Where Are We Now?

It’s that time of year again. The time of year for all politicians to exploit our fantasies of democracy. It’s been a while since I’ve truly ranted, so this may be a long one. But I figured it was about time I said something about what’s going on in the world.

First off, the American press is WAY too involved in Tom Cruise’s life right now. Does anyone really care what the fuck this guy puts his dick in? This is last page news, but it’s been taking up the front page lately. So I’ll put it right where it belongs…at the very end of my rant. Because I do have something to say to Tommy boy. OH, do I have something to say to him.

But first, let’s talk about the Moron In Chief.

Mr. Shrub had a State Of The Union the other day. And, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t watch it. But, apparently, neither did most of the country. In fact, less people watched it than any other of his speeches since he took office. The speech’s audience and his approval ratings are looking about like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt…going down.

Let’s take a look at some soundbites…um…if that’s possible.

“We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America’s resolve. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat — and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins.”

No, but we certainly will allow our soldiers to be killed by them. Over and over and over and over again. More of our soldiers have died since the “mission” has been “accomplished” than in the entire actual war. Why is that? Probably because we’re being less careful over there. Our kids are tired as hell. Some of them have been over there for three tours of duty. That’s longer than a lot of the more haggard Vietnam vets were over there. Hell, that’s longer than those same Vietnam vets have had nightmares about their experiences over there. And the government isn’t really helping much. There’s not enough armor to go around. There aren’t enough weapons to go around. Their humvees are slightly less prepared than the ones driven around by soccer moms.

(Is it just me, or are Hummers the most useless cars in the world to be driven by anyone but military folk? They can’t turn for shit. They get about 2 miles to the gallon. And you have to park them on top of the building because no one knows how to make parking spaces anymore. Fuck Hummer drivers.)

The terrorists may be getting desperate, but our soldiers are getting fed up. And that’s even more dangerous.

“We fight today because Iraq now carries the hope of freedom in a vital region of the world, and the rise of democracy will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror.”

Um. What about over here. We’re having quite enough of the radicalism over here, too. Can we fight THAT? We’ve got the Christian Right, who say that it’s ok to see people killing each other (especially if it’s an ultra-religious movie), but not a boob, controlling the airwaves. We’ve got Billy Graham taking up a half hour on CNN just to say that he’s doing his last tour. (Good. Get thee to a sick bed, Billy. You’ve done quite enough damage to our already fragile country. Live out your next 100 years without us having to hear you.) We’ve got the Supreme Court quickly turning into a congregation of Dubya worshipers who want to take down Roe vs. Wade and turn us into an exclusive country. We’ve got people who want to deny that sex ever happens. (“Mommy? How are babies born?” “Well, when two people really love each other, they pray really hard. And if they believe strongly enough, God will provide them with a little miracle.” “Mommy, that’s bullshit. They fuck. And what’s love? You and daddy have never shown me that.”)

“And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand.”

So, what you’re saying is that, if we had attacked anywhere else unprovoked, the terrorists wouldn’t have come to attack us? Iraq is the only place this would have happened?

FUCK, no! They would have attacked us if we had gone into France and attacked the Parisians. Suddenly France would be the new al Queda training ground. I really wish Bush would stop trying to tie Iraq to Sept. 11th. His attack on Iraq had NOTHING to do with that day. Not one fucking thing. No matter how much he and his trainers tried to tie them together they couldn’t do it. But now, instead of actually making up little falsities that even seem plausible, all they do is talk about them in the same sentence to tie them together in nice little verbal bows. I’m willing to bet that, if there was a poll taken today, well over half the people in the US would still believe that there are ties. Not because they actually heard facts, but because the president and his cronies keep mentioning them together. That needs to stop. It’s misleading.

“Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying, and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question, ‘Is the sacrifice worth it?’ It is worth it. And it is vital to the future security of our country.”

I wonder if he actually does see what we see. Somehow I doubt it. He’s probably cushioned from it. And I really want him to look a parent of a fallen soldier and say, “Your child’s life was worth it. He was worth my agenda.”

“Uh. Mr. President. The child was a 34 year old woman.”

“The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi, and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch.”

