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| Xmas Carol for Liberals |
| 12.24.03 (12:12 am) [edit] |
Saddam’s Caught,
Are You Listening
Shiites and Kurds
Iraqis Glistening
A Beautiful Sight,
G. Dubya’s Happy Tonight
Walking in Republican Wonderland
Gone Away is Gray Davis,
In His Place, Arnold Paces
California Survived the Recall
135 Candidates in All,
Walking in Republican Wonderland
In the Distance, Presidential Elections,
Kerry, Dean, even Sharpton,
They Pretend that he’s Ronald Reagan
He’ll Say: I’m Compassionate
We’ll Say: No Man,
Will he Win by Landslide, or - Steal the Election, Again?
Later on, They’ll Conspire
To Disenfranchise, Florida Voters
We’ll have to Face Unafraid,
Illegal Moves that they’ll Make
Walking in Republican Wonderland
In the Adminstration, we have Colin Powell
And Hope he doesn't Throw in the Towel
He tried to Talk them out of War
Until the Neo-Cons came and Knocked him Down
Bush is President, Ain’t that Thrilling
Let’s Be Real, a Shitty Feeling
We’ll Protest and Complain, the Liberal Way
Walking in Republican Wonderland
Walking in Republican Wonderland
Walking in Republican Wonderland
---Proletariat
© E.D. Petty, 2003-2004
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| Saddam's Public Execution |
| 12.18.03 (11:07 pm) [edit] |
[i]“We got him,”[/i] proclaimed U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremmer early Sunday morning. U.S. soldiers found the ever-threatening “Butcher of Baghdad” hiding underground in what commanding Lt. General Sanchez described as a spider or rat hole.
We should all rejoice for the world is safer now that Saddam Hussein is no longer holed up in his rodent infested farmhouse hideout. Out of power for months, unclean and unshaven the former dictator of Iraq is found guilty as charged and will suffer a public execution.
Although Saddam has yet to be charged for genocide or war crimes, his public execution comes swift and strong.
Across America, the thirst for Saddam’s blood is stronger than a Great White Shark’s sense of smell. To no one’s surprise, the [b]reactionary right [/b]is leading the charge. Already condemning him to death, they want Saddam to undergo the torturous treatment only seen by his victims.
For Saddam, they are willing to throw the Rule of Law out the window.
Must our nation lose its values of justice in order to satisfy the hunger of shameless war- mongers who now seek to carry out the very evil the Bush War was set out to defeat? Tune in to your local AM radio talk show.
You’ll hear them; Limbaugh, Hannity, Reagan, Savage and their scripted duplicates all pronouncing that Saddam’s punishment shall be death. And if he fails to provide substantial information to U.S. interrogators, then it shall be pulled out from him in the manner his regime tortured the Iraqi people.
The pulling of fingernails, the cutting of tongues, chopping of hands. Even further, they want Saddam to see the gruesome pictures of his reign of terror over the Iraqi people. Maybe they want to see Saddam get raped too.
You’ll hear the ambitious [i]“right”[/i] constantly comparing Saddam whom they brought down, to Adolph Hitler. And like captured members of the fallen Nazi Party, they want nothing short of public trials that produce public hangings.
You’ll hear them tickled pink at the site of the Saddam Hussein who emerged from that hole. Compassionate conservatives revealed. The [i]“right”[/i] has fixated on his appearance (think homeless man), his filthiness, his robe, the lice in his hair, and his cowardly non-use of a pistol that was found in his possession.
Men and women of good consciousness, beware. The apprehension of Saddam Hussein has bloodthirsty conservatives salivating at record levels. But the capture of Saddam Hussein is nothing more than the Trojan Horse of the Bush-Iraq war.
With no Weapons of Mass Destruction anywhere in sight, neo-cons need a fallback victory, no matter how shallow it might be. And this it. Saddam Hussein is no friend of humanity and deserves life long punishment that is harsh. But without those WMDs, the conservatives must prop up his capture as a defining moment in history so they can justify selectively bringing down one, out of a hundred brutal dictators found on any corner of the globe.
Whatever Saddam’s fate may be, he deserves nothing less than a fair trial and a natural life sentence in a prison with a good view of one of his many palaces. For now, the current public execution of the defeated Saddam Hussein seems fair and just.
