The Iraqi Shoe Thrower

If I typed his name as the heading, you may have no idea who this post was about. His name is Muntazer al-Zaidi, for those who do not know or have forgotten.

At this writing it in unknown whether he will be released today or there will be another delay. I can only hope he is released and hope my positive vibe has its intended effect.

What I find interesting is what he said as he threw the shoes. As many of you know, I do not speak Arabic, but I found the translation in an article: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” he shouted before he threw the first shoe, and, “This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq,” he shouted when throwing the second one.

If I were Iraqi, I would be just as angry if some shithead like Bush lied to launch a war for oil and war profits which resulted in widows and orphans and maimed and dead—especially children.

It is unclear what Mr. Zaidi will do for work once released. He may return to work for the Iraqi television station in whose employ he was when he became a hero to billions worldwide.

If throwing shoes is one of the greatest insults in the Arab world, then perhaps the US military, upon the commencement of its invasion way back in 2003, should have lobbed shoes at Saddam and his son’s Uday and Qusay and their palaces. It would have saved a lot of innocent lives and we could have humiliated Saddam into surrender.

A lot of money could be made by throwing shoes, pies, water balloons and other assorted items—tractor tire rims?—at Saddam and his son’s Uday and Qusay, just like at a state or county fair amusement booth not only in America, but in Iraq as well.

Since that is not possible now, perhaps Zaidi would consider working as a taxpayer-paid shoe thrower; lobbing steel-toed boots at Max “Haucus Paucus” Baucus, Kent “Gone Bad” Conrad and Harry “The Need for Speed” Reid.

Then I’m sure he can get hired by liberals at Teabagger rallies. I know I’d pay to see some of those idiots defending the insurance industry’s death panels and their billion dollar profits get a size 13 snow boot on the noggin from a second-story window somewhere near the demonstration route.

I’d love to see Jim “Demented” DeMint have a Payless Shoe Source work boot graze his splanchnocranium.

I envy Mr. Zaidi, as many of us probably do. Why? Because we would all like to have thrown a shoe at Bush but we were only able to scream at the TV while Zaidi actually vented his anger in a good ol’ fashioned, non-lethal way.

But Zaidi paid the price for it, and I don’t think any of us would want to serve the prison time, but that’s the beauty and convenience of vicariousness.

For those who want to see it again here is the best version I could find on YouTube in the brief time I had to search for it.

Republicans May Lose More in 2010

I say let the Republicans and Blue Dogs say and do whatever they want on health care reform. If polls, which I will cite are accurate, the Republican Party may be even more marginalized in 2010, reversing a long-standing trend where the opposing party gains seats. Impossible you say? Didn’t Reagan end the trend of curse of the “zero president” or was John David Hinckley just a wuss in his job as the curse’s facilitator?

On Election Night last year a close personal friend of mine up the beach who is a recording artist agreed with me that if there is ever going to be a three-party system in this country it would be the Republicans splitting in two—like an earthworm that, when it’s cut in half, crawls in two separate directions.

With extremism on the right increasing through the issues of health care and abortion and birtherism, moderate Republicans have been effectively silenced. In fact, this recent extremism is so loud, even other far-right Republicans are working hard just to catch up and be heard, except John Ensign and the C Street-The Family politicians.

Warning: the following is not a prediction but only the observance of a possible scenario.

Recent polls show that the “vast” or “overwhelming” majority of Americans—in some polls more than the number of those who voted for Hope and Change—want health care reform. Health care is one of those hot button issues that effect people in a deeply emotional way—much more than tax cuts. Health care involves a relative dying or in misery, tax cuts only involve freeing up enough cash to buy a new car or get a face lift.

If Republicans and Blue Dog Dems are seen as being whores for insurance industry pimps and against the people come 2010 the trend Dems benefited from beginning in 2006, and which grew in 2008, could grow even more in 2010.

If that happens and the Republicans are forced down to about 30 in the Senate and down to about 150 in the House, two things may happen—the Republicans may split after a long-overdue moderate Republican backlash takes place, and, passing a progressive agenda through Congress may also get easier.

But the above presupposes that Democrats will get the balls and fight to win elections as happened in 2008. I have never thought Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid had the balls to correct the wrongs in government when they had the opportunity. I still wish Pelosi had gone after Bush-Cheney for impeachment. Cheney deserved to have his face rubbed in the dirt after the things he’s done throughout his political career, not just as vice-president. His I’m-above-the-law snobbish attitude alone deserved a bloody nose.

Impeaching Bush may have set some things straight in that stratosphere of government just as impeaching Reagan may have straightened out the abuses in his office, many of which involving drugs that I wrote about in my first four posts of this blog.

If they had impeached Bush maybe that would have shaken up the Imperial Owners so that our Imperial Manager, Obama, would not have had to sell out as much as he has or experience the difficulties he has. But no, Pelosi and Reid chose to put all that behind us just as Attorney Genital Eric Holder is putting torture behind us so they can keep using it, I guess, by not making it a crime, despite the Special Prosecutor sideshow he seems to be starting.

But I digress. Recent polls by the Gallup organization, which, according to Wikipedia, rates 17th out of 23 for accuracy, show that many states that were red in 2008 are now in play. A slight majority of these people in Texas have labeled themselves as “leaning Democrat”. Thanks, Rick Perry.