I think we already have forgotten the lesson of Sept. 11th. That lesson was that we have been treating people around the world like second class citizens and it’s time to pull our troops out of places where they’re not wanted. It’s time to stop using the world like our own personal battlefield. We aren’t the World Police. Leave that to Interpol. (The organization, not the band. I doubt that four or five skinny guys in black suits would really be able to do much to catch international criminals. I dunno, though. They could be pretty tough.)

We need to stop trying to use our military power to intimidate the world. Even if that’s not what we’re trying to do, that’s the way we’re perceived. And it’s time to fix that. THIS is why terrorism happens. Yes, it’s a horrible thing and it needs to be stopped and these men need to be caught, but we can’t do it on our own. And that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to do for the last 50 years or so. We beat countries into submission, help them get out of their holes and then treat them like our 51st states. Look at Germany. We beat the shit out of them at the end of WWII. Then we helped them back on their feet. Then we stayed. And we stayed a little longer. And, just to be different, we stayed a little longer. We’re still there. We basically own Germany. We pretty much own England, too. Sure, they have their own leaders, but they wouldn’t dare go against us. Why? Not because they really feel any kind of loyalty, but because of fear. Plain and simple fear.

The only people who seem to not fear us are the terrorists. And, really, that’s just a facade. They’re scared to death of us. That’s why they attack in the night or completely out of the blue with our own equipment. (Usually given to them by us.) The only difference, really, between some place like Germany and people like bin Laden is that bin Laden wants us dead. Germany just wants us to get out. I’m sure they’re sick of us over there. Why do you think Japan was buying us out for so long? Not to make more money, but to try to get their own country back!

Yeah, this is partly a joke, but there’s a grain of truth to it. I don’t really think that Germany hates us. I do think there’s a little seed of resentment, though. Just listen to the way they talk, with all those guttural sounds and spit.

“The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom.”

Thanks for your permission, Georgie.

Seriously, George, do you really want these people to be free? Somehow I don’t believe that. Because if they are seriously free, what’s the first thing they’ll probably do? Kick us the fuck out. They’ll be Muslims who don’t want to give us anything because we’ve treated them like crap for the past who knows how many years. “Ha hah! You want oil? Well, we don’t have any more. Fresh out. Fuck you!”

“But we freed you!”

“Yes, and thank you. Now we can live without you. Fuck off!”

George doesn’t want these people to be free because they’re not Christians. And he doesn’t want them to be free (especially) because they have oil. Lots of it. And if we can get that oil for free, then that’s much better for us (read: the Republican agenda) than if we suddenly have a free Muslim country.

“We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed and not a day longer.”

Too late.

Ok, I’ve had just about enough of this. All I’m doing is getting pissed off. That’s all politics really does for me anymore. It makes me irrevocably angry.

Let’s move on to something a little more colorful.

While all of this bullshit was going on in Iraq and around the world, the whole country was gathered around the tv to watch the most important story of the century: the trial of Michael Jackson!

Fuck. What the hell are we thinking? Who cares? This guy is one of the biggest has-beens in entertainment history and now he’s in the middle of one of the most embarrassing things that anyone could ever be in the middle of. He was caught…once again(!)…diddling little kids. Sure, he was found innocent, but the jury didn’t even believe that he was truly innocent. They just thought that he didn’t do it IN THIS CASE! Oh, he’s done it before, they said. But not this time. And they couldn’t put him away for something he may have done in the past that he’s not being tried for.

O….k. So, let’s put him back in Neverland where he can do it again and again and again.

And the kicker is: Mikey wants to play Live 8 tomorrow. Bob Geldof, great man that he is, told Michael no. He told the Once and Never Again King Of Poop, “I think you need to take some time off. You need to be out of the spotlight for a little while.” What he was actually thinking, though, was “Mike, I don’t want you’re child molesting ass anywhere NEAR my shit. And stay away from my kids, too. I saw you looking at them.”

Fuck Michael Jackson. The man put out two and a half good albums (and I’m being nice…really only about half of Off The Wall and Thriller are any good at all) and a bunch of great singles as a kid. He’s lost all of his talent and most of his audience. The only way he can fill his need for constant media attention is to occasionally be brought into the spotlight for his freakish nature. If we would just leave him alone (without any kids, of course) he would just disappear into his weird-ass Zanadu with monkey by his side to watch his lonely wedding cake dissolve in the night.