--Proletariat
© E.D. Petty, 2003-2004
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| Republicans Fear Dean |
| 12.09.03 (9:38 pm) [edit] |
It is a daily habit now for Republicans across the nation to lambaste the front-running Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. The former governor of Vermont is now the constant barrage of right-wing message men sent to attack at every opportunity. Its as if the Clinton’s have fallen off the face of the earth.
But the "right" has every reason to be on the offensive. They know Dean’s message to the American people is resonating and it will ultimately lead to a Texas style showdown in the west. That’s right, it’s the west, not the south that may determine the presidency.
For those cynical to the thought that Dean could give Bush a real race, lets examine some key variables that will play into the minds of the voting electorate on that decisive Tuesday in November.
First and foremost, the country is still evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. According to a new Los Angeles Times poll, the country is as divided today, as it was in the 2000 election when Republican George W. Bush barely beat Democratic candidate Al Gore. And you don’t need a poll to recognize the continued deep divisions along gender, racial lines and issues debating the moral and cultural values of the country.
Secondly, in a field of nine candidates, Dean has managed to solidify a base that is ready to mobilized against President Bush. Let us not simply mistake them for Democratic Party activists and anti-war pacifists. No, Dean’s base is also represented by those who will not forget how Bush fraudulently won Florida in 2000, disgruntled democrats that turned Green and by a youth vote that began to rally against G.W. during the lead up to the war.
Conservatives may claim Dean’s eventual nomination as a sign from God that Bush is meant to be president, but history is on the side of the New York stock trader turned doctor. The Democratic presidential candidate has won the popular presidential vote three times in a row--twice, under the guidance of the skilled triumvirate of Bill Clinton, Paul Begala and James Carville; but most recently with Al Gore at the helm. And demographic trends (particularly the growth in Latino voters) tend to favor the Democrats going into 2004.
Most historically, President Bush will be running for reelection after a two-year period in which his party has controlled both houses of Congress. The last two times the American people confronted a president and a Congress controlled by the same party were in 1980 and 1994. The voters decided in both cases to restore what they have consistently preferred for the last two generations: divided government. Since continued GOP control of at least the House of Representatives seems guaranteed, the easiest way for voters to re-divide government would be to replace President Bush in 2004. And with a plurality of voters believing the country is on the wrong track, why shouldn't they boot out the incumbent president?
Predictably, the conservative machine will speciously paint Dean as a “mad leftist wacko” who wants not to revert the country back to greater times, but to convert the country into socialism. Unfortunately for them, the Vermonter has been barely liberal. As governor, his policy almost always came from the center. Dean even cut income taxes during a budget surplus. Today, Vermont remains in surplus while 38 states are mired in fiscal crisis. But republicans will benefit from his one liberal stripe as governor. His signature on the controversial civil union legislation, which is still the single civil union law passed in these 50 states of America.
On foreign and defense policy, look for Dean to say that he was and remains anti-Iraq war and Karl Rove knows, there are lots of traditional centrist foreign policy type voters that were also anti-Iraq war. But Dean will emphasize that he has never ruled out the use of force, including unilaterally. In fact, expect him to say that he believes in military strength so strongly that he would increase the size of the Army by a division or two. It's Bush, Dean will point out, who's trying to deal with the new, post-September 11 world with a pre-September 11 military.
Thus, on domestic policy, Dean will characterize Bush as the deficit-expanding, Social Security-threatening, Constitution-amending on radical, while positioning himself as a hard-headed, budget-balancing, federalism-respecting compassionate moderate.
Yet, they say he’s unelectable. That he can’t possibly pick up one of the 14 southern states Bush dominated in 2000. But Dean will be allowed to redefine himself after the nomination. It appears, as though, Dean will try to meet southern voters head on, rather than run tail. He will offset the conservative falsehoods with his centrist and patriotic platform.
Still, dubyas greatest asset is his handling of 9/11 and the war to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan, while putting both Osama and Saddam on the run. But his lack of a well thought out exit strategy from Iraq may be his notice of termination from the Whitehouse by the American people. Do not be fooled by Conservative arrogance over the Dean/ Bush match up. They’re already chomping at the bit because they know Dean’s gonna give’em all they can handle.
