells Ya!

2011-10-06T09:22:00.093-04:00

"The executioner's face is always well hidden."

Bob Dylan

See that person in the photograph at the top of the page? His name was George Stinney. On March 23, 1944 he was arrested for the killing of two little girls, Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 8. What evidence did the authorities of Clarendon County South Carolina have for charging George with their murders? That's a no brainer: The victims were white. No white person could possibly have committed such a heinous crime - and young George was the closest available nigger. On June 16, 1944, eighty-one days after the girls' bludgeoned bodies were found in a muddy creek, George Junius Stinney Jr. was strapped into the electric chair and executed by the nice folks of the state of South Carolina.

He was fourteen-years old.

Now listen, folks, I understand that our culture has this positively religious obsession with killing black people, and I've got no problem with that. Honest! I am white. For me, apathy is a cinch! But it would seem to me that we ought to have a second or third look into our sick, dysfunctional love affair with the entire idea of capital punishment....

Okay, I'll level with you. I was just being facetious. I've got a HUGE problem with this.

The recent execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia - for a murder he was more-than-likely innocent of - has me thinking once more about this incredibly nasty topic. It was hammered home once again just a few days before Troy's death, at one of the GOP debates, when certain "Christians" in the audience cheered when NBC's Brian Williams pointed out the fact that Governor Rick Perry has presided over more executions that any other governor since the Civil War. There was a palpable blood lust emanating from this mob.

"Blessed are the merciful
For they shall obtain mercy."

Jesus of Nazareth

Indeed. It's not as if I speak from a position of ignorance. I've had friends and loved ones who were murdered. Screaming for vengeance - and even getting it - would not have done my soul any good whatsoever. I think Christ was onto something there. We could kill Mark David Chapman tonight at sunset. John Lennon will still be just as dead as he was when the white sheet was placed over his face on December 8, 1980. Chapman might be a murderous psychopath (not to mention a First Class asshole) but killing him would have been pointless. Every public statement John ever made tells me that he would have agreed with me on this point.

Has anybody here seen my old friend Lennon? Can you tell me where he's gone?

FLASH! DEGAN PLAYS THE RACE CARD!!!

Well, yeah! That's the card American society has dealt itself. I'm an American. What the hell; I'm gonna play it to win.

But I'm playing more than the race card - much more. With respect to capital punishment. the more appropriate thing to call it would be the class card. Sure, you're much more likely to get murdered by the state if you're African American. They are killed in higher percentages than whites. Don't deny it. But it's more than race that's involved here. In this country they only kill the poor and the middle class. When was the last time you heard of a rich guy being chauffeured down the Last Mile? Come to think of it, I'm not aware of it ever happening. OJ Simpson viciously killed two people - two white people! Despite his obvious and undeniable blackness, he was never even considered for lethal injection! Simpson - although not born into the white power structure - was a "token" member of it. We can't be setting any precedents now, can we? Say, by the way, what ever became of that guy?

And don't come back with the argument that the wealthy don't kill. They do kill. They kill all the time. They kill every day. They kill for sport. They kill for pleasure. They kill for fun. They kill for shits and giggles. And unlike the poor, whom - when they do kill - usually do it one human being at a time; the wealthy kill in astronomical numbers. Have you visited Iraq lately? Let's hear it for the Halliburton and the Bush Mob! An estimated one million Iraqi men, women and little children are dead at their - our - hands. Whoopee.

And remember this: No poor person in the history of humanity has ever been accused of genocide. Think about it.

It would seem to me that the only time black people are spared the death penalty in this sick country is when they kill other black people. That's different, That's cool. Can you see the murderous hypocrisy here?

Every other country in the western world has done away with this barbaric, medieval practice. (Although there is a cabal of extremists in merrie olde England who have started a movement to bring it back. There are a heck of a lot of brown people living in London, you know!) Why the hell are we the last holdouts? What the hell is the matter with us? You want to cut back on spending? ELIMINATE THE DEATH PENALTY! By doing so, we would save the states untold billions per decade. How much do you think it cost the state of Georgia to keep Troy Davis on death row between 1989 and 2011? I don't have the numbers in front of me but it had to be a couple of million - maybe even more than a couple. Now multiply that number by twenty-three hundred, which is roughly the current number waiting to be put to death. By doing away with the death penalty we would save a fortune. Cut back on spending? Can we talk???

But maybe there are some things, expensive as they may be, that feel too good for some of us to give up. There is a connection here to be made to certain American "traditions" that are ominous and disturbing. Right up until the middle of the twentieth century, lynching was perfectly legal - even honored - in certain regions of this country.

It was not uncommon for the "gentlemen" of a community to gather 'round some old oak tree on the outside of town to enjoy the spectacle of some poor bastard being strung up by his neck. The crime often involved the violation of some stupid racial taboo. There were a lot of stupid racial taboos in 1955 - north and south. I am reminded of Emmett Till (Photo left) who on August 28 of that year was brutally beaten to death for allegedly flirting with a white woman. He was visiting cousins in Mississippi at the time of his murder. When his body was bought back to Chicago for his funeral, his mother insisted on an open coffin for her son. She wanted everyone - with the stomach for it - to view her boy's bruised, bloated and bloodied face. She wanted the world to behold what hate had done to her child.

By the way, like George Junius Stinney, Emmett Till was all of fourteen-years-old. Isn't that sweet?

Lynchings are no longer legal. But at least an execution gives certain people the pleasure of gathering outside the death house, awaiting the executioner's light signaling that the condemned man (or woman - remember Karla Faye Tucker) has been killed. It's not nearly as much fun as watching a fellow human being's eyes bulging out if their sockets, desperate for breath - But hey! - it's all they've got!

But seriously folks....

It's not very likely that the death penalty is going to be abolished any time soon - not with the Roberts Court anyway. If the next president is a Republican and is allowed two or three more appointments to that body, it will be decades before it is gone forever from the American legal system. The recent case of Troy Davis has caused many of us to pause for a moment of reflection. Most of the "eyewitnesses" who testified against him later recanted their testimonies, saying the police coerced them into identifying Troy as the man who murdered Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. He was probably innocent - but the state went through with his execution anyway. People of conscience - on both sides of the capital punishment debate - are troubled by what was done to Troy Davis.

