Same Old, Same Old Sunday

All Along the Watch Tower
"...the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time."

"There may be some considerable range of variation in detail within the scope of the principle, but they are variations of form and expression and not substance."

The Code of Properties: an expression of status: "Our bearing toward menials and other pecuniarily dependent inferiors is the bearing of the superior member in a relation of status...."

The sophistication of crude dominance: Decorum, Manners, the Code of Properties: "Witness the masterful presence of the high minded gentleman or lady, which testifies to so much of dominance and independence of economic circumstances, and which at the same time appeals with such convincing force to our sense of what is right and gracious."

"It is among this highest leisure class, who have no superiors and few peers, that decorum finds its fullest and maturest expression."

[All the above quotes are from Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class.]

Gentlemen and ladies of leisure (re: Caroline Kennedy) and their decorum serve as "a canon of conduct for the classes beneath." Books of etiquette; manners; codes of conduct; finishing schools; prep schools; how to ride horseys; how to dress when on your yacht.

By bowing and scraping around these people we make them icons. We habitualize pretending to keep up with these people; yet, work, common ordinary stupid productive work, keeps us from becoming one of them.

Like why do we have to say "Your Honor" to a god-damn judge? "Eat me, your honor." The military is the perfect place to find the sort of decorum Thorstein Veblen refers to in the above quotes. Go to a military ball and see all the pomp and puffed up circumstance among the top Power Elite military types--like when General so and so and his ugly wife come into the room and all the lackeys freeze and salute and wait until they are recognized with a half-ass salute back from these ruthlessly prissy assholes.... Or, hey, go to something like the Golden Globe Awards that were held in Jokeywood on this eve and look at all the swell actors and actresses and their wives or husbands or paramours or lovers or "he's just a friend,"--and they're all wearing tuxes and the women are wearing outrageously expensive gowns--which they are paid to wear, folks, don't you know--and all that jewelry, too. "Hi, Gweneth, this is Jerry from Harry Winston. Are you booked for some bling already? No, oh, gosh, darling, that's great, because Harry has a stunning piece for you to wear--five grand in it for you, sweetie." Oh such decorum. Such decorum. Such distribution of honors and awards and meaningless trophies.

It wasn't my intention to start growling right off the bat today at the privileged classes who have brought this nation to a BRINK--while these assholes are backing their Brinks trucks up to the Federal money trough and carting away a trillion dollars of We the People's money--but then who the hell are We the People? I mean, come on, We the People have to work for a living--our leisure time is measured out stingily to us by our better-than-thou employers--those crooked high-blown bastards who'll jerk your plant (or your profession if you're white collar) right out from under your ass and truck it off to China where children can do the sleaze work you did at salaries 85% less than what they have to pay in worthless, lazy American workers's high-blown, Union-caused, profits-draining salaries--and the industry bigshots are screaming about how auto workers at a General Motors's American or Canadian plants make $75 an hour--and that's OUTRAGEOUS! and how can GM compete with the Toyota and Nissan and BMW US plants (mostly in the south)--of course, it's OK for a General Motors executive to be making $575 an hour (a salary of about 1 million a year)--fuck We the People workers. Obama says he's going to CHANGE all of that and create what goes up and down but stays around 1.4 million new jobs. I say Obama can't guarantee this, not with Robert Ruben (I see where he had to give up his CitiGroup job--poor bastard--at the same time we see CitiGroup ready to merge with that other just as crooked bunch of thugs Morgan-Stanley), one of the designers of deregulation, running his economic side of life; not with Larry Summers in a nonimpeachable role as an economic advisor--this is one of the originators of privatizing Social Security and dumping nuclear wastes in Third World countries--he still thinks "entitlements" as he calls them should be throttled; nor will we ever have peace: not with Robert Gates heading the Dept. of Defense; and not with Admiral Blair as head of National Security. Bad luck for We the People.

