Urgent Memo to All Neo-Cons!

Special Instructions

Be Keerful 'bout thu sinsus!

First of all, pleeze except MeanMesa's 'pology fer the reel bad info we sent ya' back in November 2008.  Thet wuld be when we told 'ya thet Republikins wuld be a'votin' on Wendsday instead o'Toosday lahk eveybuddy else.  Thet wuz a dammed typin' errore.

Jest now, houwevah, ole' MeanMesa's got anutha 'portant 'nnouncemunt fer y'all. 

Lis'n Up!  Yup, we talkin' sinsus!

Whutevah ya dew, DON'T LET THEM SINSUS THUGS GIT YER NAME OR NOTHIN' ELSE 'BOUT YA ON THEIR DAMMED LIST!

A Special note to ar' neo-con brothus 'n sisters in Nuew Mecksiko -

Raht hea, stuff gits a lil' comprecated.  All neo-cons in New Mecksiko, go raht ahead 'n give 'em yer stuff.  MeanMesa has done cooked up a SECRET PLAN!  Heah 'n New Mecksiko, we gonna' boost thet count so's we kin complane even more 'bout them immigrates comin' 'cross thu border.  If'n thu count gits real haigh here in Neuw Meckisko, we kin really git evun KRASZIER 'bout thu problum n' form milishas 'n stuff.

Howevah, if ya' DON't live in New Mecksiko, ya' gotta run them federels raht outta' yer yard!  Whut they's doin' is unholy 'n its 'gainst The Bible!

But, whutevah yew doo, don't shoot 'em.  Them librels are a'running thu whole damm country raht now, 'n they'll cum fer yew jest as shure as all git out.

MeanMesa s'gests yew jest say som'thin lahk "Git yer commie butt off'a mah lawn, you soshlist fed!" or, "Ah ain't puttin' mah name on thet dammed sinsus 'till Hell's freezes over!  Now git!"

sew, doo yer Patrotik dooty an' jes Stop This Here stinkin' thang raht in its tracks.  Thet ther'll show 'em once n' fer all thet they kain't mess with us!

Wha, soona r' later they'll jes figger out thet we's too smart fer 'em! 

Aside from the rather unsettling humor in the above fiction, the results of the National Census represent two central problems for the, uh, freedom loving, free market "Capitalists" who pipe the tune for the neo-con dance.


Problem One:  Redistricting.

For example, we all saw exactly how this maneuver, when properly manipulated by powerful neo-cons in the House of Representatives,  was able to add five Republican House members to the Texas delegation under the screamingly corrupt hand of the ex-exterminator turned Speaker, Tom DeLay.  Now, the neo-cons are very reasonably concerned with the prospect of the same process acting against them.

Voting districts which elect members of Congress are continually adjusted based on the results of the Census.  That process is defined by the US Constitution.

Problem Two:  Looting the Treasury

During subsequent Congresses, many parts (usually, the non-pork barrel parts) of the annual budget are allocated to various regions of the country based on the results of the Census.  If a Federal program calls for certain allowances to be made to all citizens, the number of citizens in a state is an important starting point for how that money will be distributed.  The same system defines how many tax dollars every state, once again, based on how many citizens there are in a state, the Treasury can expect at tax time.

If the Census results indicate fewer citizens in a state than there actually are, part of the Federal money which normally would have been allocated to that state stays in the Treasury where it can be looted by neo-cons and Republicans.  Likewise, the taxes expected from specific states based on the number of citizens in each one, are also underestimated, leaving the uncollected taxes to be, wait for it, wait for it, looted.

No Bone to Pick with Mayor Elect Berry

Well, maybe just one.

The election for Albuquerque's new mayor is complete. The three way race required a 40% margin if the winner was to avoid a run-off. The new mayor, Mr. Berry, managed to win over a roughly 43% majority, making him the new mayor.

