OF VEGAS AND CRETINS
(July 20, 2004)

        Las Vegas is the swirling whirlpool in the toilet of capitalism. It is the detritus under the rotting fingernails of a greed-deranged society. It is the crust in the infection that killed American conscience.
        Ronstadt should wear being kicked out of there like a damn badge.
        Why the hell she would want to play Vegas in the first place is beyond me. That town stinks of everything that is vile and despicable in human beings, and that's some long list.
        Sing it with me: "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, baby, you're no good."
       It's actually reached a point in this country where you can't speak freely, if you oppose current government policy. Oh, you can, but you'll be targeted by corporations or government. Look at that little coffee klatch for peace in Fresno, showcased in the Michael Moore film. Just nice overweight Middle American folk having milk-and-cookies once a week and planning which streetcorner they will stand on, holding inconsequential signs promoting human cooperation. Bunch of Quixotes, that's all.
        Attacked by federal government coyotes. Chewed liberally around the ankles, so to speak.
        And that weightlifter who casually denounced Bush to his buddies. The knock on the door from the FBI let him know who has the muscle today.
        The Dixie Chicks and Whoopie Goldberg paid the corporate price for daring to criticize Bush's policies, and now little innocuous Linda Rondstadt, age 58, had the gall to tell her audience that she liked Michael Moore's movie.
        Gasp! (Well, o' course, she once sang opera, so she's one o' them pretentious inteelektual types.)
        The result? Booed, heckled, then barred from her suite---barred from her suite!---and dismissed from her gig by Aladdin Hotel president Bill Timmins.
        Bill's a Brit, but he grasps the American ethos well: bucks uber alles! Heil, Dollar! Keep Ronstadt and stand on principle? That's for chumps, wimps, or better, let me borrow The Sperminator's recent term used to denounce the state legislature: girlie-men!
        Hey, I liked Moore's movie. I loved Moore's movie. I think Moore is a brave patriot, and the movie is absolutely true, start to finish. I loved the stunt of asking congressmen why they don't send their own kids to Iraq. So come and get me! Shut down my website! Show what champions of free speech you are!
        You louts.
        You airhead buffoons. Go gorge your fat faces on another couple of free Vegas buffets. Shovel down that hot dog and bean casserole, and those giant crab legs, and blow methane out your guts as you stroll smiling past fake pyramids and Eiffel Towers and volcanoes, you juvenile xenophobes. Enjoy your gluttony and cool stuff---it's the American Dream!
        You blundering fascists, stomping your $150 made-in-Sri-Lanka-sweatshop sneakers all over your own rights. Talk about tripping over yourselves. You think you're such patriots, supporting the absolute dismantling of every notion the country was built upon.
        Ah, but of course, you're all shaking in your boots over "the terrorists." Yes, they're comin' to git ya! They're in the closet! They're under your bed! Get out that duct tape! Get in the SUV with your assault rifles and flee---here they come! Nuke them sand-niggers!
        Cretins.
        Worrying about terrorism is like worrying about earthquakes. There is no "war on terrorism," except in the imaginations of the corporate fascists who have stolen the U.S. government. 9/11 was a crime, not a war. It should be investigated as a crime. Al-Qaeda is not a country, you pinheads, it's a criminal organization. You take it apart with cooperative international police/intelligence effort---and yes, even military strikes when possible.
        Of course, this will be dismissed as a "rant" by a nobody "blogger," and that's about right, come to think of it. But rant I will, until the feds "seize the commons of cyberspace," which is, by the way, one of the stated goals of the Project for a New American Century, which is only the primer for all Bush administration policy. Or make that Cheney administration, as he is one of the signators of the PNAC.
        It's over.
        But. . .but. . .we're the badass UsofA! We're superior to those animals running around the Middle East (as my dental hygienist put it.) We deserve to kick some towelhead ass after what they did to us!
        Troglodytes. Dopes.
        Oh, you wonder why am I being my less-than-reasonable self? Polite discourse is dead. Try to courteously reason with a right-winger, and see what happens. If you're real, real lucky, you get "let's not go there." More likely, you get an O'Reilly "shut up," or a Dick Cheney "go f--- yourself." That's what the country is now. (And hell, you even get this stuff from the left wing nowadays.)
        There is no hope for communication. There is no thinking. Thinking, what little there was of it, has been replaced by Fox News.
        Hey, I've tried to reason with hard-core right wingers of the ilk who threw their overpriced cocktails at Ronstadt, and I have found them invariably, profoundly, frighteningly, stunningly ignorant. Often with a heavy dose of stupidity and quasi-religious sanctimony thrown into the mix. It seems to come with the political affiliation: complete lack of understanding of reality. Total lack of knowledge and perspective. Total predisposition to believe only what a favorite website instructs, or the latest government rah-rah we're-the-good-guys fairy tale. No room for argument. Hell, argue with them, and you're an America-hating liberal commie bastard. This is no exaggeration---I've had people call me that. And I never once voted for Bill Clinton!
        Consider: as a friend incredulously pointed out, Moore's movie is just a documentary. That's all. It's a documentary with a point of view, just like millions of other documentaries, of course, but because it expresses opposition to Bush administration policies, it is considered outright sedition by the right-wing. I'm not exaggerating. I got a letter from a guy recently who used that very word. Sedition!
        Right after he pronounced Moore a "pustule on a syphilitic (male sex organ slang here.)" Such is the poetry of "The Heartland." And of course, he hadn't even seen the movie.
        But hey, why bother to think, when O'Reilly and Limbaugh do it for you, eh? Sit back, have some Pringles, swig a beer, rave at the goddam liberals.
        After all, the "bad guys," as the Bush administration so comic-bookishly terms terrorists---playing to the childlike public----they got us, didn't they? This is war! No time for namby-pamby. . .thinking! As O' Reilly said, support our troops or shut up! People who support the troops but not the invasion of the Middle East? Traitors! They're comin' to git us with nooks and chemicals! Help!!!!!!!!
        Funny thing. With all the nukes and chemicals allegedly in the hands of terrorists, all Osama could do was hijack a few planes. Hmm. . .Well, not to worry, America! Bush has galvanized much of the world against Uncle Sam, and the terrorists are trying really, really hard to get very nasty bombs, now! So this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nasty bombs will probably be set off somewhere, someday, and the administration will complete the job of destroying democracy. Oh, they'll call it "code red," which means you stay home
"for your own safety," but it'll be martial law, trust me.
        Oh, woe is us. Woe is us. The country is gone. Split forever. United States in name only. Too bad it isn't more geographically convenient, as it was during the Civil War. Now the North is in the big cities, mostly on the coasts, and the South is in "the heartland," as it is so ironically termed. Secession won't be easy, but I hope we start with Texas!
        It's over, folks. Corporate fascists have taken over the government, pumped the people with the nursery-school-simple propaganda in the guise of gawdandcountree, and launched a permanent invasion of the Middle East for the United Corporations of America under the PR cover of liberating a people (after having supported the dictator who tortured them for decades, including selling him the chemical weapons that he he allegedly used on the Kurds.)
        So you'd better like it. It's going to be this way for a long, long time. And if you don't like it, by golly, don't tell anybody! Especially if you're famous.You'll never play Vegas again.

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