Maybe this is the beginning of the end. Maybe.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

The Sermon on the Mount
by that guy Jesus

AFTERTHOUGHT:

In memory of Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Not since Thomas Edison or Henry Ford has another human being changed our world as he did - for good and ill - mostly good. A tip of the hat and a raising of the glass to him.

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

"The Money Masters"

Special thanks to my friend Jacqueline Janecke for making me aware of this very important - and riveting - documentary. It's a bit long (a little under three-and-a-half hours) but worth every minute of your time - and then some. It's title says it all. No further explanation from me is needed. Here's a link to watch it on You Tube in its entirety:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

William Jennings Brian

BREAKING NEWS, 10/12/11:

Hey everyone in England! On Saturday the fifteenth the people will be occupying the London Stock Exchange. READ ALL ABOUT IT!

http://occupylondon.org.uk/

Don't even THINK about trying to stop it. This movement is unstoppable. The line it is drawn. The curse it is cast.

For more recent postings on this positively reprehensible, French-loving, lefty-leaning, latte-swirling, cheese-eating, commie-kissing site, please do go to the following link:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Cheers!

OCCUPY WALL STREET

2011-10-01T10:24:00.055-04:00

"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard thirty fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers - people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork - but dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

"And now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money! They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it! They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the Big Club."

George Carlin

If they ever create a monument to George Carlin, those words should be etched in marble at the base of the statue of him.

You say you want a revolution? Guess what. It's here. Get the fuck out of the way.

Me and my old partner in chaos and confusion, the legendary Don Hickok (photo on the left) will be heading down to merrie olde Manhattan this week to take part in the historic occupation of Wall Street. If life is to gain any meaning through the living of it, generally it's a good rule of thumb to be where history is being made at any given moment. That being the case, where else would you expect to find us? Looking through the window at Rockefeller Center while the Today Show is being broadcast? I've got better things to do and better places to be thank you very much. As Chris Hedges put it so eloquently in a column posted on truthdig this past Thursday:

"There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave."

"Either you are a rebel or a slave." Well put. There is no in-between. Damn! Wish I'd said that!

It would seem that the white noise that has been spewing from the plutocracy's castle-in-the-sky lo these thirty years has finally awakened the sleeping giant of the American Left. If they think they can put a stop to this revolution - through violence or intimidation - they obviously don't know much about history. Revolutions are unstoppable. Just ask Tzar Nicholas the Second. Just ask King Louis XVI - 0r Momar Khadafi. Putting a halt to a revolution is about as easy as trying to stop the sun from setting in the west this evening. Best of luck to them.

If you haven't heard what is now happening in New York's financial district, you are completely absolved. Although today marks the beginning of the third week of this protest, the so-called "liberal media" has pretty much ignored it. Had this been a hundred-or-so Tea partiers picketing the offices of the ACLU it would have been a different story; the coverage would have been round the clock. But thousands of people have been descending on Wall Street since September 17 and - with the exception of the New York papers, MSNBC and a handful of other outlets - it's like this isn't even happening. But it is happening. The billion dollar shit-hammer has hit the trillion dollar fan.

This should have happened twenty-five years-ago, but better late than never I suppose. The fact that it's finally happening is good enough for me. What took us so long to get our act together?

Unlike the Tea party spectacle (which was created and financed by FOX Noise and the Koch brothers) this is a real, honest-to-goodness grass roots movement. It's only a matter of hours before the right-wing scream machine puts out a statement blaming the whole thing on a plot cooked up by Rachel Maddow, Barbara Streisand, Ed Asner and the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Company. I can see Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh chartering several busloads of counter-demonstrators - "real Americans" - to come in and bust some commie/hippie heads. But in the long run, what is said or done to put this fire out will be akin to fighting an inferno with a bottle of Perrier water. This is for keeps, baby!

Since the voters of this country foolishly handed over the reins of executive power to a feeble-minded, failed "B" movie actor a generation ago, the rape and plunder of America's financial infrastructure has been going on at full speed. Politicians of both parties rigged the laws in order to make the theft perfectly legal. That mournful chiming that is now emanating from deep within Wall Street is the death knell of the orgy that the plutocrats thought would never end. Americans are taking their country and their economy back. As my gal Rachel said the other night on her excellent MSNBC program:

"Rich people are not the reason for a good economy - they are the result."

Dag nap it! Another great quote I wish I had cooked up!

It's times like this that I wish I never left New York City. Still, getting down there is not too tricky. Brother Pete and I own an apartment on the northwest corner of 52nd Street and 8th Avenue and I can stay there for days-at-a-time, at very little expense. If ever there was a time to be in the Big Apple, this is it. Come to think about it, I might just camp out with the protesters - roasting mickeys and singing campfire songs:

A hundred bottles of beer on the wall
A hundred bottles of beeeeeer!!!!

Sing around the campfire
Join the Campfire Girrrrrls!

That ought to be fun.

You say you wanna revolution? Well, you know, we all wanna change the world. Get ready for some serious change, friends. Get ready to face the dawn. I'll see you in Manhattan. This is gonna be REALLY cool!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

REQUIRED READING:

Here is a link to the Chris Hedges piece quoted above. They'll still be reading this thing in civics classes a century from now:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_best_among_us_20110929/

AFTERTHOUGHT:

And, finally, here is George Carlin on the mountaintop. It is one of his last performances:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF1Ixo_faas&feature=player_embedded

Dammit, I miss George Carlin.

UPDATE, 10/5/11:

It is with deep regret and sorrow that I have to inform you that a dear friend to many of us and a faithful reader of this site, Melissa Hayes, who went by the pseudonym Ginger Snaps, was killed along with her cousin Robbie DeArmon in an automobile accident late last night.

I am heartbroken by this. She was a candle in the darkness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwbowi-8Yoo

Sleep well, sweet Melissa.

For more recent postings on this site please go to the following link:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

A Nasty Plot Shift

2011-09-27T12:50:00.034-04:00

"I think Americans just don't know sometimes which Mitt Romney they're dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of … against … the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment … was it before he was before these social programs, uh, from the standpoint he was standing, uh, for Roe vs. Wade before he was against Roe, uh, Roe vs. Wade … uh … he was … uh for Race To The Top. ... Uh … (long pause) ... he's for Obamacare and now he's against it. … I mean, we'll wait until tomorrow and, and, and wait to see which Mitt Romney we're really talking to."

