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Americans are Chickenshit: News at 11
Having called Lincoln chickenshit yesterday, seems I can go me one better.
It appears that there's something Republicans and Democrats can finally agree on after all - we are chickenshit. Sen. Ben Nelson speaking for the Democrats agrees with Sen. John Kyl speaking for the Republicans: Just the idea of bringing the "bad guys" to America for a maximum security trial or tribunal gives us the runs [and hides]. Maybe we can put them at the North Pole inside Lex Luthor's walls of ice, or a deep hole bored into the Earth's crust, or sealed up in a Kryptonite vault, or perhaps on the Dark Side of the Moon. Bipartisan hysteria for these post-partisan times.
You'd think that spreading the word among terrorists that "Americans are pissing their pants as we speak" would be bad PR, that we're so scared shitless of these funky guys in their pancake brown Pakol hats that we won't even let them inside our borders after being shackled and hobbled and blindfolded for 6 years just to find an excuse to string them up. And this comes on Memorial Day, when we're supposed to remember all those brave and heroic acts in time of warfare, the people who throw themselves on hand grenades, drag buddies out of a firefight, parachute behind enemy lines to blow up targets and free prisoners, march hundreds of miles under full pack, horrid weather and enemy fire, who go on patrols just to see whose fire they'll draw that day...
Perhaps we need to get Arnie out to publicly declare that Terminator II was only a movie, that he's really not an invincible cyborg and that his stalker really can't turn into molten metal and back to human form in seconds. Perhaps we need a Congressional psychologist to walk our representatives through their post-9/11 trauma, so they can stop blubbering like babies when the lights go out and stop writing legislation that starts with, "I hope Mummy and Daddy will be around forever to keep me safe and sound...." I finally start to understand why these people turn to trembly jello when they see a man or a woman in uniform. They are stark fucking petrified. Crap, you can probably whisper "boo" in the Capitol Building and they'll be jumping out the windows. And these assholes are writing our laws, conducting "oversight" of our institutions. OUR REPRESENTATIVES. My God, what have we chosen, how far down can we go? I used to think this was all partisan posturing, but no, they're dead serious. No wonder they support torture. They'd support nuclear annihilation if it would make their bad nightmares go away. Briefcases full of unmarked bills, virgins in paradise, scrapping the Constitution - anything, just make the bad guys go away!!!
Get these people some help. And get 'em out of government service, quick. They reflect badly on all of us.
It appears that there's something Republicans and Democrats can finally agree on after all - we are chickenshit. Sen. Ben Nelson speaking for the Democrats agrees with Sen. John Kyl speaking for the Republicans: Just the idea of bringing the "bad guys" to America for a maximum security trial or tribunal gives us the runs [and hides]. Maybe we can put them at the North Pole inside Lex Luthor's walls of ice, or a deep hole bored into the Earth's crust, or sealed up in a Kryptonite vault, or perhaps on the Dark Side of the Moon. Bipartisan hysteria for these post-partisan times.
You'd think that spreading the word among terrorists that "Americans are pissing their pants as we speak" would be bad PR, that we're so scared shitless of these funky guys in their pancake brown Pakol hats that we won't even let them inside our borders after being shackled and hobbled and blindfolded for 6 years just to find an excuse to string them up. And this comes on Memorial Day, when we're supposed to remember all those brave and heroic acts in time of warfare, the people who throw themselves on hand grenades, drag buddies out of a firefight, parachute behind enemy lines to blow up targets and free prisoners, march hundreds of miles under full pack, horrid weather and enemy fire, who go on patrols just to see whose fire they'll draw that day...
Perhaps we need to get Arnie out to publicly declare that Terminator II was only a movie, that he's really not an invincible cyborg and that his stalker really can't turn into molten metal and back to human form in seconds. Perhaps we need a Congressional psychologist to walk our representatives through their post-9/11 trauma, so they can stop blubbering like babies when the lights go out and stop writing legislation that starts with, "I hope Mummy and Daddy will be around forever to keep me safe and sound...." I finally start to understand why these people turn to trembly jello when they see a man or a woman in uniform. They are stark fucking petrified. Crap, you can probably whisper "boo" in the Capitol Building and they'll be jumping out the windows. And these assholes are writing our laws, conducting "oversight" of our institutions. OUR REPRESENTATIVES. My God, what have we chosen, how far down can we go? I used to think this was all partisan posturing, but no, they're dead serious. No wonder they support torture. They'd support nuclear annihilation if it would make their bad nightmares go away. Briefcases full of unmarked bills, virgins in paradise, scrapping the Constitution - anything, just make the bad guys go away!!!
Get these people some help. And get 'em out of government service, quick. They reflect badly on all of us.
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What?
Even chickens aren't that chickenshit. It's surprising you, is it Des? The trrrrrsssssts won when we started taking our frigging shoes off at airports.
It is utterly irresponsible and cowardly not to bring these bad guys here, but expect other countries to.
I share your disgust.
May 25, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, Bwak, I tiptoed carefully around equating this with a certain piece of genitalia, and then there I go, smearing a whole class of avians instead.
