GAS PRICE
MADNESS April 25,
2001
CONTENTS: END of BUSH’s ROHYPNOL HONEYMOON?, DYING FOR A RADIO, KERRY’S
GHOSTS, GLOBAL WARMING OF GAS PRICES,
DON’T TAX WHEN THEY’RE UP- TAX
EM WHEN THEY’RE DOWN, CAN I BE YOUR BUDDY?,
MIAMI VICE, TIMMY, WE HARDLY
KNEW YE
We have been busy, but admit to being severely stung by the ratification
of the atrocious Ashcroft. What were Democrats thinking? Although he has been
on his best behavior, no doubt laying the groundwork for some direct frontal
assault on abortion rights, we see the results of the “conservative” mindset in
the Supreme Court’s horrendous ruling that police can arrest anyone for
anything, anytime, anywhere (involving a Fl woman who didn’t buckle her kids
in), even if it is only a ticket offense. The ramifications of this are really
frightening: all traffic stops involve an implied threat of deadly force- since
resistance to an unjust arrest by a cop could provoke such force, they are
essentially giving police a blank check to commit any outrage without redress-
in effect overturning the unjust search and seizure amendment. If they can
arrest anyone for any trumped up offense, they can also search their car without
any probable cause. The Operation Pipeline drug interdiction effort trains
tens of thousands of state police to use any excuse to bully drivers into
allowing a search (having a cell phone or an air freshener is an indicator of
guilt). For those who think police won’t and wouldn’t abuse such power- you
need to get out more: I’ve witnessed a Rodney King-like gang clubbing of a
handcuffed guy and suffered several horror show experiences by out-of-control police.
Imagine how much more of the Bill of Rights the SS will edit if the wild
American Bushman appoints 2 more hard right hacks.
We are going to S. Florida* April 29-May 31 for a much needed
sand/scuba/sauna/surf trip- anyone who has a room, apt, etc, anywhere fm
Melbourne to Key West + Sanibel, let me know (Miami + F Laud esp). Will pay
+/or provide tales of adventure + wonder.
* otherwise known as the scene of the crime
As for W, our sometime correspondent Hammerschlag
(this may be his last column in here- he’s getting too famous) says it better
than I in a piece that was in onlinejournal.com:
"The President spoke to a meeting in Indiana....",
the news said, and I wondered what the Big Dog was up to now. "And then," as the smug
woman says in the IBM ads, "it hits you" -- -- its Bush!!!
It's like the difference between House and house, or, in the
teenage horror movies, "the killer is inside the house". For anyone who cares about the economy,
environment, health care, foreign policy, poverty, or women’s freedoms; the
killer is inside the house.
Bush's reign has been an unmitigated disaster, worse than I even
imagined it could be: in every field he's been a single-minded automaton working
to pay off his corporate debts. Not
distracted by logic, science, decency, or compassion, he has blithely punched
the Company clock for big oil, big banks, big electricity -- and lo and behold
Exxon is the No. 1 Corp. in the world.
If President Bush's Texas reign is any indication, he will
work tirelessly in the service of his corporate sponsors for a year and a half,
do little else, and then stop. But he
might not have the chance. The
honeymoon may already be over.
The opiated jackals of the press seem to have reached their stupidity
saturation point; an accumulation of idiocy that's simply too great to ignore.
First there were the howls of protest over Bush's mild reneging on global
warming, a priority only the delusional thought Bush had. Of course global warming was a safe thing to
call him on -- there is no absolutely no political will for meaningful legislation on global
warming (p2) (http://mikehammer.tripod.com/warm1x.gif +
warm2x.gif) and India's and China's massive use of coal will render it
moot anyway. The great danger for Bush
is that the press will go into a vicious feedback loop like they did about
Gore’s imaginary lies and, fed by Bush's steady linguistic lacerations, will
decide the STORY is that our President is an imbecile. Since there is ample evidence for
that, the stories, and the drumbeat, could become a steady roar. Bush's entertaining self-ridicule may not
work for long. His "beloved"
quotient is way lower than Reagan's: we like our presidents to be funny, but
not be a joke.