Governor Rick Perry
GOP debate, 22 September 2011

Goodness gracious, this is not good. My wildest dream - that either Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry would somehow make it to the Republican National Convention next summer - has gone up in flames; or so it would seem. If a month is a lifetime in American politics (as the politicians love to remind us) a year is a millennium.

Perry's disastrous appearance at last Thursday's debate in Florida seemed to put the ol' kibosh on his presidential aspirations. And it was only a matter of time before Congresswoman Bachmann said something irreparably stupid. When she blurted out that a certain vaccination caused mental retardation, it proved to be too idiotic for Florida Republicans even - an accomplishment in itself to be sure. In a straw poll conducted in that state a few days ago, she registered near the bottom. This only a month after her moment on the mountaintop in Iowa. The Democrats are depressed by these turns of events and I can't blame them. With a comparative moderate (at least by modern-day standards) like Mitt Romney as the nominee next year, President Obama's reelection is more uncertain than ever. Or is it?

There is a silver lining for the Dems behind this dark cloud. The nitwits that comprise "the base" of the GOP are not going to be motivated to come out in droves for a former governor of Taxachusetts who brought health care to his state - and who also happens to be a Mormon. Remember this, too: Between now and the convention, Mitt Romney is going to be saying a lot of really stupid things - things of monumentally idiotic proportions. That is the only way to win the nomination of that party anymore. Think about it! Have you been watching these people? Who's the most impressive and articulate one of the bunch? Jon Huntsman! And he's not even registering with these people. In fact he's at the bottom of every poll!

Willard Mitt Romney's pandering to that party's nitwit base during the primaries - particularly in the deep south and the Midwest - will only come back to haunt him when he faces the president in the general election. Fifty years from now, when historians gather in judgement of Barack Obama's political career, if they're only in agreement on one point it will be this one:

This was one lucky son-of-a-bitch.

THE CHRISTIE EQUATION

I'm blushing as I write these words. Much as I hate to admit this, I've gotta be upfront with you and just say it: Chris Christie has grown on me. That is not as hard for me to say as you might think. I don't live in New Jersey - and I'm far enough away from it's border that whatever happens there doesn't effect me much. That being said, I've come to admire the governor's gruff bluntness. You can accuse the guy of many things. Being a phony ain't one of them. Some operatives within "the party of Lincoln" are begging him to get into the race, but Christie isn't budging. He is reminding people of General William Tecumseh Sherman when he refused the GOP nomination a century-and-a-half ago:

"If nominated I will not run. If elected I will not serve."

Everyone is wondering: What's up with this guy??? I have a theory. In his years as United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, there were allegations that Christie was somewhat "ethically challenged". These allegations followed him into the campaign for governor in 2009. My theory is that Chris knows damned well if he announces his candidacy for the president, a few industrious reporters are going to dig up a few things he doesn't want them to find. Maybe I'm wrong about this - and forgive me if I am - but I can't believe that any ambitious politician would turn down what Christie is turning down if he didn't have a small chorus line of skeletons in his closet. I'm not saying that he's done anything that could put him in prison for a long stretch, I'm just sayin'....This is pure speculation on my part but there it is.

But even if he were to enter the race, compared to the rest of the frontrunners - including Mitt Romney - Chris Christie is as liberal as it is possible for a Republican to be in this day and age. Compared to the rest of the jackasses on that side of the aisle he looks like Franklin D. Roosevelt. Despite a strong endorsement this week from Rupert Murdoch, he is not likely to inspire the base very much. In a recent interview - and God bless him for saying this - he said that gays and lesbians are God's children and that we should accept them for who they are. Trust me on this one, kids; as beautiful as that statement is, it's not going to play too well in Peoria - Arizona. It might do a little better in Peoria, Illinois but not much I suspect. He's also been publicly scornful of the extremism of the conservative movement. I'll say it again. Barack Obama is one lucky som'bitch.

I'm still hoping against hope that Rick and Michele will be able to get their respective acts together. I want one of them to get the nomination so bad I can almost taste it. It doesn't matter in the least which one. Can you imagine how delightfully twisted either of their campaigns would be?

PLEASE, FATE! I'M BEGGIN' YA!

Tom Degan
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Happy birthday to my cousin Shawn Bliven who turns forty-two today. I remember the night of September 27, 1969 like it was yesterday, pal. My dear old Grandma Degan's first great-grandson. You were big news! Come to think of it, you still are, How the hell do you do that?

SUGGESTED READING:

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
by Hunter S. Thompson

Required reading for any self-respecting political junkie. Here is a link to order it off of Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Fear-Loathing-Campaign-Trail-72/dp/0446698229/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317167168&sr=1-1

Normally I would suggest that you order it from your local, independently owned bookstore - but they no longer exist. Let's just stop kidding ourselves here and now, okay?

Here's a link for more recent postings on this disgusting site:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Cheerio! Pip! Pip!

Welcome Back, Mr. Prez!

2011-09-21T05:06:00.046-04:00

Yeah we tease him a lot

'Cause we've got him on the spot

Welcome back

Welcome back! Welcome back! Welcome back!

John Sebastian

I'm almost embarrassed to use those lyrics as the opener to this piece. With the monumental exception of Three's Company, Welcome Back Kotter was absolutely the worst "successful" sit-com of the seventies. It had some of the lamest "comedy" writers in the history of literature ("Up your nose with a rubber hose!") Just awful stuff. But the show's theme song wasn't too bad, and it works here. Welcome back, President Obama. We've missed you. Your dreams were your ticket out.

I had started to wonder what happened to that fellow I had voted for three years ago. I had expected a progressive-on-fire, and all I got was this Casper Milquetoast-moderate, sound asleep in the middle of the road - not a good place to be. But there he was the other day out in the Rose Garden, saying what was screaming to be said; that this nation's economic burden shall no longer be placed solely on the backs of the poor and the vanishing middle class, and that the miniscule class of people who are hoarding most of the nation's wealth shall be forced to pay more - A helluva lot more, baby! - in order to save America's desperately crumbling infrastructure.

