artcrime ink: the peculiar adventures of winston delgado

APOLOGIA: The main reason I have avoided writing about current events very much is because they are ugly and I feel the world has had enough bile-filled rants and that outlets like NPR, Media Matters and Bartcop are doing a great job in various ways of countering right wing disinformation and that if I link to them and provide them what financial support I can I'm actually doing something more productive than venting my spleen here. I am an artist and a teacher and I want to bring beauty, peace and wisdom into the world. This does not mean that I haved ceased paying attention to or caring about or discussing politics but rather that I am trying to exert my energies in the most effective manner. However, recent events and revelations have elevated my concerns about the course of our nation and the incompetent criminals doing the to previously unimaginable proportions and so I will add my excretions to the blogosphere but endeavor not to increase the foulness of the polluted ether.

Incompetent criminality is an accurate charge leveled without hyperbole. According to the New York Times of 06 January 2006, " A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor." Apparently one of the underlying reasons for the lack of adequate body armor for the troops was a lack of funds; for example, the inability to procure $107,000 to pay a medical examiner to analyze already-collected data prevented a study justifying the need for the armor for six months. While the Pentagon is still scrambling to properly armor troops who have been in combat since March of 2003, a Republican congressman accepted millions in bribes from a defense contractor and an unelected Republican of astonishing influence has plead guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud, as well as several other felonies involving the theft of unknown millions and is now cooperating with authorities investigating whether he bought specific actions of government officials from congress to the White House. That these hypocrites smear citizens who object to their actions and policies as unpatriotic if not downright treasonous is only evidence of their total lack of shame; that they run amok and rifle the treasury during a war where soldiers go without armor for three years is evidence of their shameful lack of patriotism if not downright treason. The Republican Party has been hijacked by a confederacy of thieves, con men, and religious fanatics with fantasies of apocalypse led by a lazy bully with delusions of grandeur. There are still men like John McCain with a semblance conscience and a set of balls; they are a weak bulwark against the worst imperial impulses of this Administration, but that is not enough. Consider first that among the rationales for deposing Saddam was the notion that it is fundamentally wrong to torture human beings or abduct and detain human beings without some form of due process and that in fact this behavior is a defining characteristic of a criminal government. Then consider that Bush has basically confessed to breaking the law by engaging in broad domestic surveillance without warrants . Then consider that President Clinton was impeached and excoriated in the media because he denied getting a blowjob. Hypocrites. Incompetents. Criminals. All these words and worse suit them; the problem is larger than words, however. It is not only urgent that the Democrats regain control of Congress this fall but that the Democrats offer candidates of high caliber. Now is the time for all good women and men to come to the aid of their country.