All one has to do is to study our Loser in Chief's desperate
eyes as he fumbles for some butchered junior high school cliché and then... is
simply finished. Once you get past the
mindless hackneyed sound bite, there is nothing else. He has nothing else to say because there is nothing in his head,
so he immediately changes the subject or hustles away. He is an embarrassment to our country. En masse, Europe has come to the same
conclusion -- with Mr. Bush's repeated slaps to the face, punches to the
stomach, and knees to the groin over global warming, missile defense and SALT
and ABM treaty violations, spurning of Clinton overtures to N. Korea, Russia +
the Palestinians, reckless piggish tax policy, isolationism, and love of
oil. Of course, they were horrified
when he won anyway.
Bush's raison d'etre seems to be vengeance (once he's funneled
enough billions into his corporate sponsors coffers): vengeance against
California for the audacity to vote for Gore, vengeance at the Harvard liberals
who dared ridicule him for his retrograde conservatism -- him, scion of
Poppy, hard drinking, skirt chasing, fly boy -- they laughed at him? Who were they to laugh at him? He would show them all. Much of Bush's motivation can be traced back
to this humiliation at the hands of overbred prep school kids. They can be savage to a West Texas cracker,
as my Texan friends have explained to me (esp. during the 60’s). Lacking true physical or academic gifts, Mr.
Bush applied himself to relentless ingratiating and politickin, which is still
the secret of his success. His primary reason for running for president at all
was to avenge his father's loss, but his vast shame at his father's loss shows
a misplaced sense of entitlement-- the Presidency isn't a right -- it has to be
earned every time and its loss to a better man isn't greatly shaming or
necessarily a personal rejection.
It
is this deep conviction of the Bush superiority -- this business of character,
that's so inexplicable, coming from a 15 year nasty drunk who had every door
opened for him, every failure cushioned and reversed, from a man whose
preordained right to win wouldn't be prevented by a little thing like a half
million votes. Any true man of character could never have assumed the
Presidency after losing by such a popular margin, let alone fought so
virulently and dishonestly to wrest it from his opponent. This obsession with
cleansing the White House of Clinton's real and imagined sins is perplexing,
when Bush's nights of debauchery and vomit far surpassed Billy Boy's (not to
mention his girlfriend's alleged abortion).
Maybe it's his born-again religiosity from which he derives such
arrogance, hubris, and hypocrisy.
The
Enron palm-greasing (lifting price-gouging controls on power) has devastated
the Cal. economy and bankrupted PG&E, which since all things roll downhill
from Cal., will percolate malignantly through the rest of the economy (Wash.
St. just claimed power prices may triple). Bush may get the full-scale
recession he’s been promoting. The bankruptcy bill payoff to credit card
companies (his largest contributors) has a particularly bitter irony coming
from a man who would have been forced into bankruptcy 3 times without rich
family "friends" eager for the cachet and influence of the Bush name. He directly
financially benefits from most of his legislation, just as he did in Texas. In
these billions of dollars of sleazy corporate payoffs, Mr. Bush has in only 2
months become the most corrupt President in American history.
In the spy scandal, Bush's vast overreaction was unwarranted
and unwise: in our burrowing under the Russian embassy in Washington we were
committing a far greater transgression.
Since they have far more spies than we do, ejecting 50 of each leaves us
at a grave disadvantage. In fact, it
may have been an excuse for getting rid of Democrats in the Moscow
embassy who would oppose Mr. Bush's idiotic missile defense project and reject
a harder line. Meanwhile Putin has
assumed control of the other two television networks, and is moving to place the
entire press under his thumb. (Mediachannel article:
http://mikehammer.tripod.com/gusinsky.htm)
On the other hand, his weakness and toadying to China after
the downing of our spy plane by an incompetent Chinese fighter jock is frankly
dangerous- if you talk tough, and then act craven, you embolden your enemies to
greater outrages. The bullying Chinese, who’ve killed up to 1/5 of Tibet in a
half century physical + cultural genocide and constantly threaten Taiwan
(separate since 1897), must be coddled- an embargo, after all, would force
Wal-Mart out of business in 4 months. We are now wholly dependent on cheap
Chinese goods, more than foreign oil. For a decade we’ve allowed a grubby obsession
with trade to obscure our support for human rights, but even Clinton
sent 2 carrier groups to the South
China Sea when the Chinese lobbed missiles 22 miles from Taiwan’s cities and
had 150,000 troop
“exercises” across from Taiwan (/mhchina6.htm).