The president has placed himself in the most enviable political position of any politician that I can remember. The tone of next year's campaign has been set: that the middle class must be saved. Watch in glee while the Republicans try to find a way to defend the utterly indefensible; while they draw a smiley face on the morally reprehensible. This is gonna be funny!

Here's a little something you can bet the farm on. The next thirteen months will see the right wing beside themselves as they scramble - like sadistic little mice - to change the topic of discussion from that of economic fairness, to the subject of that BIG, BLACK, BOLSHEVIK BOOGIEMAN in the Oval Office. They won't be able to take back the senate and the White House - nor will they be able to retain control of the House of Reprehensibles - without exploiting the worst racist tendencies deep within America's tormented soul. That is their biggest hope. That is their only hope. 2012 might very well turn out to be a most interesting political year. Talk about understatement!

In addition to playing the race card, it's a fairly easy guess that they'll drag out their moth-eaten bag of "family values" for good measure, as hard as that argument is for many of us to swallow these days. The Republicans don't give a shit about American families - or the families who gross somewhere under a million per. This is a party that cares about one thing only - that the obscenely rich get obscenely richer. To hell with the rest of you.

What they're doing in Wahing-TON?
They're just looking out for Number One
And Number One ain't you
You ain't even Number Two!

Frank Zappa

Wake the fuck up. The only way these people can survive politically is via the old, tried-and-true route of division and distraction. Their ideological antecedents tried the same thing exactly a century-and-a-half ago. Do you remember how that ended? It wasn't very pretty as we all know. I am not saying that we've arrived at that same place. I'm not even vaguely implying it. Not at all, dear reader! It's just that Rick Perry has twice hinted at Texas secession. Not that there would be anything wrong with that mind you.

This new-and-improved, revamped Barack Obama gives me a rush of "hope". Remember that word? Less than a week ago on this very site, I was toying with the depressing possibility of a Rick Perry victory next year. All bets are now off. It is apparent that the president has been reminded that his party is (or at least it's supposed to be) the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. For over fifty years those programs did many good things for this country. In the early eighties when Ronald Reagan began the process of destroying the New Deal, America's infrastructure began to fall apart - not to mention the American middle class. The genius of the Conservative movement is that they have been successful at placing the blame for this destruction on the Left. As the late Lenny Bruce once said, "How's that for moxie???"

This may sound astonishing but it's true. There are a number of reasonable and intelligent people out there who are registered to vote in GOP primaries. In fact I personally know a lot of them! Smart Republicans are a bit more numerous here in the northeast than they are in the deep south or deep in the Midwest. The hope of these poor souls - that the "party of Abraham Lincoln" will wise-up and nominate a comparative moderate like Mitt Romney - is dwindling by the day. And when the candidacies of Michele Bachmannn, Ron Paul and Herman Cain die on the vine, it will be Rick Perry who will gather the putrid fruit. Romney can only hope for Jon Huntsman's support in the end. That's about it.

Did you notice that I didn't even bother to mention the names Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in that assessment? Honestly, are there two human beings in politics today more hopelessly pathetic than Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich? I ask you.

The argument being made against Barack Obama - from the right and the left - is that he's had over three-and-a-half years to clean up the mess he inherited and he has failed horribly. It's a valid one to be sure. What must not be forgotten however is the fact that for the first two years of this administration's existence, the president was being obstructed at every turn by a confederacy of reactionary Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats. When the GOP took back the House last January, that obstruction became total and overwhelming.

Given all invective that has been hurled at him ("YOU LIE!") it is a testimony to the man's fortitude that he has been able to get anything done at all. This president will only be successful in his second term if both houses on congress are in the hands of progressive Democrats - and good ol' Bernie Sanders. Otherwise all we can expect is four more years of right wing gridlock. Have you had enough of the quagmire? I have, that's for damned sure!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy this week for the for the Massachusetts senate seat that was held once upon a time by Teddy Kennedy. I think she will be able to take it. I certainly hope so. She is an extraordinary woman. Sign up to take part in her campaign:

www.elizabethwarren.com

Count on me being on the team!

UPDATE, 9/22/11:

All the evidence pointed to Troy Davis' innocence, and yet he was killed by the state of Georgia late last night at 11:08.

All civilized countries have done away with the barbaric practice of capital punishment. What the hell is the matter with us?

The authorities at the prison he languished in during his final days refused him a last minute polygraph test. Why? What did they have to lose?

Oh....right....he might have passed it. They'd have lost another dead body....Never mind.

Try to have a happy first day of Autumn.

DIE! DIE! DIE!

2011-09-15T04:51:00.089-04:00

Brian Williams:
"Your state has executed two-hundred and thirty-four death row inmates, more than any governor of modern times [Cheers from the audience] Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?"

Rick Perry:
"No sir, I never struggled with that at all."

From the GOP Presidential Debate
7 September 2011

Ah, yes! I love it! Civics for sociopaths! Politics to die for! Life is quite beautiful thank you very much.

Two debates in the space of five days? Somebody up there must like me. In the midst of the first one I asked myself out loud, "Am I hallucinating this?" I wasn't. This was very real indeed. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology I was able to record both spectacles onto DVD for posterity. Looking at them again last evening was not the ordeal you might imagine. To the contrary it was loads of fun to watch! Unintentional comedy always is - and these twits are the Marx Brothers of unintentional comedy.

The delightful, knee-slapping highlight in accidental rib-ticklers this week was provided by, of course, our precious Michele Bachmann. I'm really gonna miss that gal. Claiming that a certain vaccination for cervical cancer causes mental retardation she pretty much banged the final nail in her campaign's coffin. Her source for this ludicrous claim? Some woman she had never even met before told her so. It reminded me of that classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

"She turned me into a newt!"

"A NEWT???"

"I got better."

I've been saying for quite some time that the GOP is the party of the plutocracy, and that it has been hijacked by a cabal of white-collar criminals, half-wits and crazy people. I'm not giving away any state secrets here. They don't even attempt to hide their nuttiness any longer. It's out in the open now. But after watching the latest parade of this insane clown posse I had an epiphany: We can now claim - without exaggeration - that this is a party overwhelmed by the presence of sadists.

