The Playful Anarchist

Fed up with what he calls the “namby pambyness” of other Republican contenders, Mitt Romney today decried as “weak and unambitious” Rick Perry’s recent statement that he would “re-invade Iraq” and Newt Gingrich’s allusions to invading Germany (the candidate had said if Americans had the same resolve they did in that action, the price of gas at the pump would halve). Not to be outdone, and with some analysts saying he’s still not appealing to the majority of conservative voters, Romney said today that as President he would start another war with Great Britain, followed by a war with the French and remaining Indians, and then go to war with Spain over Mexico. “Eventually, a return to Viet Nam would be on the horizon,” said Romney, “but that would have to be in my second term”. When asked if conservatives in the US might be too prone to starting and engaging in conflicts, Romney said “We’re a nation with strong moral principles, and those principles are best expressed in who, how, and how often we fight.”

As we gear up for the 2012 campaign, supporters and critics alike are calling the President’s recent public appearances, “The Obama Reality Tour”. At his speech yesterday at Ft. Bragg on the occasion of the Iraq pullout, President Obama offered a litany concerning the Iraq experience that made even experienced killers blush. “Everything that American troops have done in Iraq,” said the president, “all the partnering, the sharing, the cuddling, the caring, the joining, the helping, the loving, the spanking, the building, the warm and friendly feeling, the occasional groping has led us to this moment of success…” A soldier interviewed by NPR expressed relief that the president didn’t mention “all of the raping, the pillaging, the torturing, the murdering, the stealing, the polluting, the destroying, the exterminating, or the initial framing”, but instead focused on the symbolism of the flag, all soldiers being heroes, how to write the history, and standing up for America. Whether he was neatly avoiding any mention of what actually went on in Iraq, or engaging in the ultimate euphemistic tirade is at the mercy of political interpreters. Today, the president is visiting other clusterfucks, like the US economy. Speaking to the banking industry at a Wall Street breakfast this morning, Obama borrowed from the Ft. Bragg motif, saying “all of your bleeding, your building, and your partnering – all of it has left behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant US…” Obama Reality Tour (ORT) spokesperson Glinda Goodwitch said tomorrow the president will speak to the Atlanta public school system about education in the US before departing at last for the Land of Oz.

NASA, the US space agency, completed a study in July, and is now seriously considering fuel depots in orbit around the earth, so astronauts can get their fuel en route instead of lift it with them from the ground. An agency report indicates Loves and several other possible fuel station retailers are interested in the project. Fuel depots would have beer and cigarettes, his and hers restrooms, and a variety of snack foods. But retailers are concerned about “drive offs” and hot checks. As one Seven-11 representative put it, “If they decide to take off without paying, we’re talking about a lot more than a fifty dollar fill-up. And we can’t just tape the US government’s check to the register and shame them into paying. That doesn’t work for the UN; it won’t work for us.”

South Korea announced today that it will not tolerate any aggression from North Korea. Early reports suggest North Korea is shocked and its population reeling with surprise and confusion. “Previously, aggression was always tolerated,” said Lim Young-Gu, a restaurant owner, according to an official government translator.

As an aside, translators are needed because of the rarity of available speakers of North Korean dialects. Mistakes happen easily – for instance, in South Korea, the same statement would be translated as “Stop sabre rattling you meatheads, you’ll get us all killed. What is your problem, already?”

South Korea also warned North Korea that it is under the umbrella of US nuclear protection, which again prompted confusion and concern. North Korean Minister of Defense Kim You-Too, said “We always thought the Americans had gone home. It’s been 65 years after all. We haven’t looked over the barbed wire much in recent decades, but when we heard they had something called Cinemax, we thought the soldiers would all have left. We’re still watching re-runs of My Three Sons. How is Chip Douglas doing? Episode 17 cuts out just before we know if he learns a valuable lesson.”

A new organization, The Honest Conservatives, is creating discomfort among neoconservatives in the US, and their sponsored affiliates abroad. The group claims it is tired of the pretense that has gripped the conservative movement, and wants to free it to stand on the platform it really holds dear and important. The group’s founder, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “We have no aversion to conservatism or to most of its aims, instruments, or policies, but our chief difference of opinion is that it wishes its real platform to remain unknown, and we believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”

The Honest Conservatives offers seven components of what it claims is a genuinely conservative platform:

1. Society: The fundamental unit of society is not the family, actually, but the corporation – specifically the multi-national corporation. Therefore, it is nationalism which serves as the best support of the power structure, because only with nationalism are multi-national corporations immune from social judgment, moral scrutiny, and any transcendent critique. In short, when the nation is the fundamental basis for moral and social evaluation, multi-national profit centers are the most free to prosper. Therefore, patriotism should be the core emotionally-charged basis for marketing of conservatism to the public. [Read more…] about The Honest Conservatives say It’s Time to Stop Pretending

Clarence Thomas has founded a new organization for people who have been, in his words, “Clarenced” by political opponents. Thomas was accused of sexual harrassment, during his confirmation hearings to the US supreme court. Thomas says the group isn’t limited by ideological differences, but is joined by a common experience of questionable allegations that they’ve used sex as a tool of misogyny. Thomas says this is a technique designed to galvanize the emotional core of a society – namely, women – against males who trouble various powerful interests. Other founding members of the organization, called Gender Stigma Survivors, include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, charged with twice having sex without a working condom (something Assange says would virtually criminalize membership in the NBA and NFL), and IMF leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn, charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid who seems to have been caught lying to prosecutors, and making an awful lot of money through drug money laundering. Strauss-Kahn maintains that this is part of a campaign on behalf of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President who Strauss-Kahn says has always been a CIA asset. The new group intends to offer comfort, defense, and support to men who are “politically targeted by charges that they have been sexually unpleasant”, a charge Thomas says would at some point convict nearly any man who has actually had sex, except maybe David Beckham. Thomas’ group is a spinoff of the Sex is Not Dirty campaign, a Facebook initiative that suggests one reason sexual stigmatization is so powerful a political tool, is that most people still think of sex itself as a kind of crime – at least if they themselves are not having it.

