Berkeley Breathed did it second, less well, and less thoroughly, but with better artwork: Opus, 9 Sep 2007.
Category: politics
Just the way it was, brick for brick
In the flashback scenes of that film, the eight-year-old Bruce Wayne lives in a Gotham City full of hope and promise — hope and promise provided in very large part by his father, entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr. Thomas Wayne. Thomas Wayne runs Wayne Enterprises, a major contributor to the civic health of Gotham. Thomas Wayne built Gotham’s egalitarian transit system. And in their mansion on the edge of town, Thomas is a model father to his son Bruce, teaching him about humility, compassion, and justice; letting Bruce play with his stethoscope.
By the climax of the film, none of it remains. Wayne Enterprises is greedy and corrupt and complicit in the very scheme that seeks to destroy Gotham City. Bruce (as Batman) is obliged to demolish the elevated trains himself. Wayne Manor is a smoking pile of rubble, the stethoscope lying in the middle of it, blackened and melted. And Thomas Wayne himself is of course long gone, a victim of the very underclass he sought to embrace.
So too with America. As Elliot Cohen, author of The Last Days of Democracy, explains in a recent interview:
[We] have the operations and secret prison camps in Europe, we torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo […] the NSA spying programs warrantlessly. Bush is issuing signing statements, which is tantamount to nullifying congressional lawmaking powers. Cancellation of habeas corpus, [defining] individuals as enemy combatants just by virtue of whether the President deems [them] hostile to U.S. interests. I mean this goes on and on for individual facts as to why one might say that America is becoming a dictatorship.
(And he does in fact go on and on in that interview, and presumably much more so in his book.)
What remains of American prosperity and might and justice? The Treasury — empty. The military — exhausted. Elections — rigged. The Constitution — toothless. Our beautiful nation, the gift of our fathers to us, gone, a victim of the greedy and the ignorant we had gregariously supposed to embrace in our political discourse.
Now, some might say that Batman, unique among superheroes, has no superpowers, but they’d be wrong: he has bottomless wealth and a will of iron. What does America have? Well, bottomless wealth for one thing. Yes, we’re in terrible fiscal shape, but we’re still brimming with the real sources of wealth: land, labor, ingenuity. We also have a will of iron. Yes, apathy and despair have gotten us to where we are today, but we had apathy and despair in the 1930’s and we still rose to the challenge of a global war.
Bruce loses everything —
except what can’t be destroyed
While formulating his thoughts about retaking Gotham City from the criminal class that controls it, Bruce Wayne explains to Alfred, “As a man I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed. But as a symbol — as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting.” Everything that was built by Thomas Wayne is destroyed — everything tangible. But not his everlasting ideals, embodied by the son he taught them to.
We have Batman’s powers. We have our ideals. We can be Batman to our ravaged Gotham.
As Bruce surveys the ruin of Wayne Manor he declares to Alfred his intention to rebuild it, “just the way it was, brick for brick.” So too his intention to employ his wealth and his iron will to restore hope and promise to Gotham City.
So too with America.
Jim Taylor
Today the New York Post (a Murdoch newspaper) wrote,
John Edwards, who yesterday demanded Democratic candidates return any campaign donations from Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., himself earned at least $800,000 for a book published by one of the media mogul’s companies.
(It’s under the headline, “Edwards in a biz hate & $witch” for extra we-report-you-decide journalistic impartiality.)
The Post would have its readers equate cash donated by News Corp. in support of a political campaign with cash earned in a retail venture.
The screed continues,
The campaign didn’t respond to a question from The Post about whether it was hypocritical for Edwards to take money from News Corp. while calling for other candidates not to.
I’ll respond: Edwards took money from the purchasers of his book, not from News Corp. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, did take News Corp. money. (Disclaimer: I endorse John Edwards for president, but I am not endorsed by him or his campaign and do not speak for them.)
Let’s say this distinction is lost on you. What would be an honorable thing for Edwards to do with the disputed cash? Give it to charity?
Edwards claimed $333,334 in royalties from last year’s release of the book, according to media accounts. The campaign said last night that those funds were part of the advance.
He says he gave that amount to charity, which would also provide tax benefits for Edwards.