It was a three way race. The candidates were comprised of the three term incumbent, Mr. Chavez, a Democrat, Mr. Romero, a pseudo-Democrat emerging from the state Senate and the Albuquerque Public School system, and, Mr. Berry, a hard hat wearing conservative Republican. MeanMesa has no particular problem with Mr. Berry being mayor – yet.

MeanMesa also provided a lukewarm support for the incumbent, Mr. Chavez, a fairly progressive local type who consistently gored the bulls of citizens with all ideologies equally. Of course, there were always the hillbillies and bigots who criticized the old mayor as a serial killer, cannibal and psycho-obsessive abortionist searching for ways to destroy Western Civilization, but in Democratic New Mexico such types rarely got very far beyond the pages of the local Red State Rag, the Albuquerque Journal.

The game breaker in this matter turned out to be, however, quite a different matter. That strange political role, a reckless gambit in perfidy, fell to the grotesque Mr. Romero, an alleged Democrat who had just yesterday finished “re-allocating” his $23,000 Congressional war chest to Republican candidates all across the state after losing that 2008 election. A closer look at Mr. Romero's part in the election of a Republican Conservative to be mayor of a progressive Democratic city brings us to the central issue of this MeanMesa post.

A sober analysis of the votes cast reveals the problem. When we, perhaps over generously consider Mr. Romero a Democrat, around 70% of Albuquerque electors voted for Democratic candidates in the election, yet – the result was a conservative Republican mayor. Was this travesty an outrageous case of Rove-style election fraud? Sadly, no. It can be much more accurately described as a case of a subversive, neo-con, CANDIDATE FRAUD!

Mr. Romero, a screaming, ill groomed shill in the election, successfully portrayed himself – just barely – as a Democrat in the race. Under informed voters who were, very reasonably, reluctant to elevate Mr. Chavez to yet another term as mayor, but who were still firmly Democrats in all their other voting habits, fell for the scheme “hook, line and sinker.”

New Mexicans, like most other Americans, learned a dismal lesson from the consequences of creating the Bush Dynasty. Being “gun shy” of a mayoral dynasty – after all, Mr. Chavez kept getting himself elected, term after term – they embraced a change. However, the precise change they were embracing was different from the Titanic's ice berg only by being slightly smaller and quite a bit more soiled.

Ice bergs are rarely as oily as Mr. Romero.

Republicans, although horrible at foreign policy, limiting government, promoting the economy, winning wars and most other forms of traditional leadership once elected, are, still, incredibly adept at winning elections. They have mastered a juggernaut technique at exploiting every basic fear walking the streets of America from Boston to San Bernardino with their cheap little lies and deceptions. The wretched balloon they inflate with this gaseous reaction-ism stays aloft just long enough to insert them into office, then collapses under the burden of their inevitable greed and failed, simplistic ideology. The results are far too close and bloody to be conveniently dispatched as simply “bad luck,” “bad intelligence,” or any kind of some other “bad something.” You know, as someone else's fault.

Yet, here we are, staring down the barrel of the next four years with a Republican mayor and all the mischief we can credibly expect to accompany that unfortunate fluke. We'll give Mr. Berry the benefit of the doubt, but we won't be too surprised when we see Albuquerque's descent into a new carnival of even more distance between the “haves and the have nots.”

Mr. Berry's four year term may well prove to be long enough to re-establish the foothold of a new well connected, privileged elite. The wealthy subdivisions in the North of Albuquerque are full of repossessed mansions selling at 60% of the price they commanded two years ago. The state is rapidly filling with Stimulus Money, much of which will arrive for civic projects for Albuquerque. Under a Republican mayor -- especially one with an appetite for "hard hats" -- and a “purified” neo-con city government, MeanMesa has a sickening suspicion about exactly which Albuquerque citizens will get “stimulated.”

Yuck. They've done it again.

The Presidential Pardon Party -- Happy Holidays!

The last act of the strange dark drama in the White House?

Don't count on it.