May 25, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah there are brave and wonderful people in government today. Those fighting the good fight.
Whitehouse and Leahy are screaming bloody murder--literally. They want some justice.
Ted Kennedy has been working for universal health care for four decades.
Many good hard working politicians are fighting the forces of evil every day!!!
May 25, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Toss 'em some meat - when they wrestle it to the ground and fight over it, I'll trust them. All else is just talk.
May 25, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your use of "literally" is not literally correct.
May 25, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
When do we realize that "working for four decades" to get something done is the same as "failing for four decades" to get something done? There must be consequences for failure and neither party's faithful seem willing to live up to their Constitutional duties.
May 26, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sort of re-raises the question; is our lifestyle decadent, and if it is, has that made us soft and cowardly? Which is something that Bin Laden claims is true.
May 25, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our politicians' lifestyle is decadent, which has made them soft and cowardly and corrupt and more dangerous to us than to terrorists.
May 25, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't take the electorate off the hook like that. The politicians are pussies because we want 'em that way...mostly we won't elect them if they have an sand in the sack whatsoever.
May 25, 2009 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't completely disagree. Will have to ponder more and integrate better into a new post.
May 26, 2009 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I really enjoyed (and stretched my mind) with your last 2 blogs, and I reluctantly clicked on this one, thinking, "Des is doing a big hysterical rant, but I'll try it anyway."
Well, I agree with every word you said. Imagine being so frightened of these people who can probably not run two blocks that these "leaders" don't even want them to come to our supermax prisons! They make our country into a laughingstock.
And dd, I agree that there are many brave and good-hearted people in Congress. You see the hard time they have even being listened to? We have 59 people on "our side" in the senate and we can't even get judges approved? Unfortunately a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
May 25, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
We a nation of people to dumb to understand how ignorant they are, to simple to realize that in a representative democracy we are responsible for the shit we see in Washington. We are unable to comprehend that in a Constitutional Republic,no matter one's relative level of sophistication or education or success, failure for one is failure for all.
Without make that essential leap of understanding, I don't see how this country could possibly pull itself out a fire that is mostly self-created.
May 26, 2009 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
(PS: I understand that a sentence talking about stupidity should be grammatically correct, at the very least, but don't always take the time to proofread comments that don't contain links.)
May 26, 2009 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
NPR had a segment a couple days ago where the socialist pinko wooden shoe wearing quaint gay folks in Holland said they thought Americans were cowards and hypocrites because in Holland they have the International Court of the Hague.
The Dutch imprison and put on trial the worst terrorists and war criminals in the world, who come from places like Serbia. Countires only a few hours drive away from the court and where one would assume their fellow criminals still live. Does this all scare the Dutch, or prevent them from enforcing international law? No.
May 25, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
For a short while I lived a bike ride away from Milosevic's tribunal in the woods. I for some reason never felt afraid, but of course he wasn't Muslim, and wasn't wearing a Pakol hat. I had one of those for a while, and it was like Frodo with his ring - when I would put it on, I would feel the evil power accreting, almost as if the hat was fusing with my skull, pulling me on to dark deeds until in a fury I tore it off and flung it far into a bog, where it caught fire and slowly sank in the putrid mists.
May 25, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good post, D. It is nothing less then cowardice to fear bringing these poeple into the States where we put them n prison. We can't contain them? That is the very admission of defeat. We "lost" when we took our shoes off, we admitted it when we declared we were too weak and frightened to live on the same continent with them.
May 25, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been thinking I'd write a blog, titled "Americans are Pussies". Thanks for doing it for me, (with perhaps, more easily diagrammed sentences to boot!).
May 25, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Americans aren't pussies. Only the Democrats are. You can witness the aggressiveness of the GOP for yourself. RECOUNT was just on HBO the other night -- and although a dramatization -- it was clear why Gore lost the election decisions, the Dems simply weren't aggressive.
By the way, Jason and I have many MANY times pointed out that people keep re-electing the same people over and over again. Herein lies the root reason for so many of our problems and the various influences in our government.
May 25, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right Democratic politicians are pussies. And Republican ones are fascist war criminals. The words of a good friend spring to mind when thinking of all of this "We're soooooooooo fucked".
May 25, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I get your point, but nevertheless, still don't see any Rs inviting terrorists to enjoy incarceration in their home states.
May 25, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The GOP party has become the party of "Just Say No".
As I pointed out on DD's thread, nearly all commentators of the right wing, simply take every Dem position and are "against it".
That's the real reason why I believe they aren't for incarceration. It allows them to say "no" and so if the Dems also say "no" to Obama, the GOP can claim they lead the country back to the "right path". (pun intended) There is nothing practical in their discussion, it merely allows them to contradict the Dem position politically (and raise fear, to boot).
May 25, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
If only the Rs were harmless, as well as being as humorous as John Cleese and Michael Palin.
May 25, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the Dems in DC are too conciliatory. And, sure, the Republicans talk tough enough and send a lot of boys and girls off to back up that talk. But there really is something behind the notion of the neocons playing John Wayne to overcome their, um, shortcomings. How brave or heroic is it for people who dodged service to denigrate veterans like triple-amputee Max Cleland or Murtha or Kerry or even McCain when it suits them politically (this week, Colin Powell is the "pussy" compared to real men like Cheney and Limbaugh). But I'll admit Ann Coulter has some balls.