And that gubernatorial reference points me to the thesis of this piece that I have lolligagged about getting to, which is this: let the Republicans do and say what they want and they will pay for it next year. As Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

As my close personal friend who is a recording artist will tell you, the Democrats are just as pro-war as the Republicans.

That is true, but I believe the Democrats are more malleable, as evidenced by the putty-like feeling I get when I’ve held Barbara Boxer in my hands. Plus, progressivism is more closely connected to Independents but there aren’t enough of them so, for now, Democrats will have to do until the Democrats break down into more than one party after the Republicans.

Exploring the point I made about the Republicans splitting will have to wait for another post.

Once the far right is marginalized into extremist criminal acts and all locked up, and as their audiences for their TV networks and radio shows disappears, maybe, just maybe, we can turn our attention to ending global climate change, providing quality health care for all and reducing the Taliban to becoming contestants on a nationally-televised show in Afghanistan and Pakistan called “Talibans Got Talent”.

Twins

Like Bush, Schwarzenegger has succeeded in failing.

Ah, no ld will go down in history of California’s version of W. With glee he stood before the press to announce the budget impasse was fixed. It takes an idiot or a conman to do that. He is probably both.

Why is California filled with Democrats who have no backbone to take their argument to the people and stand up for what is right?

Schwarzenegger’s recent knife as-a-symbolic-prop video will be looked upon with scorn and ridicule in a few years, when the full effect of his selling out of the citizens of California in favor of gutting education, corporatizing pensions and giving away off-shore drilling rights and robbing local governments of their money is realized. Why is the mainstream media not more critical?

Schwarzenegger has set California on the path to becoming a third world country. In ten years, California will be in such bad shape even Mexico won’t want it back. Just wait until Californians rise up.

Schwarzenegger’s California will be seen like Bush’s America—robbed. When are Californians going to realize that thieves like Schwarzenegger should never be elected because of stardom and false promises?

He and his do not have the interests of California in mind, only corporations and the rich.

I know what he can do with that knife.

Fun With Dick & Liz

It’s actually Dick and Jane. But this post is about Dick and Liz. And I don’t mean Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton either.

On the Moonie paper’s radio show interview, Liz Cheney says she may run for political office. Is there any crime she can be charged with before that irradiated creature grows into a 50 foot monster?

I’d love to see Dick and Liz go to jail together, but Obama probably won’t allow it. He’s weird that way. He bought a car and had mechanics remove the reverse gear. He doesn’t need to parallel park or get out of a driveway or parking spot now.

As Philosopher, poet and humanist George Satanyana said: those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Obama’s doomed.

Liz—the long “i” vowel sound version of her name being appropriately, “lies”—was appointed in 2002 by Colin Powell (who told him to do that, I wonder?) as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. She left that post in 2003 to work for the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign, working in a female aspect of the campaign called “W Stands for Women” to attract female voters and, reportedly “Spoke often of how women have enlarged their scope of political issues, invoking the September 11 attacks (Dick probably told her about the attacks before they happened) and “security”. Oh, what a surprise!

In 2005 her old position had been enlarged to Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs where she supported a controversial Iraqi constitution which [emphasis added] DIMINISHES THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN!!!

Do people like Lies Cheney go through life so privileged that they are so disengaged with the work they are doing??!! Are they so disengaged from reality working in a bubble that they think we believe them or care what they have to say (sort of like me writing this blog)? No, they have an agenda and arrogance and they lie, lie, lie!

In an interview with Turkish CNN she was asked a question based in skepticism about American commitment to democracy and human rights after a Washington Post story about black sites. Part of her response was the pathetic and predictable, “Judge us by our actions.” Brilliant!

She continued, “Judge us by the extent to which we really are standing with the people who are working for freedom.” The Iraqi constitution is based on Sharia Law—the very same application of social control that Pakistan is trying to prevent the Taliban from imposing in the Swat Valley.

How great that Lies Cheney can lie like her father! I’ll have a post on the Iraqi constitution later this week.

In 2006 she headed the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) within the Bureau of Near East Affairs which was, according to a story in the New York Times, administering grants with a Republican foundation that critics said was plotting covert acts which could escalate into war with Iran and Syria.

Remember the late-60s anti-smoking PSA where the father and son are sitting under a tree and the father lights a cigarette and his six year old son picks up the cigarette pack and looks at it? Well, that’s Dick and Liz.

But instead of smoking, the bad habit she picked up from dad was lying, arrogance, scare tactics, illegal activities, obstruction of justice and subverting the Constitution. At least she can’t get cancer from it.

Her father was elected to Congress from Wyoming after working for Nixon and Ford during and after Watergate. She worked for Bush and probably internalized the vilification hurled at W like her father internalized the same about Nixon. What that means, under the principle of like father like daughter, is she will become the first female vice-president under president Mitt Romney in 2016 because she has foreign policy experience. And we will be treated to more lies.

With everything coming out now about Dick’s secret CIA “activities”, and Liz’s ISOG “activities”, I hope she gets elected to Congress, gets involved in a scandal and is investigated.

Have you noticed recently that the U.S. has a disproportionate share of nutcases in political office? I offer a possible solution in a post next week.

But for the near future, picture this: Liz is handcuffed and manacled in an orange jump suit, pushing the wheelchair in which her father sits also in an orange jump suit, handcuffed and manacled, escorted by U.S. Marshals with shotguns, as they enter Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.