Political Poemics

it all felt different before Reagan took power thirty years ago
ever since Bush was a Vice President
freedom meant protection to pursue liberation
we were a nation led by Christians who taught that all faiths were welcome
even no faith.
3,000 died to jihad on Sept. 11
Over a half-million killed in Iraq

and now

the Bush regime must pass the baton
or stop pretending it promotes democracy

while corporation mathematicians are exposed for inventing money
by using legal contracts to add
three zeros
to the fundamentals of our global economic values

as mass media continues to project and provoke every conversation
that reinforces failed policies and stereotypes

while the social and political elite
find comfort in the company and wisdom
of the common folk they are exploiting
and neglecting.

Our government is currently better at incarcerating civilians
than counting our votes.

McCain's friends

At his second debate, where there was a hand-picked live national audience, John McCain used the phrase "my friends" 19 times.

"1. Hello, my friend! Throughout J's performance, he addresses L as "my friend," an expression that Apaches think Anglo-Americans bandy about in a thoroughly irresponsible way. There is no word in Western Apache that corresponds precisely to the English lexeme friend. The nearest equivalent is shich'inzhoni (toward me, he is good), an expression used only by individuals who have known each other for many years and, on the basis of this experience, have developed strong feelings of mutual confidence and respect. In contrast, Apaches note, Anglo-Americans refer to and address as "friends" persons they have scarcely met, persisting in this practice even when it is evident from other things they say and do that they hold these individuals in low esteem. More specifically, Whitemen are said to make liberal use of the term when they want something from someone, apparently believing that by professing affection and concern they can improve their chances of getting it. In short, Anglo-Americans pretend to what cannot and should not be pretended to - hasty friendship - and it strikes Apaches as the height of folly and presumptuousness that they do. One of my consultants put it succinctly: "Whiteman say you're their friend like it was nothing, like it was air."

(This is followed by a cartoon on the top of the next page, depicting a white man with glasses and a bolo tie draping his arm around the shoulders of an indigenous American and saying, "Hello my friend... how are you doing? Let me introduce myself.."
while the Apache man is thinking "must be election time again")"

Portraits of "the Whiteman"
Linguistic play and cultural symbols among the Western Apache
by Keith H. Basso
1979, pages 48,49

Leader Shipped

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/10/10/bush_on_crisis

Bill Radke: Thank you for joining us this Friday morning as we continue with Fallout: our special coverage of the global financial crisis. President Bush spoke moments ago in the White House Rose Garden:

President George W. Bush: Fellow citizens, we can solve this crisis, and we will.

The president did not make any specific policy announcements. The statement was intended to calm the markets.

President George W. Bush: The United States government is acting. We will continue to act to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets.

What effect might Bush's statement have? Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson has that from New York.

---

Jeremy Hobson: The president has made mostly brief statements about the financial crisis, and he hasn't held a full-blown press conference since July, when he said he thought the banking system was sound. There were no questions today, just a list of the steps the government has taken in recent days.

~~~~

That is what was broadcast nationwide today on our citizen and government funded National Public Radio.

With all of the bravado and bluster, confidence and arrogance that King George II "the lesser" has led us with (against our will) for the past eight years,

he has become near invisible... and Dick Cheney has achieved full invisibility.

His poor decisions and actions have rendered him useless to our private and public lives...

as the rest of the world attempts to comprehend all of the possible scenarios he is capable of unleashing on our planet with the few remaining months of his absolute monarchy.

His lack of vision and governance has sent shockwaves from the streets of New Orleans to the mountains of Afghanistan and Iraq

and now eight years of his economic policies have redifined global monetary banking and lending.

The spooky thing about him is that all of this is happening right now and he is still content to publicly fulfill his role as president by reducing himself to the emotional and informational equivalent of "Play-by-play announcer to the Government of the United States of America."