Re-read the title -- sing it. It's yet another reference to that infamous song from Casablanca, but not used in context with kissing. It's a call to remember.
Remember this?1
Harsh, indeed, rings the title of this article; all the more inciteful for the accuracy with which is betrays the blatant, arrogant hypocrisy of the "privileged" few. They who would beat their chests with cries of righteousness and claims of Christian piety are the self-same misbegotten misanthropes who call for the annihilation others in the name of their god. Images of destruction and the realities of war fail to penetrate the thick miasma of self-delusion that so heavily clouds their hearts and minds.
We as a nation have been played, taken for fools by fools themselves. I've heard said that there is no rest for the wicked: so be it. There are none more wicked than those who support this Administration and the follies of their war, for it is not a "Global War on Terror" that they wage: it is a war on all that it holy in this world.
I wrote that piece back in January of 2007 -- we're fast-approaching the one year "anniversary" of it, and yet it is nothing to celebrate.
We're still in Iraq, "the Surge" has failed and the GOP continues to work hand-in-glove with the BushCheney White House to protect themselves from investigation into their criminal activities -- effectively placing the needs of their own corruption above the overall health and well-being of the nation.
The Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation is still, and always will be, a WAR CRIME instituted by the Executive and with the full compliance and internal cheerleading of the Republican leadership. The drumbeat has continued, the denials have continue and a new drumbeat -- which was already active in the background -- has grown in pitch and tenor, setting the course toward Iran and leading the nation toward the inevitable outcome if we fail to act swiftly: another illegal war based on lies against another nation in the Middle East and the final spark to light the powderkeg of the long war favored by the neoconservative warhawks.
For the members of Congress who may see this, I'll keep it short: You have not hesitated to discuss or vote upon the censure an organization for an ad nor have you refrained from censuring a lunatic. Look deep within your own hearts and minds now, and ask yourself one simple question -- "Do you have it within yourselves to censure the insidious attempts by your fellow Senators to set the stage for another illegal, bloody and unnecessary conflict?"
If you believe you haven't the balls to censure Kyl and Lieberman or that their efforts to essentially set the stage for an attack is worth worrying about, then you shouldn't be in Congress anymore. But, failing any realistic shot at removing you for the criminal negligence of permitting such ongoing subversive activity, we are left with the option of at least urging you to write a strongly worded letter to the two Senators -- one which you should have someone with eloquence and fire read aloud on the floor of the Senate -- and in which you state how appalling these transparent attempts to derail the democratic process are.
Either you represent America, the Constitution, truth and justice, or you do not. End the endless kabuki theatre-within-a Potempkin village display -- be our Congressional representatives, the type that you usually only hear about in rousing speeches during times of stress, strain, disaster or around election time.
It's time to put our money -- your paychecks -- where our mouths are, and you are not only our mouths, but your are also our hands; you need to spank your compatriots, hard, when they continue to work to deteriorate both the institution of Congress and of American decency under faux articles of braggadocio and pseudo-patriotic pablum.
In short, put up or shut up.
Thank you.
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Footnotes
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1 From "Bless the beastly little children of a lesser god than mine." Link goes to the instance on ePluribus Media. Also on DailyKos, Street Prophets and My Left Wing. The excerpt that follows has only one change -- a typo/misspelling that I corrected here but which is extant in the originals.