---Proletariat-- E.D. Petty © 2003-2004
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| Not Again! Cincinnati Police Kill Black Man |
| 12.01.03 (11:36 pm) [edit] |
A [b]Black man[/b] died after being fatally clubbed by officers in a videotaped beating that raises new allegations of the long-standing institution of police brutality against African Americans in the city of Cincinnati.
According to varied accounts, a White Castle fast-food restaurant employee called 9-1-1 early Sunday to report that a man had passed out on the grass outside. Emergency personnel arrived and reported that the man was awake and "becoming a nuisance," according to police radio transmissions.
The first two officers to arrive were shown on video striking Jones after he reportedly ignored orders to "stay back," lunged at an officer and put his arm around an officer's neck.
Jones then fell forward onto the officer as the two momentarily went out of the camera's field of view.
The officers then knocked Jones to the ground, fell on him, jabbed or struck him with nightsticks at least a dozen times over several minutes until he was handcuffed and lifeless. They kept yelling, "Put your hands behind your back!" as they struggled to handcuff him.
Additional police officers arrived.
They rolled Jones onto his back and one officer was heard saying: "He's still got a pulse. I don't see him breathing."
Officers called for an ambulance. But he died within minutes of arriving at the hospital.
The officers who were at the scene - five whites and one black - were placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure whenever a suspect dies in custody.
[i]Now Comes the Controversy[/i]
Preliminary autopsy results showed that the 41-year-old man had an enlarged heart, and his blood contained cocaine and PCP. What is not clear is whether the blood screening found only trace amounts of the illegal substances or if Jones was likely under the influence at the time. And an enlarged heart is not surprising for a man who stands just 5'6" at an unhealthy 350 pounds.
Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken without investigation has defended the actions of the nightstick wielding officers and has already rejected community activists' demands to force the Chief of Police to resign.
According to the Rev. Damon Lynch III, who has led Cincinnati's Black community in a battle against what it calls the abuse of authority by police. "I wish they were trained as well in negotiation as they are in using their" night sticks."
The November 30th beating is another in a long series of
incidents that have resulted in the deaths of Black men at the hands of White officers.
The fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in a dark alley by a white officer in April 2001 set off three nights of rioting, which involved the beatings of several unarmed whites. Police arrested 837 persons during the violence, and 62 were charged with felonies.
But what is perhaps more despicable than the loss of Nathaniel Jones' death on Sunday is the unbelievable threat posed Monday by Roger Webster, Fraternal Order of Police union president.
Webster said officers might again "de-police," or refrain from actively pursuing criminals, as they did after the public outcry in 2001. Violent crime jumped more than 50 percent in a two-month period, especially in the predominantly African American, Over-the-Rhine area just north of downtown.
Webster and the politically conservative Fraternal Order of Police should be shunned for this threat. No situation imaginalbe calls for supposed-to-be honorable men from upholding their oaths as officers. The "depolicing" was a deplorable action in 2001 and the very thought of it now is without regard.
Whether the use of force by the six officers were justified or not; one things for sure, the racial wounds of America have been pricked once again. And the social conservatives appear to be drooling at the smell of blood.
Already, the political ideaologues are painting the picture of Nathaniel Jones as a criminal deserving of his own death. How often must we hear them refer to possible drug use, prior arrests and convictions, not to mention his outstanding warrants.?
They are already calling the officers heroes who valiantly saved their own lives from an unarmed man who happened to weigh an unhealthy 350 pounds.
When will they question the insufficiencies of law enforcement practices used across the country? If we live in a drug culture and suspects are believed to be under the influence, are officers adequately trained to handle such persons? How about the mentally ill?
And what's wrong with an investigation into the officers and their actions. Particularly in light of the very recent history of still unacknowledged police abuse in Cincinnati.
Let's be clear, the Conservatives have fueled this incident because they believe they have a winner here.
A large Black man caught on tape lunging at an officer before he is beaten to death. Now let's sweep away every police beating we have seen or heard of under the rug. Because according to them racism doesn't exist and police do not use excessive force on African American men.
--Proletariat
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