And, no, it doesn’t help his case any when Macauley Culkin and Corey Feldman come running to his aid to say, “Yeah, I slept with him. It was all good.”

I’ll let that sentence stand on its own. I believe it can.

And how ‘bout the other freaks of the celeb life?

Ah, hell. Let’s get to Tom and Katie.

Is it just me, or is everyone just sick to death of hearing about Tom. Katie I can still take. First off, she’s still cute as hell. Second, I’ve heard her speak outside of her most recent movie role once where she said something about really loving Tom and how scientology is interesting to her. (That makes me lose a little respect…more on that in a minute.)

But fucking Tom. He’s just gone WAY off the deep end. His Oprah appearance was just the tip of the crazy iceberg. That was just him jumping up and down on a couch screaming about how much he “loves” Katie. (Whatever.) I think the foundation of that iceberg finally capsized the boat when he talked to Matt Lauer the other day. Here’s what I remember of that particular interview for the War Of The Worlds press junket:

“Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt!……..Matt! Matt!………Matt!”

Yup. That’s about all he said. That and something to the effect that Matt didn’t know the history of psychiatry, but he did. And that psychiatry is a pseudo-science.

Uuuuuuhhhhh…..Does Tommy not know that the “Science” in scientology stands for pseudo-science? It’s a fucking religion based on a novel written by a second rate sci-fi writer. Anybody see Battlefield Earth? Yeah. That guy! He sucks!! When he found out that people were taking his fiction book, Dianetics, seriously he exploited it into a religion for stupid people with a LOT of money.

You see, the more money you pay this “church,” the more tiers of their “knowledge” you get to read through. Once you get close to the top tier you start to get to the REALLY juicy stuff. The stuff about the aliens that crashed into volcano on the cover of the book and the souls of those aliens that now haunt our bodies. We have to cleanse our souls of those souls and try to fight back the evil that is in them.

Tell me that this is not the “religion” that has wormed its way onto the campus of my alma mater and seduced the celebrities of our time.

Well, I guess if Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Rob Thomas (hehehehe) want to believe this bullshit they certainly can. But Tom should NOT be spouting his opinions on psychiatry while he’s supposed to be talking about a movie. All Matt did was ask him about his criticism of Brooke Shields for taking medicine to overcome her post-partum depression. Apparently, that’s a horrible thing to do.

And, ya know, I can understand where he’s coming from on some of it. Yes, stuff like Ritalin is WAY over-used. And they hasn’t been studied nearly enough. And the way they study them is just plain wrong. (They use kids as guinea pigs, basically. Most of the doctors who give these drugs out DON’T really know the full effect they will have on the kids. They’ve just been courted by the drug companies, so they have to give the drugs out all the time.)

Does this mean that they never help? Nope. It means that they need to be given out very carefully. It also means that there are definitely some people who have been helped by psychiatry and the drugs that they prescribe. Will a better diet help everyone? Nope. Some people are well beyond that. Believe me, if you’re truly manic-depressive or in the middle of post-partum depression, the LAST thing on your mind is diet and exercise. And if fucking Tom Cruise doesn’t understand that…well, I guess the world will go on. Because he’s really not very important. And no one really cares if he’s sucking off Rob or if he’s really IN LOVE, IN LOVE, IN LOVE, IN LOVE with Katie Holmes. If he came out of the closet tomorrow it would be news for about a week and then everybody would forget about it. Trust me on this. The only people who wouldn’t recover are the recruiters who still use Top Gun as a recruitment movie. They would have to start using Black Hawk Down. And recruitment would plummet.

Is it a scientologist plot? Is Katie being paid off to hang with Tom while the whole Rob Thomas thing blows over? (Heh heh heh.) Will her career take off after the divorce like Nicole’s did? Who knows? Who cares?

This Fourth of July, take a look around you. Hang out with your friends and family. Think about what this country is really about. Ignore the hype. Get away from the news. Just hang out and be. Take full advantage of the freedoms that living in the USA grants you, while you still can. And keep in mind: you’re not Michael Jackson, a scientologist or a president. You’re not a freak.