Think of it as a office gift exchange. 74

Two almost identical young men stood waiting outside the Oval Office in a line with several dozen more, every one an almost perfect copy. All aspiring young attorneys from K Street or elsewhere, they seemed to have arrived from a call to central casting. The hair cut of each one was conservative, identically short and stylish. The well scrubbed, boyish faces all emphasized the overpriced, tailored suits and the multi-hundred dollar silk ties. The practiced mood of subdued reverence was one obviously mastered for missions such as this one.

“Are they doing this in alphabetical order?” the younger of the two asked, turning to face the man next to his position in the line.

His slightly older friend whispered an answer. “Sort of alphabetical, I guess. They started at about 10 AM with Jeb, Harriet Meiers and a list of secret pardons from Cheney. A big bound book of Wall Street names took an hour after that -- we’ll never know who was in there. They did Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham early this morning, than a bunch of rapid fire ‘B’s’ -- you know, Bolton, Blackwater, Blackwell, and Brownie, et cetera. Giuliani and Rumsfeld came as twin drag queens.”

“Michael Scanlon and Tom DeLay’s attorney were here early yesterday. But, after those two, they did Bob Ney and Ralph Reed. An attorney even got the gay guy, Gannon, pardoned. His lawyer didn’t have much of a cash bundle, so I figure they must have had a little dirt of some kind. I guess the male prostitution business isn’t so lucrative anymore.” he continued.

The door opened momentarily to discharge a small group of the previous supplicants. The line inched forward as another small group of the young attorneys entered. The younger of the two quietly peeked through the crack for a glimpse at what was awaiting him when his turn arrived.

The scene was a surreal theater.

All the normal furniture of the Oval Office had been removed, replaced with garish things suggesting screen props from an 1950’s version of Alice in Wonderland. The place was filled with potted ferns and roses. Geese, goats and gerbils seemed to be rushing around in the open area, each contributing its voice to the clamor. Providing background music, a quartet costumed as Cheshire Cats with banjos and harps struggled along with a faint timbre of what might have been some cheerful Transylvanian folk dance had it been produced with more suitable instruments.

A single drummer, dressed as the traditional hooded figure of “Death,” beat out a melancholy, yet consolidating rhythm on a solitary snare held by a suspiciously decorated leather strap around his neck and shoulder. His drumming seemed to inspire the animals, at least the geese, to attempt to synchronize their squawking with the beat.

The President was seated at one end of the room on an elaborate sort of medieval chair. He was dressed in a theatrical lime green tuxedo with tails. Obviously inebriated, even though still early morning, he slumped with the detachment of a depressed imperial indifference to the events in the room. He wore a great, green top hat, probably made of foam rubber, adorned with rhinestones and peacock feathers in a long flowing plume.

A troop of immense, bare chested wrestlers had just completed their performance. Staffers were hurriedly ushering them out the far door. A dance team of young women dressed as Vestal Virgins waited impatiently for a signal to begin the next entertainment act. Some had already begun to throw rose petals onto floor at the center of the room.

Several young men from the same waiting line were in the Oval Office moving respectfully around what seemed to be a Bush administration version of the “stations of the cross.”

Wide eyed, the young lobbyist attorney again turned to his more experienced acquaintance, puzzled. “What in God’s name is going on in there?”

His friend answered calmly. “Relax. If you’d been here last time, you would understand everything. I spoke to a guy from the Chief of Staff’s office yesterday. It seems that the Bush wanted to avoid the Berlin Bunker atmosphere for the pardoning ceremony. The President choreographed this whole thing himself.”

Again, the first young lawyer stumbled. “But what does all this mean?”

His acquaintance answered. “In 2004 the motive was the Crusades. This year, it’s the Mad Hatter. Didn’t your boss tell you anything about this?”

The younger man responded, glancing down at the huge suitcase of 1,000 Euro notes handcuffed to his wrist, “All he told me was to make sure that the currency counting machine was stopped after the batch before me before I put all these Euros in it. He said it might not look like it, but that the exact amount of cash was important. He said it was something like a contribution to the Presidential Library Fund or something.”

His friend offered, “Well, it’s good that you’ve got that part straight. What happens in the room is simple enough. You go directly to the Attorney General -- he’s the one dressed in the Supreme Court robes. He will give you a parking ticket with your boss’s name on it.”

“After that, you take the ticket to the tall guy over by the windows. He’s playing the role of the Great Confessor. He’s the one dressed up as a medieval abbot. He’ll ask you if your client wants to voluntarily confess to the charges on the ticket. He means your boss, of course. You raise your hand and say ‘Yes, Great Confessor. My client confesses that he is truly guilty as charged.’ At that point, all the judicial stuff is done.”

“Then put all your Euro’s in the currency counter in front of Paulson.”

He could see Secretary of the Treasury sitting on a great wooden throne, elevated above the remainder of the room. Costumed as an extravagant courtier, he was heavily made up with bizarre cosmetics. Flamboyant lipstick had enlarged the outline of his mouth to reach from ear to ear suggesting a threatening psychopathy. Every detail of the man’s appearance was darkly grotesque.

“Let his little elf there in front of the throne run all the cash through the counting machine. When it’s done, he will whisper the amount in Paulson’s ear. Paulson is the one made up as the Exchequer for the Queen of Hearts. They’ll throw your boss’s, uh, donation in that big pot, and the ‘Exchequer’ will nod at the President.”

Astonished, the first young lawyer asked, “And then?”

His friend answered, “And then the Mad Hatter will wave his hand and the bunch from the Justice Department will issue your boss’s blanket pardon. You want to slowly and reverently back away -- withdraw ceremoniously toward this same door. Bowing subserviently wouldn’t hurt.”

The newer man asked, “What’s the parking ticket’s part in all of this?”

His more experienced associate responded, “That’s important. Blanket pardons can’t be issued without an admission of guilt. Now, we both know that the exact details of the, uh, ‘guilt’ involved here could hardly bear the light of day, so confessing to the parking ticket is a way to cover everything. Think of it as a symbolic act of contrition. Once you confess in your boss’s behalf, the pardon becomes legal. Of course, it centers on the confession to the parking violation, but, once that’s in the bag, the blanket pardon covers everything else. Slick, huh?”

The young man whispered back, “This is nuts. Does anyone on the, I mean, on the outside have any idea what’s going on here?”

His friend answered, also in a low voice, “No, of course not. You’d better believe it’s better that way. This has been going on a for a couple of days now, but the news black out is holding. Murdoch and the rest of the media CEO’s are scheduled for later today.”

He continued, “I plan to record as much as possible on this belt buckle I got through the security screen. I’ll blackmail my boss if his pardon goes through. I’m sure he’s already budgeted enough to pay me off. After all, he is a K Street lobbyist, right?”

“Wow. I work for an investment banker. They’re a little meaner than K Street guys. You know, a little more violent and pragmatic.” He paused for a moment, clearly deep in thought, then continued. “Gosh. All these people getting pardons. They’ve been running everything for eight years.” He mused pensively. “If they’re all gone, you know, pardoned and everything and gone on back to their regular lives, who’s going to run the government?”

This post proves that pardons can be fun! If you'd like to try it yourself -- with just a few actual facts -- link away!
http://news.muckety.com/2008/11/27/in-final-days-bush-likely-to-pardon-more-than-turkeys/7551

Hypocrisy Hunting in the New Obama Cabinet

Undercutting New Possibilities With Old Ideas? 68

The predictable complaints of hypocrisy, or at least, inconsistency, are now rolling in from any ambitious pundit with a microphone. How could such an idealist as Barrack Obama, that is, someone so highly dedicated to changing the government, announce that he intended to do business with Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton or even John McCain?

By “do business” we mean “give authority and trust.”

The neo-con purists (yes, they still imagine themselves purists after all the soiled things their man committed in the last two terms...) claim that Clinton Cabinet politicos contaminate Obama’s claim to the “high road.” Other hungry commentators dredge relentlessly for contradictions in past positions to compare with what they present as present positions required to fill Obama’s government and support his political philosophy.

Let’s indulge in a fable at this point.

You are a remarkably progressive and idealistic King in a medieval country. You set out to rectify some grave injustices by a military campaign. When it’s time to select generals to conduct this thing you seem to have two choices.

On one side, there is the Abbot, your spiritual advisor, a man with unshakably good, decent ideas about how to improve matters. On the other side, there is General Smith, a ruthlessly successful medieval military strategist with a checkered history of brutality and effectiveness.

If you intend to prevail in this struggle, that is, if you intend to over power the rather impressive and well established enemy who has sponsored these atrocities you find so deplorable, you will select General Smith. Issues such as collateral damage and war crimes associated with the Abbot might be much more palatable than the likely results of General Smith’s campaign, but the results would probably be disappointing.

If you are determined to prevail and advance your cause of decency, General Smith will be your man. First, the war must be won, then your plans can become material. In the meantime, that is, during the conduct of the war, you can insist that General Smith be more decent than he would be normally or than he has been previously, but the necessity of results dictates that you employ his expertise to deliver the possibility of conditions for your own intention.

This progressive King is more armored by his Divine Right than the trust of those who might ultimately benefit from his ideals, but, unlike recent leaders, he will have to trust himself! We have no King. Obama is armored by the trust of those who sent him into this difficult place. His leadership is qualified by his spiritual solidity of trusting himself.

Obama needs a cabinet capable of surviving the inevitable, paralytic aggression of the Republicans. He needs a cabinet which can deliver in Washington politics. The work of these mindless reactionaries has left us a disaster so grave that excuses or near victories, especially when precipitated by the stupid, inexperienced or ineffective application of power, are not an option.

Yes, incorporating individuals with alternative political philosophies may help a little, but the reactionary forces, inflamed as usual by the low road sabotage of hate radio and anti-American Congressional throw backs, have no interest in any solution to our difficult problems. Their cynical interests have nothing to do with America’s future. The entire focus of their babble is directed at maximizing the number of voters in their districts that can they deceive, lie to or frighten into sustaining their offices, reinvigorating their opportunities for looting.

Obama’s ideals will, in fact, make the difference we need. Ideals belong at the top of the pyramid when the ground level is violently contested by well financed cynics and other criminals. Obama’s “ground war” will be conducted by the best he can find, some of the Clinton legacy and other new, competent faces, the 21st century equivalent of that old King’s General Smith.

We trust his idealism, his cabinet selections, his competence, his intellect and his spirit. These vociferous tantrums are to be expected. Neo-cons are allergic to leadership.

The Audacity of Hope Ain’t Jest Whistlin’ Dixie

The young ones really do carry our species' life energy. When they come to life, the rest of us live again, the rest of us dare to remember and dare to dream. Again. 64

Barack Obama appeared at a rally in Albuquerque. 45,000 of my fellow New Mexicans attended. Lots of us have been pounding the pavement for this remarkable candidate for months. Many of us have sensed an unsettling wisp of patriotism. This post, however, concerns a far more spectacular phenomenon.

The almost fearful optimism felt by many of the young strikes light through these chilly, fall, high desert nights. At the outset of his campaign, I could see the reluctance in their eyes. Everything they had heard about politics and politicians, all the cynicism of their parents (and, God forbid, me) became a torturous reality during the Bush Autocracy. The seemingly bottomless self-serving of a wretched, neo-con psycopathy had lost even the inclination to deceive us as they increased their insults, and, for the young, the outrages slipped into a dismal, national, hopeless melancholy of realization that we, as citizens, really had lost a class war.

