Dr. Seuss Sees Americagreenspun.com : LUSENET : Beyond the Sidewalks : One Thread |
DR. SEUSS SEES AMERICAThe Whos down in Whoville liked people a lot, But the Grinch in the White House most certainly did not. He didn't arrive there by the will of the Whos, But stole the election that he really did lose. Vowed to "rule from the middle," then installed his regime. (Did this really happen, or is it just a bad dream?)
He didn't listen to voters, just his friends he was pleasin' Now, please don't ask why, who knows what's the reason. It could be his heart wasn't working just right. It could be, perhaps, that he wasn't too bright. But I think that the most likely reason of all, Is that both brain and heart were two sizes too small. In times of great turmoil, this was bad news, To have a government that ignores its Whos.
But the Whos shrugged their shoulders, went on with their work, Their duties as citizens so casually did shirk. They shopped at the mall and watched their T.V. They drove a gas guzzling big S.U.V., Oblivious to what was going on in D.C., Ignoring the threats to democracy.
They read the same papers that ran the same leads, Reporting what only served corporate needs. (For the policies affecting the lives of all nations Were made by the giant U.S. Corporations.) Big business grew fatter, fed by its own greed, And by people who shopped for the things they didn't need.
But amidst all the apathy came signs of unrest, The Whos came to see we were fouling our nest. And the people who cared for the ideals of this nation Began to discuss and exchange information: The things they couldn't read, in the corporate-owned news, Of FTAA meetings and CIA coups, Of drilling for oil and restricting rights.
They published some books, created Websites, Began to write letters, and use their e-mail (Though Homeland Security might send them to jail!)
What began as a whisper soon grew to a roar, These things going on they could no longer ignore. They started to rise up and reach out to all Let their voices be heard, they rose to the call, To vote, to petition, to gather, dissent, To question the policies of the "President."
As greed gained in power and power knew no shame The Whos came together, sang "Not in our name!" One by one from their sleep and their slumber they woke The old and the young, all kinds of folk, The black, brown and white, the gay, bi- and straight, All united to sing, "Feed our hope, not our hate!
Stop stockpiling weapons and aiming for war! Stop feeding the rich, start feeding the poor! Stop storming the deserts to fuel SUV's! Stop telling us lies on the mainstream TV's! Stop treating our children as a market to sack! Stop feeding them Barney, Barbie and Big Mac! Stop trying to addict them to lifelong consuming, In a time when severe global warming is looming! Stop sanctions that are killing the kids in Iraq! Start dealing with ours that are strung out on crack!"
A mighty sound started to rise and to grow, "The old way of thinking simply must go! Enough of God versus Allah, Muslim vs. Jew With what lies ahead, it simply won't do. No American dream that cares only for wealth Ignoring the need for community health The rivers and forests are demanding their pay, If we're to survive, we must walk a new way. No more excessive and mindless consumption Let's sharpen our minds and garner our gumption.
For the ideas are simple, but the practice is hard, And not to be won by a poem on a card. It needs the ideas and the acts of each Who, So let's get together and plan what to do!"
And so they all gathered from all 'round the Earth And from it all came a miraculous birth. The hearts and the minds of the Whos they did grow, Three sizes to fit what they felt and they know. While the Grinches they shrank from their hate and their greed, Bearing the weight of their every foul deed.
From that day onward the standard of wealth, Was whatever fed the Whos spiritual health. They gathered together to revel and feast, And thanked all who worked to conquer their beast. For although our story pits Grinches 'gainst Whos, The true battle lies in what we daily choose. For inside each Grinch is a tiny small Who, And inside each Who is a tiny Grinch too. One thrives on love and one thrives on greed. Who will win out? It depends who you feed!
Author: Unknown
-- Anonymous, March 31, 2003
Thanks for that, Tren! This is most definitely a Grinch tale that I pray will someday come true!!!
-- Anonymous, April 01, 2003
Thank you Trennie! That is fantastic!!!!!!! Gotta copy.....K
-- Anonymous, April 01, 2003
Sheepish, I see what you mean about the Senator thread! It's not working! Veddy interestink, eh?I'm going to attempt a link again, but won't hold my breath, so if it doesn't work, just copy and past address (duh):)
"http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bo/2003/bo030707.gif">boondocks
-- Anonymous, July 08, 2003
Get a load of this!http://www.selectsmart.com/PRESIDENT/who.php
-- Anonymous, July 11, 2003
How did Kucinich get up there so high??? !! In Washington it was him half) and then (scary) Greens 15%, then Bush 10%. Hmmm. Now you Green folk need to think about this: Is your idealism worth electing Bush back into the White House? (think Nader)...Ooops thread driiiiiiiiiiiiifffffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttttt...