The cynical Post can make even the honorable thing have the taint of hypocrisy. A ham-handed attack like this belongs in a Hollywood movie from the ’40s, not in real life. But I guess we should expect no less from News Corp. journalists, the remains of whose souls are at this very moment dribbling down the chin of a cackling and engorged Rupert Murdoch.
God save the Queen
Well, considering that, when the Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain, they were eschewing a tyrant who “refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good,” “made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices,” “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,” and whom they considered guilty of “depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury,” “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences,” and “taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments,” and considering how in those respects America is right back where it started from, maybe it’s not so strange that my bathroom scale, too, concedes the end of American independence.
Save Net radio
I had just discovered Pandora Internet radio and had begun creating my own “station” (featuring Splashdown [who has a song called “Pandora,” incidentally], among other artists, and called — what else? — “Gee Bobg Radio“) when Pandora, and many other Internet music sites, went silent for a day to protest a greedy move by the recording industry: dramatically raising royalty fees, and doing it retroactively.
You’re either with the change-averse intellectual property vampires clinging desperately to an obsolete business model from your grandparents’ generation, or you’re against them. And if you don’t take some action, then you’re not against them.
West Wing Story
Washington DC, January 2001. George Bush takes the oath of office. Several hundred Republicans converge on the inaugural ball.
Republicans:
When you’re with Bush
You’re with Bush thoroughly
From your first cute nickname
To your last “not guilty”
When you’re with Bush
Let the liberals scream
We’ve got Congress, the White House, and
The Court Supreme
With grownups in charge
We’ll make Bush our Augustus
Our crimes will be large
The bureau now called Justice
Will be called “just us”
Now here comes Bush
Yeah! And he’s gonna say
Some nonsensical stuff
And a mangled cliché
And a botched, mangled, graceless slang
Cliché!
Some months later, Bush is on vacation in Texas.
Bush:
Can’t be
Hell no
Bin Laden’s due any day
So says my CIA
What do they know?
“He may come cannonballin’ down through the sky”
I don’t know why
They’re saying so
Hell no
It’s all in the PDB
Condi just gave to me
But, man alive
That thing is full of seven syllable words!
That’s for the birds!
Now watch this drive
Will it be?
No it won’t
Need I function?
No I don’t
Them are the facts
Nothing’s coming
That’s for sure
So I can
Keep to plan:
Wipe out all tax
Make a speech, sign a bill
Big state dinner in Brazil
This job’s a snap
Nothing’s coming
I don’t care
What they say
Go away
Time for a nap
Bad news that’s offered
While clearing brush in Crawford
Do not deliver to me
There’ll be no hijacked plane
Nor a big hurricane
Not on my watch
Not on my watch
Not on my watch!
Well guess what: terrorists fly planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
Bush:
The most beautiful sound I ever heard
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a pair of words
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
I’ve just been attacked by Bin Laden!
And suddenly that name
Will take all of the blame
From me!
Bin Laden!
I’ll pin everything on Bin Laden!
And suddenly that sound
Will be heard all around
You’ll see
Bin Laden
Say it once and you’re done persuading
Say it three thousand four hundred and sixty-seven times
And Iraq you’re invading
Bin Laden
I’ll never stop blaming Bin Laden
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden!
Bin Laden! Bin Laden!
Say it once and you’re done persuading
Say it three thousand four hundred and sixty-seven times
And Iraq you’re invading
Bin Laden
I’ll never stop blaming Bin Laden
The right loves the way things are going. The left doesn’t.
Neocons:
Check and balance
Peculiar notion
Tends to impede any motion
Always the Congress grandstanding
Always judicial branch demanding
And the factions banding
And the public meeting
And ideas competing
I want enlightened dictator!
Have your democracy later!
I want to reshape America
Let the elite rape America
“Act like a big ape” America
Liberals:
Then will it still be America?
Neocons:
Land of the free and of the brave
Liberals:
Free just as long as you behave!
Neocons:
No man is higher than the law
Liberals:
Except those who feed us that old saw!
Rights disappear in America
Ruling with fear in America
Year after year in America
Neocons:
That’s because we’re in America
Liberals:
I think I’ll vacate the U.S.
