Enjoy this peaceful lull while you can

From Hunter Thompson, everyone’s favorite gonzo journalist,

My final prediction for today is that the U.S. will not send any teams to the Olympic Games this year. And the World Series will also be canceled or at least postponed for a National Security emergency that will never be explained in public until long after George Bush is gone from the White House, which will happen in early November — or at least before Groundhog Day next year.

We are all going for a very wild ride for the next few months. So good luck and drink all the cold beer you can get your hands on for as long as necessary to guarantee victory and lasting peace in the nation and the world.

Buy the ticket, take the ride. Mahalo.

Paranoia? Lunacy?

From Newsweek, comes news of something arguably quite sinister.

American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call “alarming” intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack, Newsweek has learned.

How convenient for Bush such an attack would be.

Reichstag Fire

Feb. 27, 1933.
The German Parliament (Reichstag) burns down. A dazed Dutch Communist named Marinus van der Lubbe is found at the scene and charged with arson.

Feb. 28, 1933.
President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler invoke Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which permits the suspension of civil liberties in time of national emergency. A supplemental decree creates the SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security) Federal police agencies.

Who Did It?
Historians do not agree on who is actually responsible for the Reichstag Fire: van der Lubbe acting alone — a Communist plot — or the Nazis themselves in order to create an incident. Writers such as Klaus P. Fischer feel that most likely the Nazis were involved.

But regardless of who actually planned and executed the fire, it is clear that the Nazis immediately took advantage of the situation in order to advance their cause at the expense of civil rights. The Decree enabled the Nazis to ruthlessly suppress opposition in the upcoming election.

It Can’t Happen Here,
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, 1966

And they thought it couldn’t happen here
(duh duh duh)
They knew it couldn’t happen here
They were so sure it couldn’t happen here
But . . .

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Why would you think pointing a gun in your face is “sending a message”?

The United States’ largest naval exercise in decades, involving the deployment around the globe of seven of the Navy’s 12 carrier battle groups, is not designed to send political signals to potential enemies, a senior Navy officer said Thursday.

“If others on the other side of a curtain will want to take lessons from that, I think that’s advantageous,” he said.

Translation: We are sending a message. Unfortunately, the We-Have-the-Mightiest-Penis message so favored by the neo-cons, a) isn’t appreciated by those who might be allies and, b) doesn’t work. As Vietnam and Iraq demonstrate, being examples of what that US military calls asymmetric warfare, smaller size is not neccesarily a disadvantage.

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Whiny little frat boy can’t handle criticism

This is from a wondrous daily email rant about politics, written by Mike, a friend.

Junior Mint was in Philadelphia Friday so he could give interviews about why he refused to speak at the NAACP convention which, coincidentally enough, is taking place today in Philadelphia.

YORK, Pa. - President Bush said yesterday that he was declining an invitation to speak to the NAACP’s convention in Philadelphia because of harsh statements about him by leaders of the venerable civil rights group.

“I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent,” Bush told reporters during a visit to Pennsylvania. “You’ve heard the rhetoric and the names they’ve called me.”

Boo fucking hoo. Here’s what they posted over at Daily Kos today on this:

Let’s first be clear that the Bush campaign isn’t simply not going to the NAACP convention, they’re deliberately and publicly snubbing the NAACP, and this snub was planned well in advance. The White House and the Bush campaign would have known probably a year ago that the NAACP would be in Philadelphia this weekend, and they would have planned the PA bus trip months ago. Not only did they decide not to go to the convention, they deliberately planned on being in PA at almost the exact time of the convention to draw more attention to the fact that Bush would not appear before the NAACP.

The bigger issue here is that George Bush is effectively saying “screw you” to one of the most prominent and esteemed organizations in America, an organization that is the most important representative of African-Americans and which still leads the fight for civil rights in America. This isn’t a failure to send a message to supporters of civil rights, this is a deliberate decision to send a message that, forty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, there are still two sides to the debate on civil rights, and Bush is on the side of those opposed to “special” rights for people who aren’t white, Christian, and heterosexual.

By deliberately blowing off the NAACP four straight years, Bush has signaled that he doesn’t view himself as President of all Americans. He’s the President of just those Americans who look like him and agree with him. “Two Americas” indeed.

Oh yeah. When your numbers are this tight, you can’t turn your back on that all-important KKK vote.

PS Bush first president since 1920s to skip NAACP event

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