-- Anonymous, July 12, 2003
If this is for real, perhaps there is hope for this country after all! Everyone assumes Kucinich can't win, 'too liberal', but I dunno for sure. Even the fact that he is doing so well on internet polls, when he is being completely ignored by the media, (he's corporate america's worst nightmare) says that people who keep harping that the long-disenfranchised masses who never vote anymore might be capable of being awakened if they had a candidate who spoke to them, might not be nuts after all.Course I don't think the PTB would allow him to live if he really gained widespread acceptance, but even if they made a martyr out of him (goddess forbid), the people would be activated. The funny lookin little guy reminds me a lot of Paul, rest his soul.
-- Anonymous, July 12, 2003
ah yes, the DLC..............http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15092
-- Anonymous, July 12, 2003
Sheepish, do you actually think that the GREENS were the cause of Bush winning the election? Despite our best efforts, Nader did not get that great a percentage of the vote.Heck, I voted for Nader (and proud of it!), Gore took Wisconsin ANYWAY, and Bush "won" the election. What I've read, the final counting, completed AFTER the Supreme Court declared Bush to be Prez, showed that Gore actually won the popular vote. But as you know, the ELECTORAL COLLEGE decides who to actually vote for.
So, now what were you saying about Greens? I'm not officially a Green Party member, but I voted for their candidate -- it had not one iota of effect on the outcome!
Kucinich's biggest problem will be getting himself and his ideas known. The internet votes really don't reflect the country as a whole. Nader was doing great on the internet, and you see how that came out -- fizzle.
-- Anonymous, July 13, 2003
I'm just being obnoxious! And antsy about the election, I guess.
-- Anonymous, July 14, 2003
You ain't obnoxious, sheepish. I know how upset we all are about what has happened to this country; it's beyond anyone's wildest nightmares, I expect, and natural both to want to point fingers and get defensive!Slowly the truth is beginning to leak out, but hard to say if there's enough time to get through to the blind, deaf and dumb masses.........................................
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16438 (whole story)
"Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and investigative reporter for the UK's The Guardian, The Observer and the BBC, is once again raking the muck for the truth about our current leaders, using English media platforms to report stories the mainstream American press won't touch. His latest foray, a one-hour BBC3 special, "Bush Family Fortunes," which first ran June 19th, allowed British audiences to watch reportage virtually forbidden to American viewers – but revealed, in part, here.
With a tongue-in-cheek film noir-ish style, the documentary discloses damning new information regarding President Bush's dubious Texas Air National Guard stint. Wearing a private eye's trench coat and fedora, Palast went to the Lone Star State, "To find out how George Bush got the cushy job of defending Houston, Texas from Viet Cong attack........"
"I get pissed off about something – I kind of have Orwell's old job ... I get whipped up, I want to go after these guys, let's go and get them!" Palast proclaims. And nothing seems to rile this son of the proletariat more than suspected links between the dynastic Bushes, Saudi royals, and Islamic extremists. Denying he's a "conspiracy nut," as right-wingers have dubbed him, Palast's sleuthing has nevertheless taken him where few have gone.
"I was concerned with why we weren't following the money," he says. "The same Saudi money that funded G.W.'s oil companies, [financed] Osama and terrorists ... The bin Laden family's financier in America [James R. Bath], was the backer of George W. Bush's earliest oil patch ventures." According to Palast, Bath represented the interests of "Osama's daddy, Sheikh Salim bin Laden, and Sheikh Kalid bin Mahfouz, who had a connection to BCCI," the scandalous Bank of Credit and Commerce, a.k.a. the "Bank of Crooks and Criminals," tied to arms trafficking, money laundering, etc. In "Bush Family Fortunes," Palast contends: "So Bush's oil capital coming from Bath, and Bath's money coming apparently from the bin Ladens..........."
-- Anonymous, July 18, 2003
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0601-02.htmand the walls come tumbling down............
-----------------------------------------------
So how on earth did the British people come to believe Saddam was sitting in one of his palaces with an itchy trigger finger poised above a button marked 'WMD'? And if there were no WMDs, then why did we fight the war? The answer lies with Rumsfeld.
With September 11 as his ideological backdrop, Rumsfeld decided in autumn 2001 to establish a new intelligence agency, independent of the CIA and the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). He put his deputy, Wolfowitz, in charge. The pair were dissatisfied with the failure of the CIA among others to provide firm proof of both Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal and links to al-Qaeda.