Regarding
our wondering at how Bush could graduate from 2 Ivy League schools without
being able to read (perhaps with massive donations- It’s Only Words), we
got an interesting answer from Herb Epstein:
--“How does
a "mentally challenged"
legacy student like George W graduate from Yale when he could barely read and
write? I was a graduate student at Yale
and did some teaching while Bush was an undergraduate "legacy
student." A certain number of places were guaranteed to sons of alumni.
The short answer is that it was very difficult to give any Yale student a
failing grade for a course and almost impossible to give them enough failing
grades to prevent their graduating. I'm an expert on this subject because I
tried to give two failing grades (out of about 75 students) in a course I
taught and graded on Soviet foreign policy. (No, Bush was not one of
them). Suffice to say that even after I
proved plagiarism to the satisfaction of a board of professors,
the university administration reversed my grade and the board's ruling and
allowed the legacy student to pass with the minimum grade. They didn't dispute
that he had plagiarized. The fact that he had previously been reprimanded
for the same offense somehow had no bearing. Needless to say this kid's
family give big bucks to Yale before and after the incident.
Next comes the question of how George W got into Harvard B
School. He first applied to U of Texas Law School and was turned down. Despite
the fact that it was his home state, he had no legacy. He had to compete. Undoubtedly he was
rejected because of his poor undergraduate record and his low LSAT scores. How
could George W, who was a history major, and who couldn't get into the U of
Texas Law School, gain admission to the most competitive, prestigious grad
school in the country --Harvard B school.” ---- Herb Epstein
On another front, Bush is
moving against the ‘Day After’ pill, because it’s use would prevent
illegitimacy… and that’s how he
came to power.
Copyright © 2001 Michael
Hammerschlag
In a savage example of the collateral damage of the drug war, now anyone flying in 6 countries in South + Central America may be shot out of the skies for not having a radio, or having it on the wrong frequency. We never were the greatest fans of missionaries, but don’t think they wanted to be this close to God, and they do do some good works. What no one is saying is that this probably has happened several other times in the 30 planes the Peruvians have blasted from the skies- what made this different was that the pilot was talking to the control tower as the strafing began and they survived (they were even reportedly strafed on the ground)- how many haven’t? I’m dubious that the CIA controllers couldn’t have called it off- why are we helping countries summarily kill their citizens without trial or conviction, anyway? An earthquake happened in Cal. when they voted to essentially decriminalize all drugs by mandating treatment and stopping prison time for simple possession. Overwhelmed in the cacophony of the election theft, the press has still ignored this vital and central public issue. Meanwhile our ex-“things go better with..” President is appointing another maniacal hard-liner as Drug Czar- completing missing the shifting sentiment of the populace. Courageous Repub NM Gov Gary Johnson was doing the talk show rounds in DC, advocating decriminalization, if not legalization. I think he spoke at the NORMAL convention.
While ignoring the culpability of Colin Powell in covering up the My Lai massacre, and our dumbya President’s dalliance with nose-candy, the NYT has seen fit to devastate the reputation of one of the strongest Democratic Presidential contenders there was- Bob Kerrey- alleging that he herded and machine gunned 20 Vietnamese women and children in a SEAL operation. It seems to be based on the testimony of one guy, and if true- be devastating to his future political options (course not quite as devastating as to the villagers’ options). Vietnam is a pain that just keeps giving. Discussed this with Seattle talk radio guy for 5 minutes. The question arises though: why now?