I watched the Obama family last night as they sneaked over to the Lincoln Memorial where they stayed and prayed, I guess, for over 20 minutes. OK, Obama wants to be the black Lincoln. Remember, Mr. Obama, Uncle Honest Abe wanted to send all the blacks to Liberia, which was created under his reign--"Let's ship 'em back to Africa," old rail-splittin' Abe advised, a white way of handling people we feel are beneath us. Of course, Abe got assassinated because of his flip-flopping on the Slavery question and eventually going with the Emancipation idea--some say he had to free the slaves so he could use them in the Union Army, which he did. Abe had the same problem Old Tom Jefferson had--he was maybe against slavery but then he did admit blacks, yes, were less than human in terms of brain size, intelligence, self-will, certainly less human than whites. This from a white aristocrat who was prowling around his slave quarters looking for fresh bedmates in the hot-younger women--especially that new fresh daughter Sally Hemmings--oooooh, what a hot piece of ass--and old Tom's dick roared to life when he first saw sweet Sally all naked and full-breasted and wide-hipped unlike his sickly white wife! 'Scuse my blasting away at our legends, our icons, our privileged Power Eliters--even those from our white past. Now in retrospect, the Tom Jefferson lovers are saying Tom wanted to write against slavery in the Constitution but at the last minute decided to leave blacks only part human beings--remember, the Constitution doesn't make us created equal--that's the Bill of Rights, which in my political way of thinking is a much more important document than the Constitution.

How about WOMEN's rights in our worn-out, obsolete Constitution!

Speaking of privilege, Prince Harry, while pretending to be just a plain ole soldier boy in the Brit Navy or army or whatever the hell branch of the military the Prince is pretending to play at--and that's what the Prince is doing in the military--he's playing--it's due to all the leisure time the bastard has--except, the Prince's high-and-mighty racism came out glaringly in a video-diary he recently kept of his pompous, lazy ass, which the hackers got a hold of and Harry's racist wit was all over commercial teevee yesterday, calling the lovable Pakistanis, Pakis--especially on Rupert Murdoch's American-Brit-Australian Fox teevee was this being constantly placed in evidence along with the comment that surely the lovable adorable Prince Harry was joshing a bit with his buddies in the trenches; why the big deal?--what a fop this son of a bitch Prince Harry is--a brazen-balled Brit fop. Of course he looks down his nose on Pakis! Underling subservients. "Oh, Gunga Din, my tea immediately!" He gets that from his great-greatgrandmother and his greatgrandfather who were possessors (owners) of Plantation Injah when it was one country, a mixture of Woggies and Pakis (I believe those were the proper British terms used to describe Indians and Pakistanis. This is the child, too, of America's Princess, remember?--the woman who spent more time out with the stable hands than she did giving Harry's old daddy (even though Harry really doesn't resemble "Super Nose Ugly Blimp Head" Prince Charlie--he used to be known as Bonnie Prince Charlie--looks like Harry got his looks from his Nazi bloodline) what he wanted. How easy a life is it that as a married Prince, old Prince Charles could meet his horse-face true love out in the middle of a muddy field for fucking while Princess Di was monkeying around with the stable hands or some captain of the knighted guard or some commoner lowlife without any decorum or manners. Princess Di, however, was said to be so graceful and kind, especially when she came to the US and always went straight to Harlem to be photo-op-ed with little boogie-woggie black babies. Old Queen "Pass Me My Bottle of Scotch" Liz also when she comes to NYC heads up to Harlem to hang with some little black babies. "I say, what cute little woolie boogers." Of course, I'm sure our own Princess Caroline Kennedy has spent some time with black babies in Harlem, too. Now, however, white folks are going to Harlem not for photo-ops with black babies but to buy up all the property up there and drive those little black babies out of Harlem--the property up there is more valuable than the life of thousands of black babies--soon Harlem will revert back to its original old white-Dutch model of tribal white purity. Slick Willie and Hillbilly Hill I'm sure are invested heavily in Harlem redevelopment. Bill probably still has several million from his and Old Pappy G.H.W. Bush's tsunami nonprofit organization invested in Harlem real estate. Ironically, today G.W. "Georgie Porgie the Worthless Son" Bush is down in Norfolk, Virginia, breaking a bottle of champagne over the bow of a new billion-dollar-boondoggle ship the Navy's naming the USS G.W.H. "Pappy" Bush. That privileged old oil-stealin'-CIA-head-China-asskisser asshole gets a Navy ship named after him. Did you feel that billion bucks for old Pappy's namesake ship being pickpocketed out of your purse or back pocket or bank account?