Regime change in Iraq had been a long-term goal of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. Even before Bush took over the presidency in September 2000 the pair were planning 'regime change' in Iraq. As founders of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), one of the USA's most extreme neo-con think-tanks, the pair were behind what has been described as the 'blueprint' for US global domination -- a document called Rebuilding America's Defenses.
Other founders of the PNAC include: Vice-President Dick Cheney; Bush's younger brother Jeb; and Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. The Rebuilding America's Defenses. document stated: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.......'
-- Anonymous, July 19, 2003
I saw that you girls were on this subject again when it kept popping up in my e-box,yeah EM! The walls are tumbling down but that is Ok, its the way it was planned and we are all gonna learn how to make rock soup.
I got this today, thought some of you would enjoy.
QUOTE~
April 23, 2003 George W. Bush's Resume A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY by Kelley Kramer
I recently had an email exchange with a right-winger from my local newspaper, and of course the war with Iraq came up pretty quick. But he said something in defense of George Bush that really surprised me. In defense of the attack on Iraq he said 'between Hussein and Bush, Hussein is the bad guy'.
My first response was ... So your guy is better than a third world dictator, Wow! what an accomplishment! Does he put that on his resume?
And with that in mind, I started wondering ... what would a George W. Bush resume look like exactly?
Listed below is what I came up with,
Best!
Kelley Kramer
-------------
George W. Bush Resume
Past work experience:
Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments: Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money. Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my fathers appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as president:
Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.
Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders circumventing the Constitution than any president in US history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. (http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/)
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Chevron oil tanker named after her).
Had more states to simultaneously go bankrupt than any president in the history of the United States.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).
All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
My biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
First president in US history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
With a policy of 'dis-engagement' created the most hostile Israeli- Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
Fist US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.
Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.
In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the civil war.
Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
Records and References:
At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
AWOL from National Guard and Deserted the military during a time of war.
Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my fathers library, sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.
All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public review.
For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war- profiteering.)
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
* * *
BuzzFlash Note: Bush's Resume is now available as an email-attachment- friendly PDF (courtesy of BushOccupation.com). Or you can download it from BuzzFlash at this link.
Revised 5/19/03 .
-- Anonymous, July 21, 2003
I thought this particularly succinct and amusing:----------------------------
February 13 - 16, 2004
Lost in OC: In Defense of Gay Marriage
So just shut up and buy Adam and Steve a nice present already
by Jim Washburn
Last week, a Massachusetts court ruled that gay marriage is legal in that state, providing new fuel for conservatives who are gearing up to make gay marriage the wedge issue of the presidential election. President Bush has already hinted that a constitutional amendment, for crissakes, may be necessary to stave off this gay threat.
Responding to the Massachusetts ruling, Bush released a statement saying, "Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. If activist judges insist on re-defining marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional process. We must do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."
Before we all go into knee-jerk paroxysms of knee-slapping hilarity over this non-issue being hoisted by these moral morons, consider their side for a minute: Does allowing gays to marry threaten the institution of marriage?
If you really think about it, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
If you’re straight and married, you’ve almost certainly got gay people to thank for it. Wedding planners, florists, clothiers, hairstylists, caterers, priests: it’s no mere stereotype that these professions abound in gay folk, and your wedding would have been drab if not impossible without them. Add to that the gay friends and officemates who make such a pleasant and positive fuss about your nuptials. And TV’s Queer Eye spiff-up squad is only a distillation of what gay people have been doing for ages: making straight men and women look desirable, or at least survivable, to each other so that they might hook up.
If gays were busy getting married themselves, do you think they’d have time to preen the rest of us? We’d all be back in the trailer park in our overalls, picking scabs off our unmoisturized faces and wondering why the phone doesn’t ring. It is only because gays can’t marry that they get caught up at all in the romance and filigree of heterosexual marriage, and they’d be off us like fleas off a wet dog if they could go to weddings that didn’t depend upon our breeder antics. It’s not just marriage, but the very survival of the species that depends upon gays being forcibly kept—by constitutional amendment, if need be—in their role as our eternal best men and bridesmaids.
Now on to the knee-jerk paroxysms: aside from the above, every gay man and woman in the nation could marry five times over, and it would not affect you a whit. Why the hell should you care? If Eskimos marry, does your wedding bed grow cold? If gays marry, does your wife grow a dick? It does not affect you! Remember one of the founding tenets that made America great: mind your own goddamn business. That goes double if you’re the government prying in between the sheets.
I’ve known some gays who are real jerks. That’s because they’re like everybody else, except for the making your wife grow a dick thing. There are gay jerks, gay Samaritans, gay plumbers, gay machinists, gay bums, gay war heroes and gay Sept. 11 victims. They get to pay the same taxes, do the same jury duty and die in the same wars (albeit with a sense of service and secrecy that straights needn’t muster) as every other citizen. Why shouldn’t their love and commitment be accorded the same respect and protections in the land to which they contribute and defend?