The hubris of an openly opportunistic Congress as it extracted more and more from the country, the silence of a whining, insistent, self-defined media claiming to be relevant and a President who seemed to walk in a mindless, blood-soaked indifference had all gently groomed these young ones for our national descent. A Justice Department openly determined to serve its masters any outrage they ordered and a Supreme Court which almost instantly inaugurated its party choice in the face of what was called an election quietly reinforced the darkest “No Exit” existential numbness for the young ones.

Challenged, frustrated, they found themselves agonizingly unaware. They absolutely felt, but they were blind sided by not knowing. There was the unsettling possibility -- in those young minds -- that they had been bred stupid to be a meaningless sacrifice in Carl Rove’s dreadful abattoirs. Their fate was to be a lifetime of low caste exploitation, the lot, historically, of all who had suffered the loss of their country. Logic was to mean nothing in the face of power. A tawdry innuendo of gutless democracy and bereft freedom continually demanded that it was enough. That it was all there was. That it had always been all there was.

No wonder they narcotized themselves with useless education, distraction, drugs and half hearted attempts to pretend that the future had somehow survived.

Then came the black man.

I had seen it before, long ago. At first no more than furtive, stolen moon light through a cold night’s wind, then that ancient human spark began to reappear, frightened and cowering at first, then, ever so slowly, a bit more courageous. You know, that nasty little spark that has always terrified tyrants.

These young ones who had never been persuaded or convinced before, still refused to listen, but they saw inside themselves. They could see what had been put there. They saw the extremes. They saw, at once, both the soul starving deception of the ones who had frightened all of us so masterfully and the crazy inebriation of every human who had ever finally stood for himself after believing that he couldn’t. Details mattered little. Perhaps it was George Washington sizing up the British Empire with a thought of taking it down. Perhaps it was some nameless, but deadly brave Australopithecine deciding that terrifyingly lethal saber tooth could also bleed.

Thoughts such as these only become material when there also exists the possibility of mortal failure. All new currency to these young ones -- currency with an exchange rate known to none of them.

Could something like this be possible? Possible even to those who weren’t entirely sure they even knew what the “something” was?

They searched their textbooks and computers. Everything they found there seemed to be more of the same dark blanket of hopelessness. They watched the news with a new fervor, but it only told them new versions of the same depressing story of inevitability. They spoke out, a little, and were told that they were foolishly exaggerating, that they were spoiled and indulgently dreaming.

The televisions spoke to them. They listened for a while. Then they quit listening. At least, they quit believing. They were told to have no hope. They were told that things were not really as things were, really. The televisions told them to be calm, to be accepting. The televisions told the young ones that the televisions spoke the truth.

The world encompassing evil slowly emerged, revealing itself to them. They didn’t know enough to be any more than suspicious, but they could feel the hypnotic death grip of this numbing pain slipping. The details of fact, perhaps, continued to elude them, but the fact of anger made its own muscles in their souls. The young ones got mad.

Against the most powerful odds on the planet, the black man was still there, still speaking. The young ones listened because he was speaking to them. Was he the first one who spoke to them?

The rest of this strange, fast tale is history.

If you are a tyrant, hope is a cancer. If you are a tyrant and it becomes audacious hope -- either in perception or material reality -- it is a mortal threat, dulling the psychology of despair, relentlessly charting its course to a painful, unavoidable desolation. No death is more desperate than the one endured alone when all who might wait with you have lost interest.

And, we can see these empty, pompous interlopers, exposed as such false creations, while their machinations and purloined power collapses in the face of hope such as this. They rage, briefly, snarling about in the dust, formulating another of their ravenous schemes to perpetuate control, but then, when lit up fully by this new light, they become eerily passive like the gazelle after the failed escape, calmly grazing for a last moment before the cheetah hits.

The hope of the black man was impressive enough, but alone, hardly historically decisive.

However, once it entered the young ones...