May 25, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Limit ALL Politicians to two terms:
The First In Office;
The Second In Prison.
May 25, 2009 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS Some of you may remember that way back when I predicted that having 60 (or 59) Dem Senators didn't guarantee anything because now everyone of those Senators would be able to grandstand on his own to break with the party majority. Nelson only proved my point, but this was hardly surprising for students of the Senate.
May 25, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the blog! In reply:
I guess I'll just quote myself:
May 25, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
From here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/therap/2009/05/indefinite-detention---our-con.php#more
May 25, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice sentiment, TheraP. Too bad you dismiss (out of fear?) the opinions of others who disagree with you as trolls. At TPM, that's pretty much the equivalent of calling a dissenting view "Anti-American" in the real political arena.
May 25, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are a fine writer, Des. I surprisingly agreed with this particular piece and I don't often agree with you. :)
But our Senate has become an albatross and a roadblock. Is it true that Obama wrote a note "kill me now" after enduring endless pontifications by one or more Senators?
May 25, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero, In this post you have placed a thought under the electron microscope,"are Americans cowards?" On the monitor screen we can see the atom of truth, there is "fear" and it is because of decadence. Swimming in the culture of democracy that is "We" is the virus of "Me". Those elected to serve the "We" have abrogated their duty only to serve the "Me". Anyone who serves the "Me" alone will live in the constant fear of losing the "mine". Courage and strength are only found in the employ of the"We".
Did we send them to Washington to fill their pockets and build their legacy, or to represent us.Don't you and I have thoughts of what is right and what we should do, why then do our representatives thoughts differ so far from ours? Where comes this chasm of difference? Are you and I,others here today,the majority in these thoughts or the minority? I hope we are the many and not the few. It is the Me culture that is driven by fear and greed. In my beliefs I am encouraged by a higher authority to "Fear Not". These are wise words no matter what your beliefs. In humility I advise, resist and fight off all the icy darts of fear with the shield of courage. When the media speaks fear and your supposed representatives speak fear, bat it down and stand your ground firm. Meebles tremble and their pale knees knock,their hearts fail them in fear,but We must not be so.People of courage interlock arms, "We" are not few and "we" can win this fight. Desidero,I have tried to hide from the sins of our past in this nation that you have laid out in your posts,I suppose it was fear that we would only and always repeat them and never do any better. That is to capitulate to fear, and I will not cede any longer. My heart says take courage because we can and we must do better. Thanks for making me take a stand Des.
May 25, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think two things are intermingled. It's hard to find courage in a crowd that isn't there in an individual. Strength often comes from numbers. Courage comes from facing down fear. Even a large crowd can be scattered if there's not a kernel of courage present. Of course wisdom says to maximize the strength and effect cleverly, and fight off indolence. Thanks for your comments. They will only represent us if we keep on them like hyenas in for the kill. It seems a shame, but that's the way it is.
May 25, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
A discussion of this topic is incomplete without noting how much mileage the MSM gets out of enabling this fear-mongering.
David Gregory's moderation of Gingrich/Durbin (which i just watched on DVR), consisted mostly of "Yeah Senator Durbin, what about the fact that terrorists want to kill all of our children and rape all of our women? Huh? Whata about that?"
The fact that the media never raises the issues that a: we still don't know whether most of those at Guantanamo were terrorists (or at least engaged in fighting against American forces), or were just unlucky or victimized by local informants, and b: we have to make some compromises between seeking absolute security and remaining an ostensibly free country, simply aren't discussed.
As long as the media allows conservatives to engage in this fear-mongering and demogaugery, this debate will remain hopelessly tilted in favor of the fear mongers and demagogues. Forcing liberals to always side in favor of abstractions like freedom and justice always puts them on the "weak" side of the debate. Moderators in the MSM should at least point out the false claims made by the rightwingers and the absurdity of carrying their arguments to their logical conclusions.
May 25, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The MSM too often acts like that kid in school who was always trying to instigate two other kids to fight. In the adult world, they are like Don King promoting a heavyweight fight. The MSM only wants to see blood on floor to boost ratings. David Gregory is a particularly loathsome example.
May 26, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are we chickenshit or have too many Americans allowed themselves to be brainwashed by persons who may not have any particular interest in or might even have their careers harmed by a prudent application of justice.
Frankly I would very much like to know how many of these 'terrorists' can actually have their alleged actions substantiated in a court of law where the burden of proof rests with the prosecution. I think the government is very worried that the burden of proof cannot be met and thus would create all manner of problems. There may be mountains of circumstantial evidence but no hard proof implicating many of them.
I think the fearmongering surrounding this is merely a smokescreen so our government isn't forced into a position of having to prove that the actions taken during the Bush years were justified. A U.S. or International court may well expose a seriously flawed judicial process that may not be in the best interests of our government and those who have presided over our government during the period in question.
May 26, 2009 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink