Letters to the Editor
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@be bop
When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man,
So I got myself a horse, And I did what I could
And I called my horse, a mule of course
and I called my shack, breakin' my back,
and I called my farm, muscle my arm,
And the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.
:)
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Pirates and Palaces
Finally got kind of snotty the other day with Digby, whose overuse of the "Village" metaphor to describe the culture-rot within the Beltway had become very grating, while to me a Palace metaphor is far more appropriate (my preference being Tsarskoye Selo, but most other Palace afficionadoes prefer Versailles, even Digby when she used it in times gone by.) The Village has become rooted in the Leftosphere, however, like a weed, and so as R U Ready said over there, "We go to war with the metaphor we have, not the one we wish we had." Of course, Digby, ever the gracious hostess, says: "Use whatever metaphor you want!"
So, let it be a metaphor of Kinkadish treacle, Lamplight Lanes, Quiet Cobble Brooks, all Thatched In Welcome. Our loins are girded nonetheless! We will prevail against the denizens of the Cobblestone Mills! Just you wait, Dame David Broder! You'll get yours!
No, this latest gambit by Reid and Co over at the Senate House is truly a Palace manoeuver. It's filled with the lying, the deceit, the denial, and the desperation typical of Palace cultures, as endless jockeying for the approval of His Majesty takes the place of honor and even common sense. Harry says he has to pass a FISA bill [no he doesn't], and the base bill he wants is the Intelligence Committee bill, which -- unless a filibuster by Dodd can be sustained, which no observer thinks it can -- will essentially kill the Judiciary Committee alternative in the crib. Which is the intention. Obviously.
And why? Because the Intelligence Committee bill (with only the most minor tweaks) is the only one that His Absolute Gloriousness will sign. Therefore, Harry, et al, bows to their King. They have no choice. He is their liege lord and master. They may dissent all they want, but they must yield.
And Harry says -- now get this -- that what he's doing is what Dodd and Feingold want, and it is being done with the concurrance and agreeance of Senator St. Leahy of Vermont.
All the rotten tomatoes being thrown at Harry have to be spread around some if he's telling the truth. The Institution itself is the problem, not Harry, if the opposing Democratic Senators have agreed to go along with this gambit in the interests of "comity"; but under no circumstances will a Republican Senator go along with, oh, say, ending waterboarding and torture in our names. Why? Because His Imperial Hubrisness demands...
That's all you need to know.
As Froomkin says, "Congress goes belly-up." There is only The Palace, within the which all is in service to the King.
While the nation has gone through many episodes of corruption and scandal and government incompetence, has even weathered a civil war and its aftermath, never, so far as I can tell, has the Congress and the Judiciary so fully thrown themselves at the feet of a monarchial pretender and autocrat, never so fully abandoned the Constitution, never so completely surrendered even their most tattered shreds of dignity to these usurpers.
It's so unprecedented, nobody really has any idea what will work against it -- not Glenn nor anyone else for that matter.
Elizabeth I had pirates in her employ to steal booty and ports from the earlier empire of Spain and to ravage French pretentions at hauteur. Hers was a nascent empire, just getting off the ground, and what better way to make Imperial headway than to steal from those who were stealing from the Natives they had conquered? Made perfect sense, and it worked surprisingly well for many years.
But ours is a decrepit Imperium. Americans have been in the Empire game domestically for some hundreds of years, and overseas Imperial pretentions are over a century old. We have a class of pirates, too, but they are stealing from us most of all, not some rickety old world empire. And they are getting away with it, with the connivance and complicity of a Congress-that-isn't, courts-that-aren't.
Most Americans sense there is a problem, but so far, few are touched personally by the piracy and chaos just over the horizon. The predictions, however, are becoming dire.
And if we spiral in to economic catastrophe, Autocracy is almost certain to be permanent. Few indeed will protest. Better a god-like Autocrat to look after us than Free-Will Chaos, like Iraq, which has so sullied the very idea of "Democracy" that we Americans should be up in arms over it.
But no. The only domestic insurrectionists (apart from a handful of anarchists heavily infiltrated by the Stasi) are right wing and outright fascist militias, all of which have been notably low-key during the Bushevik usurpation. Like other wingnuts they agree with the imposition of Autocracy. How about that? They never were Constitutionalists fretting about the Rule of Law, were they? It was all a charade. Surprise, surprise. John Birch died in vain.
Blame Harry and Nancy if you must. But read the papers. They believe they "don't have any choice."
His Majesty Commands...
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And I
And I got myself a mule, and I did what I could.
And I call my mule, horse a fool.
And I call my horse, a mule of course,
And I call my cow, no milk cow,
And I call my wife, love of my life,
...
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Jkalos. Yes. Me too...so many valued thinkers contribute to wholesome hope...I'm trying to find a sledgehammer to bang the keys until they are all broke. I lose everything, lately.
"The First Circle" by Aleksandri I. Solzhenitsyn is on the re-read list.
He was a then modern counterpart of dark apartment dweller-writer Dostoevsky. It's a sad story Ode an endless succession of that day's prison system.
Revelations.
Now, however, those horrors are shadowing, hanging, and maybe encroaching us? Solzhenitsyn was a survivor. He spent years in prison and exile...His men and women are flesh and blood. YES!
They love. They laugh. They hate, and they laugh while the hate what the HATERS are doing in society. They cry. They dream.
They understand the horror of the ( GOPS-neocon-THEN ) neocon's mentality. They experienced it: prisons, torture, terror, corruptibility of the surrounding neighbors, and even sadism. Hope!
Let's refine and purify the neo-ugly day's human condition here. Never cower. If we were born in these times, then, by God, be alive. I am just nodding yes, and thank (Jkalos) everyone...too....Yes. Live.
P.S. For Pedinska's husband. He left Prague in his youth during times we sense may be already HERE!
~ It's said: Mozart is----dead. He returned from Prague feeling sickly: it was thought he died in Vienna. Because his body swelled up after death, and people thought he had been poisoned....He lives today.
intrigue, politics, blame, repression, drama, and also there was BEAUTY then!
Now, heartbreak, cruel people, brief life, and still there is love, and beautiful people.