Both of the audiences attending these two debates were the icing on a very nasty-tasting cake. In addition to the exchange quoted above between NBC's Brian Williams and Governor Perry of Texas, Ron Paul's inference in the debate five nights later - that a thirty-year-old uninsured accident victim might be forced to "just die" - drew hoots and shouts of "YEAH!!!" from these animals. Isn't that sweet? Such compassion!

I should rephrase something I said earlier. Life is not always beautiful, but it sure is interesting - and never boring! Having said that, here is an extremely non-boring statement for you to ponder:

With each passing day it is becoming more-and-more clear that Rick Perry will probably be elected the next president of the United States.

After I wrote that very short paragraph above I stared at it for almost thirty minutes. I then drove a half mile down the road to grab a cup of coffee from the nice folks at the Country Convenience store. En route I pondered what I had written. Do I really believe that? I didn't quite know. Surely, I thought, the American people won't go down that road again. Sending another dim-witted and reactionary cowboy from the Texas Governor's mansion to the Executive Mansion? They can't be that stupid, can they? CAN THEY??? I've got bad news for you:

YES THEY CAN!
YES THEY CAN!
YES THEY CAN!

Rick Perry would be their perfect nominee. He has more of a taste for blood than any of the other contenders - a lot more; more than Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman combined. And while Michele Bachmann may claim an insatiable lust for the blood of evil-doers, she's never actually had the joy and privilege of executing anyone, poor thing.

This got me to thinking about scripture. Although hardly a scholar with respect to the New Testament, I do dabble on occasion. Surely these "Christians" can see the folly of their attitude toward the death penalty - not to mention its ultimate hypocrisy.

"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"

Jesus of Nazareth
from the Gospel of John, 8:7

Jesus was coming out against capital punishment in this passage. There's no other way of interpreting it. None. A crowd of biblical tea-partiers was about to stone a poor woman to death - and Jesus stopped them, telling her to "Go and sin no more." He didn't say to this blood-thirsty mob, "Hey listen folks, my mother Mary and I have never committed a sin in our entire lives. We'll kill this gal for you!" He was clearly saying that killing another human being was wrong - PERIOD. I would take these right-wingers a lot more seriously if they had as much love and respect for the born as they profess to have for the unborn.

There was also that bit in the Sermon on the Mount about the merciful obtaining mercy. Why is it that these people continue to hold Jesus Christ hostage when their message and agenda has not a thing to do with His message and agenda? And isn't there a passage somewhere in there that says "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord"? I'm just sayin'.

SEIG HEIL!

I'm starting to get the impression that the Republicans are a lynch mob posing as a political party. Things have gotten that strange. Their behavior is becoming more Nazi-like by the hour. It should be remembered that when Hitler and his gang took power in the late winter of 1933, there was no talk of exterminating the Jewish people. Had that been the case every Jew in Germany would have gotten the hell out of town while the getting was good - overnight! The horrible reality of the death camps was merely a gradual evolution.

I'm not implying that the American right wing is in full tilt brown-shirt mode - but it cannot be denied by anyone paying close attention that they are evolving into something perfectly hideous. Ronald Reagan is starting to look in hindsight like a moderate. Richard Nixon is starting to look like freakin' Che Guevara! No, this is not your father's Republican party. It's not even your older brother's. How much more further to the extreme right are these jackasses going to move before they hurl themselves - and the rest of the country along with them - right over the proverbial cliff?

"Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me further remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Barry Goldwater
Acceptance speech, Republican Convention, 1964

Let's use old Barry as an example of what I'm talking about. When the Republicans nominated him to run against incumbent Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Goldwater scared the living shit out of mainstream America. In his day he was known as "Mr. Conservative". During that campaign he said he could turn North Vietnam into a "parking lot" by means of low-level nuclear weapons. Nice, huh? Although he won in the old confederacy, he lost everywhere else. It was a landslide for Johnson. And yet when he died in 1998 Goldwater was in a blind funk about the mindless extremism to which the Republican party - his party - had attached themselves. And remember. this was over a decade before the formation of the Tea party!

Were Barry Goldwater to rise from the dead tonight, he wouldn't recognize the Grand Old Party. It's also a pretty safe bet that they wouldn't nominate him to run as vice chairman of the Scottsdale Rotary Club. He'd be seen as too much of a left wing extremist. At the time of his death he was writing a book in collaboration with John Dean of Watergate fame. Dean finished the book a few years ago. It was called "Conservatives Without Conscience".

"And let me further remind you" how these knuckleheads on the far-right view that other Barry - a sleep-inducing moderate named Barack Obama. They have labeled him a "socialist". A socialist! Isn't that a hoot?

Barring a gaffe of earthquake magnitudes (like suggesting that Texas may secede from the union) Rick Perry will probably be nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States at their convention next summer. Given the jaw-dropping gullibility of the American people, he might very-well win the election. I really hope I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am. If you think the Supreme Court is disgusting now (Corporations are people, too!) wait and see what it looks like after two or three appointments by President Perry. Not that I'm saying we'll have to kiss this country goodbye if he is inaugurated on January 20, 2013. We already did that - on January 20, 2001. Another right wing extremist from Texas living in the White House will only be anti-climactic. The damage is complete.

Have a lovely day, kiddies!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

Goldwater
by Barry Goldwater (with Jack Casserly)

No doubt about it, he was an interesting guy. A very good read.

For more recent postings on this subversive, positively un-American blog, please go to the following link:

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Happy reading, campers!

Ten Minutes or Ten Years Ago?

2011-09-11T07:02:00.029-04:00

"....that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln

"With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us, God."

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Go shopping"

-George W. Bush

There will be a lot of talk today in the media and out in the blogosphere about what happened to this country ten-years-ago today. I'm terribly sorry but I haven't much to add to the discussion.

In spite of the passage of an entire decade, it refuses to fade from memory, that's for sure. Those attacks might as well have occurred a couple of hours ago - they are that ingrained into our collective consciousness. That it was the most depressing and horrifying day in the lives of most of us is hard to argue with. And the addition of ten years of 20/20 hindsight only adds to the despair. You see, it is now crystal clear - in a way that it was not at the time - that America's luck ran out on September 11, 2001.