Neocons:
No place is in less of a mess!
Liberals:
Maybe in France I can get laid
Neocons:
Maybe in France we will invade!
The administration hustles the world toward war with Afghanistan Iraq to capture Osama Bin Laden Saddam Hussein.
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld:
Last month, last month
The war began last month
We shocked
And then we awed
And we won
Last month, last month
It only took a month
War is hell —
Hell of a
Lot of fun!
Today, the mission is accomplished
Saddam is out of power
These last throes soon are done
We’ve just begun
There’s more wars to begin
And be won
Next month!
But the Iraq war goes into extra innings. Detainees accumulate in Guantánamo Bay.
Detainees:
My dear Attorney Gen’ral
Ya gotta understand
It’s been a hundred hours
You’ve made us have to stand
We’re cold and wet and naked
We keep on getting dunked
Gen’ral, at politeness you have flunked
Dear Gen’ral Gonzales, we’re very upset
Not habeas nor corpus can our advocates get
Geneva Conventions say what you should do
You should not run this like a zoo
Like a zoo!
Like a zoo, like a zoo
Like a filthy zoo
We’re like animals in some big zoo
My deity is Allah
My skin’s a sandy brown
My uncle is a mullah
In some Mideastern town
I said once Bush was crazy
They came for me that day
Golly gee! They carried me away
Yes, Gen’ral Gonzales, you’re being a jerk
Your experts in the CIA say torture won’t work
It’s simply sadistic and doesn’t make sense
You’re jeopardizing your defense
Your defense!
Your defense, your defense
Your homeland defense
This offense is not the best defense
The trouble is he’s sour
The trouble is he’s smart
The trouble is his power
And that he has no heart
The trouble’s his assistants’
The trouble is his own
Gen’ral, you should leave us all alone!
Gee, Gen’ral Gonzales, we’re hanging by thumbs
And bleeding from our ears because of punctured eardrums
Gee, Gen’ral Gonzales, what are we to do?
Gee, Gen’ral Gonzales,
[waterboarding sounds]!
Everything is going Bush’s way.
Bush:
I feel petty
Oh so petty
I feel petty
And heady
And big
And I’m ready
To imprison every dirty Whig
I feel scary
I feel saucy
And contrary and bossy and smug
It’s amazing
That America is run by thugs
See “commander guy” in that mirror there
Who can that important guy be?
Such a petty face
Such a petty suit
Such a petty smirk
Such a petty me!
I feel spiteful
And vindictive
It is frightful addictive to be
What I am:
Dictatorial, petty me!
Neocons:
Have you met our friend the Decider?
The craziest guy on the earth
Divider and not a uniter
He’s the one who’s your friend if you have some net worth
He thinks he’s in charge
He thinks that he rules
He isn’t in charge
He’s merely a tool
It must be the desk
Or “Hail to the Chief”
Or all the free press
And their false belief
Pay no mind to him
Send for Cheney
He’s the one who is
Really brainy
Simple, unsure
Confused and inbred
Uncouth, immature
And over his head!
At last the Democrats retake control of Congress. They vow a showdown with Bush over funding for the war.
Democrats:
We Democrats won’t have our way tonight!
We Democrats won’t have our say tonight!
Constituents they grumble: go fight
Republicans say “boo” and
They give us a fright
Republicans:
We’re gonna use ad hominems tonight!
We’re gonna make a fool of them tonight!
We’ll make insinuations, then watch
Those saviors of the nation grow wet at the crotch
Tonight!
Democrats and Republicans:
We’re gonna de-bate tonight
But dog-and-pony shows cannot change our course
We’re gonna make clear tonight
Our poor constituents have backed the wrong horse
Republicans:
Well we won’t stop it!
Democrats:
And we can’t stop it!
Democrats and Republicans:
The whole damn country will have buyer’s remorse
Tonight!
The press:
The press is gonna get its kicks tonight!
The press is gonna get last licks tonight!
The Democrats may talk tough. So what?
The status quo’s not threatened. They’re stuck in a rut
The left:
Tonight, tonight
We’ll end this war tonight
Tonight our side at last has its day
Tonight, tonight
They’ll hear us roar tonight
And we’ll make George Bush do what we say
The past six years have seemed forever
Our setbacks have seemed endless
Although our cause is right
Oh pols, hang tight
And into the abyss shine some light
Tonight!