But gay marriage would make a mockery of marriage! And that’s the job of heterosexuals, right? Can they possibly screw it up worse than straight folks? The divorce rate’s higher than 50 percent, and couples are bailing out of marriages quicker than ever; something like 60 percent of married men and 40 percent of married women have extramarital affairs; and their kids who aren’t busy shooting their classmates are packed with so many pills they sound like maracas when you shake them.
An 86-year-old sleazeball can marry an 18-year-old dominatrix, and that is sanctified. Larry King can marry for the seventh time, and it’s sanctified. Britney Spears can get married and annulled quicker than you can say "publicity whore," and it is sanctified. Yet a gay couple that has stuck it out through better and worse for 40 years, being exemplary neighbors and citizens the whole while, pose a threat to marriage? It is legal for them to marry, of course, just not to each other. They could go out this afternoon and marry a total stranger, so long as it’s someone of the opposite sex. That’s the law. What’s left to mock?
But for all of history, marriage has meant the sacred bond between a man and a woman! Except for when it meant a man and several women, or a man and a woman and his deceased brother’s wife, or a man and his slave, which wasn’t significantly different from being his wife since women were chattel with no say in their own lives and certainly no vote. Let’s be guided in all things by historical precedent, shall we? I’ll go lock up the slaves and child laborers while you go get the horse—but don’t hook no buggy to it because that ain’t how we done things—and we’ll go downtown and shout down those apostates trying to introduce antibiotics, electricity, pavement, baseball and all that other newfangled nonsense.
But what about the Bible? Oh, you mean the part where Jesus chased the gays from the temple with a stick? Hold on, I read that wrong: it was the money changers Jesus was after, suggesting that today he’d be whacking heads on Wall Street not Christopher Street. But what about the time he berated the mob of gay people? Oops, sorry, it wasn’t gays; it was a mob of judgmental zealots that he told off, remember, when he admonished that only he who was without sin should cast the first stone.
Unlike the fearmongering preachers spewing bile on the airwaves today, Jesus said a lot about love and acceptance, but he never uttered a single syllable about homosexuality. Ah, but he did give a blanket affirmation of Old Testament law, where a man laying with a man is an abomination punishable by death. But that exists alongside so many other abominations and admonitions that there aren’t enough goats to sacrifice to keep every one of us sinners from being put to death. There are bans on premarital sex, adultery, lust, sleeping with a woman during her period, eating three-day-old meat, eating shellfish and, let’s not forget, "You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." Forgot about that one, didn’t you? Ha-ha, you’re going to Hell. So why not take a tip from Jesus and put your own house in order before you go tearing down your neighbor’s?
But what about the children?
What about them? If you’re worried about gay parents molesting their children, bear in mind that most molestations, even same-sex ones, are done by heterosexual adults. And when parents go bonkers and set their kids on fire or starve them in basements, it’s usually because "God" told them to, not Mr. Blackwell. Sure there are gay monsters, but probably in no greater percentage than there are among straight families. And stable gay couples could adopt some of the unwanted children born to the unfit parents of more sanctified marriages.
But won’t having gay parents cause children to turn gay? Sure, just look at the gay offspring of Dick Cheney, Sonny Bono and Phyllis Schlafly. Gay. Gay. Gay.
But what would gay marriage do to American values?
You may have a point there. Look at Canada, where gay marriage has turned them into such a nation of faggots that they couldn’t even see the clear and imminent danger posed by Iraq. They’ve gone soft loading up on universal medical care and cheap prescription drugs, while we’re left holding the line against Saddam and sodomites alike.
Repeat after me, with gusto this time: "Gays getting married does not affect me."
Please keep that in mind in the months ahead because the American Taliban ensconced in the White House will be doing all they can to bang the anti-gay drum, to distract from issues that do affect you, like: your job going bye-bye overseas; your decline in real wages; the health-insurance crisis; the deficit that will hobble your children’s future; the children left behind by No Child Left Behind; the willful dismantling of environmental protections; the subjugation of our energy policy to corporate interests; the unbridled corruption of White House cronies like Enron and Halliburton; the runaway military budget; the abrogation of our civil rights; the lies told to us to fabricate an unnecessary war costing hundreds of American lives and billions of dollars, with no end in sight. You know, issues like those, the kind grown-ups talk about while the kids and feebleminded are out obsessing over their neighbors’ wee-wees.
jwashburn@ocweekly.com.
-- Anonymous, March 13, 2004