And how lucky we were. All throughout our incredible history, whenever this country was faced with an unprecedented crisis, fate had always placed in the executive mansion - by pure happenstance - a leader of great wisdom and ability. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt come immediately to mind. That wasn't the case on September 11, 2001.

The terrible carnage of 9/11 was only the beginning. Our "rulers" (I refuse to describe them as "leaders") used the devastating events of that day as an excuse to plunge this once-great nation into economic ruin via two unfunded wars, while simultaneously granting massive tax cuts for a class of people who already had more money in their bank accounts than they knew what to do with. The results were as predictable as the setting sun. The use of that metaphor is by no means accidental.

If Osama bin Laden's mission on September 11, 2001 was the complete and utter destruction of what used to be the "United" States of America, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

I'm going back to bed.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

Remember the time?

America the Beautiful
by Ray Charles

Was this a great country or what!

POST #370: Random Observations

2011-09-06T05:56:00.060-04:00

The following are a serious of miscellaneous thoughts and observations that I have recently posted on other sites or drunkenly scribbled into my notebook. Similarities to any persons, living or dead, is purely intentional:

1. No Ordinary Time Indeed

Back during the period between Election Day 2008 and Inauguration Day 2009, Barack Obama's handlers made much noise of the fact that the Prez-to-be was in the process of reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's recently released biography of the Lincoln administration, "Team of Rivals". As I remarked at the time, he was reading the right author but the wrong book. The book he should have been reading was "No Ordinary Time", her study of the years that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt lived in the White House.

A phrase FDR liked to use on the campaign trail in 1932 and during the First Hundred Days of his administration was "Action - NOW". And it was always bold, decisive action. Nothing timid would do for my man Frankie. I surely hope that President Obama has read that book by now.

2, Political "Comedy"

A couple of days ago, at a rally for Sarah Palin in Indianola, Iowa, a "comedian" named Eric Golub went out on stage for the failed, ex-governor in order to warm up the tea-partiers who had come out en masse. He wasn't very funny. As a matter of fact he wasn't funny at all. His "act" - if that's what you want to call it - was beyond pathetic.

Did you ever notice that all successful political satirists and comedians always - ALWAYS - speak from a left-leaning point of view? There are very few conservative "humorists" out there. Other than Eric Golub the only other person I can think of is the nitwit that does the Mallard Fillmore comic strip (I can't even think of his name - not that that's very important). Neither of them are funny. Why is that? The answer is quite simple:

In order for political satire to work, it must be based on some essential truth. If the basis of one's humor is trying to convince people that old is new - that black is white and day is night - it's not going to play very well. That is why Jon Stewart and Stephan Colbert are so successful. That is also why you will never again hear the name "Eric Golub".

The late humorist Lewis Grizzard was a conservative - and very funny. But he wrote about the cultural aspect of being a "redneck". For the most part he wisely shied away from the subject of politics.

I'm not implying that conservatives aren't at times screamingly funny. They are. Very much so! The problem is that the humor is always unintentional.

3. Scheduling Conflicts

What the heck is wrong with this president? Sometimes I get the feeling that the poor guy is tone deaf politically. Why he would want to schedule an address the to congress at the same moment the GOP presidential hopefuls are having their debate is anyone's guess. Michele Bachmann said that Speaker Boehner did Obama a favor by forcing him to reschedule. They were the only true words that have come out of her mouth since the primary season began.

Barack Obama should not want to deflect attention from the Republican debates. In fact he should hope and pray that EVERY American watches it! This country needs to take a gander at the collection of kooks, criminals and half-wits that now comprise "the party of Abraham Lincoln". Thank goodness for quotation marks.

I can't wait for that debate. That oughtta be a scream!

4. Married Priests

At St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Goshen, NY, the first major pedophile scandal materialized in the early nineties. The priest in question, “Father Ed”, had been molesting boys in their early teens for a couple of years. To say that the parishioners were traumatized by this would be an understatement. They were devastated. Then something wondrous happened….

Father Ed was defrocked and eventually sent to prison. He was replaced by Father Trevor Nichols. Father Trevor had been an Anglican priest in merrie olde England when he converted to Catholicism. On becoming a Catholic he was transferred to Saint John’s - WITH HIS WIFE AND TWO DAUGHTERS! A married priest! WITH TWO KIDS!

You wanna hear the punch line? The little parish did not implode. The sun did not fall from the sky. Huge cracks did not appear in the earth’s surface. In fact, it was nice having them. I became good friends with this extraordinary family. They were – and are to this day – deeply beloved by the people of St. John’s.

Allowing priests to marry would transform the Catholic Church. Having Father Trevor, his wife Marian and their two lovely daughters Catherine and Hannah in their midst certainly transformed the people of St. John’s.

The Vatican really needs to rethink their stand on this matter.

5. FASHION ADVISORY

Note to all the young guys who like to wear their belts well below their wastes: Have you ever seen a photograph of you father wearing one of those silly, powder-blue, polyester leisure suits that were all-the-rage in the early-mid seventies? In hindsight they look kinda stupid, don't they? A little word of advice: Don't pose for any photos that your kids might discover forty years from now. You'll thank me.

6. Rick Perry? Can it be???

With each passing year it's getting easier and easier to question the intelligence of the American people. Look at the latest polling from the GOP primary voters: Rick Perry is leading the pack by a wide margin. Another corrupt, reactionary, half-witted cowboy from the Texas governor's mansion living in the White House? Could it possibly be that we're about to venture down this road again? I wouldn't doubt it for a minute.

Of course as a guy who makes his name these days commenting on the corruption and stupidity of American politics and politicians, I can only say that such a turn of events would be a very sweet deal for yours truly. You say you plan on voting for Mr. Rick next year? Go for it, dude!

7. Still more proof of Sarah Palin's shallowness

When telling the story of how she was confronted at one point with news reports that she and her husband Todd were going to divorce, one would think (indeed one would hope) that she would offer for the reader's contemplation a heartfelt description of her abiding love for her husband; how their union could not be tossed aside like some disposable camera - that she and Todd took their wedding vows seriously. No, there was none of that....

"Dang, I thought. Divorce Todd? HAVE YOU SEEN TODD???"

TRANSLATION: If Todd gains twenty pounds, he's history.

