Here We Go Again

i thought i'd write some snappy, witty little squib, liberally (ooooo .... there's that word again ..... liberal ..... ooooooo) laced with tasty expletives like "republican" and "christian" and "uniter" and "decider" and "assmuncher" ..... but as usual the world bypasses tasteful humor and mordant wit with yet another stunning debacle, another mind-numbing .... i can't even find the words for israel's bombing lebanon .....

remember lebanon? the country that had fifteen years of civil war? the country that made that staunch republican ronald reagan "cut and run?" remember the bold decisiveness of that visionary marionette? "i'm a-gettin' outta here while the gettin's good ....."

other than being heartsick and nauseous, i'm not sure what to think about this ..... but a few thoughts come to mind, as they unfortunately always do, and they go something like this ..... first, israel's open warfare on a civilian population is sanctioned by what passes for american policies .... we engage in undeclared wars on civilian populations under the pretext of national security, or democracy, or protecting freedoms, or whatever, so israel gets to do it, too .... and they get to do it in an arena that's already volatile, fulminating, and unstable .....

it's an escalator upwards, always upwards ....

and what precipitated this? israeli soldiers were "captured?" so they get to level entire cities?

didn't we just do that? when two of our soldiers were "kidnapped" in iraq?

i know that linguistic precision has less relevance than fruit flies fucking and farting in this country, but i'm old-fashioned and old school, and it's still something i strive for ..... soldiers aren't "kidnapped" .... soldiers, if they are engaged in warfare, are "taken prisoner ...." we kidnap civilians, only we call it "extraordinary rendition," and i think it extraordinary that our policies include kidnapping, just as i am appalled by every other perverted twist and turn of this republican administration ..... i'm sorry; if your soldiers are "kidnapped" you're not fighting a war: you're horsefucking around, you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, and you can't have it both ways ....

let me anticipate the response here: ooooh, but dr. pete .... we're fighting terrorists and they don't have a uniform and they don't fight under a flag, so they don't fall under the articles of that outmoded document, the geneva convention, a document that the united states was signatory to but now thinks less pertinent than used laboratory animal bedding ..... so your semantic quibbling doesn't apply here, and you can just bend over, shuffle around some of the national security administration's wiretapping gear to make room for it, and shove it up your ass ....

well .... you can call me many things, but you can't call me anti-semantic ..... i seem to recall that the uniform of many vietnamese was black pajamas, they weren't rallying around a flag: they were getting rid of foreign invaders and occupiers ..... and they pretty roundly whupped our ass .....

perhaps we can say that some lessons were painfully learned, although the important lessons, like don't stick your dick in a hornet's nest, don't get bogged down in a land war in asia, don't get bogged down in guerrila warfare for oil in 115 degree weather ..... oh, what i meant was, don't show pictures of casualties coming back, and certainly don't show pictures of dead soldiers' coffins ......

because that might upset the livestock, erode public support, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

it's so fucking unfunny, that every time our forces of freedom retaliate for some guerrila or terrorist outrage--of which there are no shortages--it's the civilians that take it in the shorts .... there goes another city; there goes the electricity again; bodies in the water supply, best not to drink; sorry about that hospital .... .our bad .... too bad about that kindergarten, didn't know it had children in it ..... boy, i can't think of a better way to win hearts and minds than to--not just have them by the balls--but blow their balls of at the knees, and take the knees with them .....

i'm no policy wonk, but i do make predictions, and my current prediction goes something like this ...... with this israel/lebanon/hezbollah abomination taking center stage, a lot of things are going to slip by under the radar, things like stem cell research policy ..... or anti-abortion legislation in mississippi ..... and the real fear i have is that, in this topsy-turvy bizarro world of republican chicanery and doublespeak, this will be trumpeted as justification for further incursions into our ever dwindling stash of civil liberties ...... oh, those gosh-darned terrorists, they're at it again ..... do you see how unsafe the world is because of them? no wonder we tap your phones and monitor your bank accounts and read your mail and e-mail .......

just to keep that flea market in indiana safe ......

and, just to make sure, we'd best bomb the shit out of iran ...... oh, we'll use small nookilar weapons, so don't worry ..... and hey, while we're at it?

let's get syria ......

as an aside, i heard a discussion of hillary clinton's merits as a democratic presidential candidate, and it went something like this: she's pretty good, and i'd vote for her ..... but ..... i'm afraid of how she'd be attacked, and how that would divide the country .....

honest to god, if the democrats ran a fucking panda for president, the republican feces machine would have him decapitated, stuffed, mounted, and turned into panda paper sheets they could wipe their filthy asses with ..... and, maybe i'm missing something, but ......

didn't that "uniter, not a divider" polarize the country as neatly and as cleanly as a neurosurgeon using a chain saw?

next: dr. pete talks with god