Democrats:
The Democrats will lose the vote tonight!
We do not want to rock the boat tonight!
The press might say we’re causing gridlock
So let’s just help the Bushies to run out the clock
The left:
Tonight, tonight
We’ll end this war tonight
Republicans:
We’ll paint ’em soft on defense!
We’ll make ’em sit on the fence!
The left:
Tonight our side at last has its day
Democrats:
Let’s hope this all goes away
The left:
Tonight, tonight
They’ll hear us roar tonight
And we’ll make George Bush do what we say
The press:
We’ll gonna snark it tonight!
The left:
The past six years have seemed forever
Our setbacks have seemed endless
Republicans:
They can’t stop us
Democrats:
We can’t stop them
The left:
Although our cause is right
The press:
We’ll keep our narrative whole tonight
The left:
Oh pols, hang tight
And into the abyss shine some light
Democrats:
We’ll disappoint them tonight
Republicans:
We’ll give no quarter tonight
The press:
Bread and circus tonight
All:
Tonight!
The Democrats fold like a wet taco. The left is deeply dejected.
The left:
There’s a place for us
Online, a place for us
Point your browser and log in on
Dailykos.com
There’s a place where we
Commiserate and we
Try to picture how things should be
Try to take down the GOP
Online
Online
We’ll find a new way of leading
We’ll find a way of succeeding
Online
The left sees one hope remaining.
The left:
Gore, Gore
Albert Gore
Please run, Gore!
Gotta do it
Step up to it
Hear us implore, Gore!
Don’t sit out
‘Cause there’s no doubt
You’d come out ahead
Join the fray
‘Cause that’s the way
The Republicans will fill with dread
Gore, Gore
Albert Gore
Jump in, Gore!
Throw your hat in
Rivals flatten
Do not ignore, Gore!
Run, man, run
So that we can stop the war, Gore!
We’re crying out for
Al Gore
As Bush’s poll numbers sink, the complicit press finds itself on the ropes.
The press:
A man like that who’d wreck the nation
Provides reporters with sensation
We must be spoon-fed
Please keep us spoon-fed
A man like that makes our job easy
And even though you think it’s sleazy
We must be spoon-fed
Please keep us spoon-fed
He tells us what we are to write
He tells us what we are to think
So we can spend
Less time on work
More time on drink!
With a wink and nod, boys!
With a wink!
A man like that wants only one thing:
To leave the rest of you with nothing
“If you can’t beat them, you’d better join”
We could not win
And so we joined him
And so we joined…
The left:
Oh, mainstream media, no
Oh, media, no
That is a craven policy
It’s bad for our democracy
You hear my words
And know they’re true
There’s no excuse
You’re obtuse!
You media are obtuse!
Tell the truth!
You should know better
You went to school, or so you said
You should know better
We have this land and it’s all that we have
That, and laws that we must cleave to
We live here, we vote
We’re all in the same boat
We and you
We have this land and it’s all that we need
That, and laws, but they need us too
They’re only as good
As they are understood
And that’s why we need you
Inform, inform the elect’rate
With real facts
And nuance
And truth!
With the truth!
The press:
The press is
Old news
Now bloggers fill our shoes
The press and the left:
The blogs are our life!
Disney coming in from the cold
A big step on the road to corporate redemption.
The Walt Disney Co. has changed its policy to allow same-sex couples to participate in a popular Fairy Tale Wedding program it runs mainly at its two U.S. resorts and cruise line, a Disney spokesman said on Thursday.
(via Salon, via BoingBoing)
Also, Mark Halperin is gone.
This is to be encouraged. Everyone go to a Disney park!
A scientific hypothesis
A short time ago, Slater, our neighbor’s cat, appeared in our backyard. I went out to say hi and pet him. I spent only a couple of minutes, in part because of being very busy with work and in part because of my severe cat allergy.
An allergy is an overreaction of the immune system to some stimulus. On this occasion I wondered: maybe my immune system is not overreacting, but merely reacting — possibly to the threat of infection by Toxoplasma gondii! Perhaps my cat allergy is just a sign that my immune system is more evolved than the immune systems of those who aren’t allergic and are therefore more susceptible to T. gondii infection.