Thirteen years into their marriage, Eleanor Roosevelt was confronted with her husband's affair with her social secretary (and distant relative of mine - I come from a long line of home wreckers) Lucy Paige Mercer. After contemplating divorce, it was decided that they would continue their union. Years later, she confided to her friend Joesph Lash, the reasons for saving their marriage. They were many and complicated. This, I can assure you, was not one of those reasons:

"Dang, I thought. Divorce Franklin? HAVE YOU SEEN FRANKLIN???"

In an article that was posted online this morning on the website Religion Dispathces, a very good writer named Anthea Butler lamented the fact that it is obvious Sarah Palin won't be going away anytime soon. If you will be kind enough to allow me, I would like to propose a toast:

Here's to Sarah Palin; may she never - EVER - go away.

I am going to go out on a limb here: No woman since Eleanor Roosevelt has done more to further the cause of progressive politics in the United States of America than our gal Sarah.

Isn't life strange?

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

The photograph at the top of this piece is of the author of this disgusting commie swill and his beloved niece Marieke Pennings, taken at the Bob Dylan concert, Bethesda Woods (original site of the Woodstock Concert) Friday, August 12, 2011. Thank you, John Galdi, for that photo!

SUGGESTED READING:

No Ordinary Time
by Doris Kearns Goodwin

In my humble opinion, this is the finest and most instructive (HINT, HINT, BARACK!) book ever written on the Roosevelt White House. If your neighborhood (like almost every other neighborhood in the United States) has no independently-owned bookstore, here is a link to order it from the nice folks over at Amazon.com:

No Ordinary Time

DISCLAIMER:

I receive no royalty payments from any product purchased off of amazon.com that is linked from this site - not that I don't wish I did, mind you.

Two other good reads:

Shoot Low, Boys! They're Ridin' Shetland Ponies!
and
Elvis is Dead and I Don't Feel Too Good Myself
by Lewis Grizzard

You don't have to be a conservative Republican to love the writings of Lewis Grizzard. The guy was as good as they get! God rest his merry soul.

The Return of Sickie Dick

2011-08-31T08:47:00.066-04:00

Coming soon to a theater near you:

"THE THING THAT
WOULDN'T GO AWAY!"

Bring your barf bag, kiddies!

This morning when doing a search for an image of Dick Cheney I could use for this piece, I received the following disclaimer from the nice folks over at Yahoo:

"Results for Dick Cheney may contain adult oriented content."

I wasn't the least bit surprised to learn this. The man is a walking, talking obscenity.

I have a confession to make. Until he slithered back onto the public stage this week with the release of his so-called "memoirs", I missed Dick Cheney. I missed him and his disgusting daughter Liz, pounding the bejesus out of the talk show circuit, waxing idiotic on the subject of the Big Black Bolshevik Boogie Man in the White House. Be honest; they were kind of fun to watch, weren't they? They always reminded me of two circus wagons stuffed with clowns that had crashed into each other on a two-lane highway. You just couldn't take your eyes off the two of them! Then came the BP disaster. Liz lowered her profile and Sickie Dick all-but-disappeared! I'm sure that's just a coincidence though.

They're back. He as author, she as ghost writer. I am a very happy man this morning. All of the delightful, unintentional humor that the two of them provide is the gift that keeps giving.

It 's next-to-impossible to believe that Dick Cheney could ever have been seen as an asset to any party but the Nazis. Remember back in the day?

In the Spring of 2000, when it appeared certain that Junior had the nomination locked up, George The Elder knew damned well that his idiotic kid could not possibly win based on any intellectual merit, so he picked Cheney to head a committee whose purpose was to find a suitable person to run with him - someone with "gravitas". That was the word of the hour. After only a few days, Cheney marched into the Bush bunker in Kennebunkport with the name of the perfect man for the job - DICK CHENEY! On March 10, 2007 - on this very site - I conjured-up for posterity's sake the dialogue that must have taken place:

CHENEY: George! I have found your ideal running mate!

BUSH: Great! Who is it, Dick?

CHENEY: You're not gonna believe it - IT'S ME!!!

BUSH: Whooa! What're the odds?

Ah, Dubya! And to think that the half-witted little thug was once the "leader of the free world"! Don'cha just love it?

Dick Cheney is back with his "long awaited memoirs". Awaited by whom they won't say. I won't be reading it. I've read enough about it and heard enough about it (primarily from the Dickster's own mouth) to form my own assessment of the drivel spread generously within. In fact I won't be reading any of the flood of books that have been written, are being written, and will be written by the Bush Mob. It's always an amusing thing to watch these bitter, dirty old men attempt to cleanup their putrid little corners in the Hall of Infamy. Robert McNamara tried it fourteen years ago and it didn't work out too well for him. Cheney will fare no better I suspect. What he is attempting here is the equivalent of putting a smiley face on a decomposing pig:

"Well lookie thar, Martha! Ain't that purdy?"

No, I won't be reading any of those books. I'm waiting for the verdict of qualified historians regarding the Bush years, and I imagine it won't be a positive one. Here's a prediction: A century from now the president of the United States will still - on a daily basis - be dealing with the damage these assholes did to this country so long before. Of course that's assuming that the office of the presidency survives that long. Don't bet the farm on that one.

According to those who have had the stomach to read it, a rough outline of the plot would read this way: Richard Bruce Cheney is an honest-to-goodness American hero. During the years 2001 to 2009, If you agreed with him you were on the side of virtue and apple pie. If you didn't you were on the side of the terrorists. It really is as simplistic as that. There are no shades of gray in Dick Cheney's world.

From an interview this week with NBC's Jamie Gangel:

JAMIE GANGEL: People call it torture. You think it should still be a tool?

DICK CHENEY: Yes.

JAMIE GANGEL: Secret prisons?

DICK CHENEY: Yes.

JAMIE GANGEL: Wiretapping?

DICK CHENEY: Well, with the right approval.

JAMIE GANGEL: You say it is one of the things you are proudest of, and you would do it again in a heartbeat.

DICK CHENEY: It was controversial at the time. It was the right thing to do.

"Do it again in a heartbeat"??? Whose heart are they referring to here? His or a normal person's?

