Thursday, May 21, 2009

Dick Can't shut His Hole

Those of us who heard President Obama's speech this morning heard the sober thoughts of a reasonable man. If you followed the election closely, you knew that Barack Obama is no liberal. As a lib myself, voting for him was a no-brainer. He is no Socialist, he is not French, he is not gay. The only welfare he wholeheartedly supports is the welfare the Republicans support: corporate welfare. The fact that he is so vilified by the Republicans and right wingers is a chilling reminder, as if we needed one, of just how dark this country's dark ages have been.

Dick is only too glad to remind us. He had to open his pie-hole before the president finished speaking, blabbing the same old talking points. I had to turn the radio off. Hearing his voice is like fingernails on a blackboard. He instills the same visceral repulsion I felt when former president Chucklenuts spoke. Chucklenuts could be counted on to giggle girlishly whenever death was discussed.

There's not much to be said about Dick that hasn't been said better by Jane Mayer or Ron Susskind. On some level, Dick knows he was a failure. He did nothing to prevent 9/11, although there were warnings. He overcompensated for his neglect by becoming a torturer.

We all operate under illusions. We have to survive. Dick operates under the illusion that torture isn't illegal, and that he hasn't ruined this country's reputation. I, and probably you, if you are reading this, operate under the illusion that we aren't living in a Dick-tatorship, and that the nightmare of the last eight years is over. But Dick won't let us forget. Maybe, as Ed Shultz suggests, he is trying to influence the jury pool for upcoming war crimes trials. If only. We can dream.

Although Freud is discounted in this country, some of his ideas are still discussed by, who else, the French. According to Freud, via Lacan, civilization is always pulled into two different directions, the desire for life, and the deathwish. Dick is the ultimate symbol of what is plainly the Death Kultur. Torture, punishment, murder: Dick has almost taken the role of Chucklenuts, the gleeful giggling Texas executioner.

Countries, like people, are caught in the tension between the desire for life and the tendency towards death. We've lived in the shadow of Death Kultur for the last eight years. Obama wants to look ahead, to pursue life. I wish I were more hopeful. Every time Dick opens his hole, this country dies a little more.

No comments:

Post a Comment