Ginger “G-strap” Lee, the exotic dancer (some say she’s a “stripper” and there’s nothing exotic about it) and porn actress, former star of “Greedy Sluts I”, “Greedy Sluts II”, “Sausage Vixens”, and “Meat Muskets the Musical”, was reportedly offended by text-messages from Congressman Anthony Weiner that referred to his “package” (a euphemism, Lee said, for “something I find offensive”). Lee also said she found Congressman Weiner’s name offensive, because it’s a euphemism for his “package”.

Lee is defended by Gloria Allred, the feminist discrimination attorney who specializes in high-profile cases that are usually settled in denominations of $1000, instead of ones, fives, and tens, which is what Ginger is normally used to. Allred was reportedly looking for a new gig after the Tiger Woods affairs, where she represented a number of alleged mistresses, including another pornographic actress, Joslyn James (despite helping draft 1985 L.A. County anti-porn legislation which, sources close to Allred say “didn’t pay as well”). Allred and the offended Lee “somehow found one another” an enthusiastic Lee said, “you know, like a flesh pistol finds a happy holster”.

Lee said she’s indignant, because she found the congressman’s remarks demeaning to her as a woman. “I just feel words like ‘package’ are an affront to me as a strong, independent female, with a meaningful career and contribution to society, and I won’t stand for it.” Attorney Allred said, “It’s one thing to have something like that inside you, perhaps from dozens of complete strangers, and to get paid for it, but to have to listen to it alluded to by someone you know, for free – it’s just outrageous, and I think it’s damaging. Definitely, there’s some damage. We’ll be seeking damages.”

Ginger called Congressman Weiner a bad example, and is reportedly looking at properties in Beverly Hills, and “putting out feelers” one P.R. representative said, for possibly more substantive film roles, like the lead in “Lolita 2012: Argmageddon”, and the part of the rejected lover in “Scorned 3”, a made-for-DVD “soft-core” erotic film. Meanwhile, various press reports have begun referring to the congressman’s spouse as “his pregnant wife”, which journalism insiders say is setting up the next set of stories, as the soon to be bankrupt public servant will likely have to pay his own spouse first, a divorce suit being necessary for her to avoid becoming penniless at the behest of newly minted spokesperson for women, Ginger Lee, and feminist icon Gloria Allred.

Sarah Palin visited Fort Sumter today, where exactly 150 years ago the opening battle of US Civil War occurred. Palin, commenting before a Charleston SC film crew, said “This was an important war, because it freed the South from the slaves, and kept the slaves from taking over the North and taking the North’s guns away.” There were murmurs from the crowd, many of whose ancestors fought in the War between the States, but they were silenced in apparent confusion when Palin went on to say, “It’s a good thing, too, because we needed those guns to lick Russia and stop them from purchasing Alaska just a few years later.”

Pat Robertson, today, in a press release responded to ninety-seven tornadoes that struck 15 U.S. states over one week, beginning April 14th in Oklahoma, with North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi being the hardest hit, by reaffirming his view that God is angry. Robertson said that tornadoes are God’s wrath, rain is God’s tears, but thunder is just God passing gas.

When one reporter asked if that wasn’t “coke bottle from the sky religion that would have us cowering in caves and offering up our daughters whenever a comet flew overhead”, Robertson retorted, “Comets are sparks from God’s camp fire.” In a subsequent press release, Robertson went on to advocate sacrificing chickens to appease meteor shower deities and feeding virgins to volcanos to ensure an uninterrupted grain harvest during the coming tribulation.

Not to be outdone, Louis Farrakhan has issued a statement claiming the earthquakes are God’s judgment for poor treatment of black people, some Muslim fundamentalists are saying it’s God’s wrath for America’s invasion of Iraq & Afghanistan, and Sarah Palin has said that God sent the earthquakes because he’s the only who ever gets what’s she’s saying, and he’s tired of it being reported verbatim, which makes her look foolish.

Republicans today added another icon of public media to their targets for broadcast de-funding – Sesame Street, the popular children’s educational program on PBS. Following congressional threats to defund NPR, and the firing of an NPR correspondent over comments ridiculing neoconservatives in an “ideological sting” video, that critics say is evidence of a liberal agenda, a new, even more [controversial video] has surfaced.

The [segment] features Sesame Street character Pino in a skit on collaborating with those who aren’t like ourselves, achieving goals by mutual coooperation, and not bullying others because we don’t share their views. Under pressure from conservative activists, who say the skit expresses liberal values and portrays conservatives in a bad light, Sesame Street is reportedly considering the termination of Pino’s contract, but nothing is confirmed as of yet. In the meantime, freshman Tea Party Republicans are calling for an end to any public funds for the educational TV show.

“The statistics are quite damning,” said an unnamed source. While roughly half of NPR listeners consider themselves moderate, and the other half are neatly divided between conservatives and liberals, PBS viewer research shows that school age children who view Sesame Street are five times less likely to make requests they know others can’t possibly agree to, and seven times more likely to resolve disputes by looking for genuine ways to compromise. Conservative spokespersons say this proves Sesame Street is “anti-God, anti-family, and unpatriotic”. Time will tell if Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Elmo, Oscar the Grouch, and Pino will lose their funding for what some are calling, “a despicable cultural bias in children’s broadcasting”.