I have a feeling that the release of "In My Time", the title of the book, might very well be a preemptive ploy. There's a damned good reason why Dick, George and good ol' Donny Rumsfeld don't dare leave the country these days. According to Colin Powell's former chief-of-staff Larry Wilkerson:

"This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will 'Pinochet' Dick Cheney."

Just in case it slipped your memory, the reference he is making is to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was finally bought to justice for war crimes - years after he lost power. Retirement must not be a very relaxing pastime for Dick Cheney. Wilkerson told Amy Goodman this week that if the former vice-president of the United States is ever bought to trial in the Hague for his crimes against the human race, he would be willing and eager to testify against him. I'd sure as hell hate to be Cheney. The contemptible freak must sleep with a loaded 357 under his pillow. Can't say that I blame the old bugger.

To tell you the truth, I feel kinda sorry for the guy. It must be difficult not to be able to commit mass murder on a whim after having had that power for eight long years. As bad as the carnage was when he was VP, it might have been much worse.

According to Cheney himself, at a meeting one day, he strongly urged Junior Bush to launch an attack against the sovereign nation of Syria. Hmm! Requesting an extra hour on the White House tennis court was one thing; this was a different matter entirely. Iraq wasn't going too well by that point. Another unprovoked incursion might backfire also. Dubya needed a consensus. He asked for a show of hands from a handful of staffers - who just happened to be in the room at that moment - whether or not the VP's idea was a good one. Not a single hand was raised. COWARDS! The president declined. This incident is fascinating for no other reason than the fact that it finally proves that Bush was capable of making the right decision - if only after taking an informal poll - on a matter that should have been a no-brainer. Still, you've got to grab these happy little revelations wherever you find them.

Does he really believe that he will be able to pull a fast one on history? That the ages will view him much in the same way Roosevelt and Churchill are viewed today? Yeah, he probably does. The only thing monumental about this homicidal twit is his arrogance.

I can't wait to watch the rest of Cheney's book tour. Tomorrow he is making an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Will Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow be on the panel questioning him? Wouldn't that be a scream? Fate, if you would be so kind....

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

Happy birthday to my communist brother Jeff Degan who was born on August 31, 1964, forty-seven years ago today. Get this: Not only did he marry a lovely French woman; not only does he have two gorgeous and brilliant French daughters; he lives in France and actually likes it there! To make matters worse, he has no plans to bring his little girls to America so they can partake in the economic paradise that is the American Dream - not to mention our splendid educational and health care systems. What can I tell you? The guy is an eternal shame to the good name of the Degan family. Bad Jeffrey!

Waiting for Irene

2011-08-27T07:10:00.042-04:00

Sometimes I live in the country

Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump in the river and drown....

Goodnight, Irene
Goodnight, Irene
I'll see you in my dreams

-Huddie Ledbetter

This will be mercifully brief, I promise.

We are hunkering down for what promises to be the most awful storm to hit the northeast in a century or more. I've always thrived on a bit of excitement in my life and Hurricane Irene, scheduled to touch down here in Orange County at about two o'clock tomorrow morning, will more-than-likely fill the prescription.

Regardless of any devastating consequences that may transpire, we can take comfort in the fact that the "GOVERNMENT IS BAD" crowd that now pollutes our national dialogue, particularly those poor, hapless fools who find themselves in Irene's way, will be silent - if only for the time being. I have a funny feeling that in the next week or so, a few of these people might even rethink their entire, twisted ideology regarding the concept of government (And what a neat concept it is!) Maybe this is merely wishful thinking on my part. We'll see.

This much is as certain as the rising sun: A lot of us will not be taking the government - local and federal - for granted in the coming days. Here's something else you can bet the farm on: The response will be much more coordinated and intelligent than it was six-years-ago when Katrina made herself known. Any takers?

If you happen to be living in Irene's path take all necessary precautions. Have plenty of food and drinking water at the ready; keep some emergency candles handy - and for the love of Mike! - don't go outside in order to "experience" the storm. A projectile hitting one in the face at ninety-miles-per-hour is not a particularly good thing for one's complexion I would think.

So everybody batten down the hatches, be safe, and we'll report back when the sun comes out - or the power's back on - whichever comes first.

Cheers!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

A MUSICAL INTERLUDE TO LEAVE YOU WITH:

Many radio stations along the east coast this morning are playing tunes with "Hurricane" or "Irene" related themes. In keeping with this trend let me add my own little contribution to the festivities. Here is Frank Sinatra at his most unFrank Sinatraest. From 1950 this is the Frankster's version of Huddie Ledbetter's Goodnight Irene. Although most Frankologists consider this period (and this song in particular) to be the absolute nadir of his career, I've always loved this recording:

Goodnight Irene by Frank Sinatra

Stop rambling, Stop my gambling
Stop staying out late at night
Goin' home to my wife and family
I'm gonna stay by the fireside bright....

Good night, Irene, Good night, Irene
I'll see you in my dreams

The photograph at the top of this piece was taken by Chris Pennings

UPDATE, 8/28/11, 1:05PM:

Hurricane Irene will be remembered as the mouse that roared - at least as far as the Hudson Valley is concerned. Although there was significant flooding, the "hurricane" that we were braced for never appeared. Time to breathe a sigh of relief - and start drying ourselves off.

UPDATE. 2:11 PM:

I just came back from a drive into the village. What a mess!

The Presbyterian park is completely flooded. The tops of the park benches are barely visible - and in some cases not visible at all. The flooding extends across the street to the bank parking lot. That stretch of South Church Street is closed as you can imagine.

I attempted to return home via Fletcher Street and 6 1/2 Station Road. That's when I got the real shocker. The bottom of Fletcher opposite John S. Burke High School looks like a lake - completely engulfed. While I was in the convenience store down the road from where I live getting a cup of coffee, a Sheriff's deputy came in and announced that the roads in Orange County have just been closed to all non-essential vehicles. Truth be told, I was relieved to finally make it back to the house.

And how was your morning?

AFTERTHOUGHT, 8/30/11, 9:54 AM:

Well, thank goodness that's over! Whatever your politics - left or right - I hope you made it through okay. That excludes all of you middle-of-the-road centrists out there. I hope you all died....Just kiddin'!

Cheerio! Pip! Pip!