GLOBAL WARMING OF GAS PRICES
After giving us a week preparation, gas prices leapt 20 cents or so in a few days, and will continue to soar over the summer, since oil chieftains realize that with GB2 and Cheney in the White House, there is nothing to stop them. Nothing. After Exxon + Chevron reported a 50% rise in quarterly earnings, there was no public reaction, so they will crank it up till there is. After the 20-30 fold gouging rip-offs of California the oil/gas/power companies are floating on air and realize they have a blank check- giant price rises will help get Bush’s ANWR and Nat. Forest drilling programs passed, so Bush wants them. We are about to see a transfer of wealth that only happens in corrupt 3rd world countries where the corps are in beds with the dictators. And with temps of 6 degrees above the previous 100 year record (87 deg in NYC in April?) and rivers of 2 mile thick continental Antarctic sheet ice flowing into the seas, the global warming (or freezing) catastrophe seems to be marching apace. Our logically challenged Presbo (my nickname) doesn’t quite get it.
DON’T TAX WHEN THEY’RE UP, TAX EM WHEN THEY’RE DOWN
Bush’s stupid and reckless tax cut to spend an illusionary surplus seems to have succeeded, though weak-willed Dems (aided by RI’s - Leeeeeeng-con Chafee) managed to trim 25% off of it. 75% less would have been an achievement- the cut is still big enough to choke any social spending W doesn’t like, which could be his intention in a page straight from poppa Reagan’s book. Let’s see- I think the most amazing statistic on it was that only 13% of the cut went to the lower 60% of the people.
CAN I BE YOUR BUDDY?
Ex- tomato sauce salesman and last of the city bosses- Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci may have had his finale hurrah after being indicted on 30 or so counts of extortion, RICO, blah, blah, blah. While we have little doubt that he is kinda corrupt, it’s also true that the Repub establishment (Gov and state AG) have been gunning for him for a while and some of the things they have crushed people on are petty and silly- giving people $1000 breaks on their inheritance taxes on a bankrupt business. And he did some good things for the City- building a central waterfront promenade/park, relocating the RR tracks, building a downtown mall and revitalizing what was a decaying old mill city. And let’s not forget the hokey smarmy TV drama “Providence”, in which the only authenticities are the aerial views, where Buddy coerced cameos. It wasn’t an accident that the New England Mafia was based in Prov., not Boston. Though there are good reasons for a clean sweep, I find myself idly hoping our 9 lives Budster will beat the rap, as he partially did 18 years ago after he thunked his ex-wife’s lover with a baseball bat with a state police escort riding shotgun. Play ball!!
MIAMI VICE
After trumpeting that Gore would have won by 22,000 votes if voting had been done correctly, the Miami Herald counted the Supreme Court ordered undervotes
in a rush to beat the Coalition (is this a Star Wars?), and discovered …. Bush would have won.. in all but the loosest counting, confounding expectations yet again. We understand the peril of refusing to accept news that defies our conventional wisdom, but something’s fishy about this whole count- earlier counts throughout the Orlando area were uniform in showing Gore gains even in Repub areas. Even vastly Repub Naples area, counted by a conservative paper, would, if one had adjusted it to a 50/50 Dem/Repub public (the general result of all Fl), have showed a significant Gore gain. Miami is a putrid political swamp, as evidenced by the elections board’s multi-flip decision to not count the votes. It, inc Dems and maybe the press, quake at the power of the radical right-wing Cubans, who wield power as brutally as any Tammany Hall or Daley machine. The Herald may have decide that, “It’s a done deal, a fait accompli, and there’s no point in stirring things up any more.” (and risking the retaliation). With the domination of corporate conglomerate ownership, the press’s independence and integrity are no longer assumed without proof.
TIMMY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE
Tim McVeigh continues towards his date with his maker, who probably won’t be happy with this mutant mispunch. If ever there was an argument for the death penalty, he is it. His chilling soulless interview shows the vacuum of the far fringe racist right- as he dispassionately chats about killing kids. The loony’s in Waco, who immolated themselves and shot their own kids, warranted desperate tears of rage, however. Please, just give him one day pumped up with sodium pentothal- I’d love to know who else knew about this.