Do cat allergies in fact protect sufferers against T. gondii? If so, are we, as a group, less likely to exhibit the personality traits associated with T. gondii infection?
If the answer to both questions is “yes,” we might expect to see a correlation between cat allergies and an increased likelihood to vote Democratic.
If Bush didn’t exist, would it be necessary to invent God?
The ghosts of thousands of American soldiers butchered in an inhuman slaughterhouse do not haunt the conscience of the man who blithely sent them there. He is untroubled by the cries emanating from a dying American city, ruined and neglected on his watch. The piteous pleas uttered by the multitudes marginalized by his policies — the poor, the ill, the not-well-connected — do not perturb him. And he is completely deaf to the wailing of those foreign families he has destroyed by the tens of thousands.
Will nothing wipe the smirk off this man’s face?
“All men love justice,” and for most people other than those who have bought into Bush’s “sophistry […] by which he proves to himself that it is best to be done,” the possibility that he will not be made to answer for his crimes is frankly unbearable.
Hence the need to invent the concept of Hell. Though we have no evidence for it, we are compelled to believe in it; the world is sometimes simply too cruel to bear otherwise. Even I am occasionally reduced to muttering, upon losing some argument with a boorish authority figure or customer-service agent, “Well at least he’ll writhe in agony for eternity.” (Hell is passive-aggressive.)
There have always been evil men like Bush, and though some of them may escape judgment in this life, we satisfy ourselves that no one escapes judgment in the next. Thus too the need to invent God, the immortal, infallible, and pitiless judge, to mete out a better justice than we humans can manage. Finally, to balance Hell and cement our faith in the fundamental rightness of the universe, the concept of Heaven — the place “we” will finally go to be free of everything that has interfered with our enjoyment of this life, including “them,” the other people we have consigned to Hell.
Western religion is founded upon childish wish fulfillment. This is so transparent, it’s a wonder so many people fall for its promises. Given that they do, it’s no wonder so many people fall for Bush’s.
Re-go, Gore!
In the past few days I’ve read two provocative articles on the possibility of an Al Gore presidential run in 2008: one by Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos and one in Rolling Stone. Both agree that he’d be a killer candidate, and both express skepticism that he’d actually run. In the words of Moulitsas,
I doubt he’ll pull the trigger. There’s no need for him to do so. His passion is fighting global warming, not social security solvency or extracting ourselves from Bush’s myriad messes.
Rolling Stone asserts,
Most of Gore’s closest associates believe that he is unlikely to run. “He’s hanging out with interesting people, he’s making money, but he’s still having a serious impact on the political discourse,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democratic Network. “You could look at all that and say, ‘My God, he’ll never run for president.’”
A friend of mine from high school, Eli Attie, was part of Al Gore’s staff during the Clinton administration and during the 2000 election. Afterward, he got work in the private sector — as a writer and producer on the TV show The West Wing. I told him how jealous I was of his involvement in presidential politics, and he told me what a relief it was to be out of it. From all I know of what’s involved — cheap hotels, bad food, brutal hours, glad-handing every asshole in sight, constant money-grubbing, and the fearsome unblinking eye of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy — it’s perfectly understandable that Eli, Al Gore, or anyone else would be relieved to be done with it. Who, after all, would ever want to be in it? Only the hopelessly idealistic, or those with an abiding commitment to public service, or to naked power.
And yet…
Al Gore has made a new name for himself as a leader whose passion on issues of global importance has transcended party politics and national boundaries. He and his proxies speak as if a presidential run would mire him in the muck, bringing him back down to a level where he could only be less effective than he is now. But recent history provides an example of another man whose moral leadership transcended politics, yet was coaxed into his country’s presidency to great effect: Nelson Mandela.
For my money, Gore is planning to run, and those who claim to know otherwise are probably dissembling in order to help him set the stage properly. (No, my friendship with Eli Attie gives me no special access nor insight one way or the other.) But just in case he really isn’t planning to run because he believes he’s found his bully pulpit, I have this message for him: the American presidency’s pulpit is bullier, and we need our Mandela.