So we know President Bush the man. And what President Clinton said is absolutely true — to know the man is to like the man, because he’s comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He doesn’t put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is a good man.
--Barack Obama, speaking at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, 04.25.13

The dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library this week gave the US media a chance to engage in one of its current favorite pastimes: rehabilitating the public images of thoroughly loathsome and reprehensible public figures. They’d hardly had time to catch their breath after canonizing Margaret Thatcher before it was time for their toughest challenge ever — rehabilitating George W. “The Decider” Bush. Yeah, that’s right, it’s Shark Jumping Time.

Y’know the worst thing about this wretched speech, though? He’s paraphrasing Bill Clinton, f’cripesake. Between this and the Thatcher veneration and Chelsea Clinton interviewing the GEICO Gecko, I’d say this pretty much indicates the death of the US media.

11×17 medium-res color .jpg image, 684kb.

For your further entertainment, here’s a couple of classic op-ed stinkburgers from the Washington Post from this past week. Feel their sliminess wash over you.

“George W. Bush, A Principled President”, Michael Gerson, Op-Ed Scribbler; author, Heroic Conservatism, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

“George W. Bush Is A Victim Of A Rush To Judgement”, Stephen Knott, Professor, U.S. Naval War College, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

Continue reading "Was George W. Bush Really That Bad?" »

Oh say, can you see
on the bridge named for Key
where the “Aqua Team” marched,
and a bunch were arrested…!

It was bone cold, rainy, sloppy, and miserable only a day before the official beginning of spring — in other words, your typical mid-March morning in DC. It was also a morning full of coordinated disobedience actions across DC marking the first day of Iraq War v2.0. Our group, nicknamed “Aqua Team”, was given the plum job of mobbing aboard a Metro to Rosslyn and taking Key Bridge early during rush hour.

Things turned out quite nicely. All the color-nicknamed groups gathered for their rallies at designated points around DC, not knowing where they were headed until it was actually time to go — a brilliant piece of strategy which greatly reduced the chances of any snitches in the crowd getting the word ahead to the cops — in our case, it was a meetup at Eastern Market, right in my backyard, then onto an Orange Line all the way across town to Rosslyn, where hilarity ensued…

Continue reading "Goodbye, Blue Sky: 03.20.03" »

February 15, 2003 was called by many “The Day The World Said ‘No’ To War”, and was reportedly the largest worldwide turnout for a single day of protest in history. Here’s a little “remastered” slice of what went down in New York City that day:

As I recall, the actual rally site and staging area for the march was somewhere around UN Plaza-ish, but owing to the staggering hugeness of the crowds converging — reportedly in the 1.5 million neighborhood — we never quite made it to the actual rally or march, and ended up just kind of flowing with the crowd through the streets, and spending most of the day hanging around East 50th and Third Avenue.

Here’s my friend Marianne from the Washington Action Group and the “Doghouse” puppet workshop in DC, being gratuitously harassed by NYPD goons for using a bamboo stick — apparently considered a “lethal weapon” that day — to hold up her sign. She was helped out by comrades in the crowd with some spare cardboard wrapping paper rolls.

DC anarchists “representing” on Third Avenue. One of the better flag designs of the day.

Some more of our friends from DC, the ever-popular Korean drummers’ group whipping up the crowd.

Just a few weeks before, the then-director of Fatherland Security, a pug-ugly bastard named Tom Ridge (a guy who looked as if he could play a gangster in a ’40s film noir) advised the nation that their best defense against a chemical or biological attack was to — get this — seal off your doors and windows with plastic sheeting and duct tape.

I never could figure out how these people got onto the top of that Fritos truck. It was an oddly inspiring sight, though they seemed oblivious to the shouts of the crowd below to “throw us down a bag of Fritos, man!”

“What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” This had to be my number-one favorite sign of the day. One is a genius; the other’s insane.

The Radical Cheerleaders belt one out towards the end of the afternoon. About this time, a breakaway unpermitted march had forced its way onto the streets and defied the police to march to a point near our location, succeeding by the strength of sheer numbers.

Continue reading "Blast From Yer Past: Feb. 15 2003" »