And just as I'm thinking, well, hell, I've got to dislodge myself from this political mess, this logjam of thoughts and reasoning. Like blacks telling me, "Oh, don't worry, Wolfie, Obama's a smart black man. He knows he has to walk a tight line when it comes to his being black and his maybe being a commie or a left-wing antisocial black--you know, a dichty black. He has to, according to my black friends--and Les Payne the black journalist, let his blackness be apparent in his appearance but not in his policies. He's unifying. He's community organizing. Black pundits say Obama knows the black situation--he has to being from the Chicago Southside like he is and married to a Chicago Southside woman who is surely black--and his daughters are surely black--so black pundits say that's black enough--therefore, he has to walk a thin line in terms of who he trusts in terms of his experience in this hotbed of a rather racist arena. So why not use these rascals who got us into the mess we're in, political, economical, cultural, structural, intellectual, to rectify it--they know how they fucked it up so Obama will now make them fix it. Does that make sense? It does to blacks.

Today, Obama announced he's keeping this McConnell character on his intelligence team. Oh Holy Shit! McConnell said this rendering or whatever it's called, where the CIA or FBI can profile your ass as a Muslim terrorist and whisked you off the street of any world city or village and fly your ass to Egypt or Syria or Afghanistan for tons of good ole legal torture--McConnell said the practice was a necessary tool in the fight against world terrorism--that's pronounced "Terrerism."

Shit, it looks like Obama was really serious when he said Ronald Raygun Reagan was a hero of his and that he respected his economic policies, thought they were the answer to the problem--oh Holy Fucking Back-stabbed Shit, that's what the fool said--I just reread it--then he backtracked and said it was misinterpreted what he said about his love of Reagan. Holy shit.

And Obama says in another speech he's against earmarks and there will be no more earmarks when he comes to power and then, son of a bitch, he nominates this creep Repugnican Ray LaHood (emphasis on the Hood, as in Hoodlum) as Transportation Sec'y--this creep is the Illinois state champion Congressman of earmarks--these porkbarrel giveaways of billions of dollars these crooked-as-snakes-at-night politicians write into our laws and bills--earmarks that cost We the People billions upon billions of dollars a year. Why? Politicians are earmarking billions to their campaign contributors as boondoggle money--favors--ah, the Power Elite and the sleaziest part of the Power Elite, the politicians! How sweet it is! What splendid liars they all are. They all should be rounded up and marched (how about a Trail of Tears for these bastards?) to the most faraway prison there is--march their worthless privileged asses barefoot to jail--Go directly to Jail--DO NOT PASS GO!

And Bush, this worthless piece of shit crooked and criminal and murdering faux president, this little chimplike creature who has literally wrecked our economy with his two Neo-Con prophesied invasions and occupations of nations that never attacked us, who had nothing to do with the attack on the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, if the Pentagon was a part of this 9/11 farce--and yet this little turd is going to get a free ride, moving to Dallas to a foreclosure deal he got cheap--and don't worry, We the People will make sure his new mansion is fully secure--we'll spend millions of bucks protecting this weasel and his pot-smoking wife and his two worthless drunken party-girl daughters. No prison for the Power Elite. Look at this Madoff character--a man who swindled his own sister--left her destitute--such a crooked asshole--and he's out on bond living in his billion-dollar Park Avenue apartment--45 rooms and 15 baths--absolutely necessary for the emulation needed by these asshole crooks. And I predict, Madoff will never spend a day in prison. "He's such a good boy."

Sorry, folks, my language needs to be salty and spicy and abrupt and disruptive and embarrassing to fucking more-pious-than-thous men and ninnie women and their ninnie children--it's cursing, folks. I'm blowing curses all over the joint. I watched a PBS production of Cyrano de Bergerac t'other eve and I hadn't realized the ability of Cyrano to ridicule and curse and insult the way he did, very poetically, I might add--the actor playing Cyrano was superb--though he did get off his time occasionally--but then that script is a tough son of bitch to pull off and once he got his timing down, he succeeded in delivering long complicated curses and insults with de Bergerac grace and nosey delight--especially the scene where he's mocking the fop Prince, the Prince of Morons--and de Bergerac calls him a Fop, too, an F--OH--PEE fop--and he's taunting him to go on and make fun of his proboscis extreme--and he goes through a long categorized list of insults about his nose--the general said, "Point your nose toward the enemy and fire." I enjoyed about 30 minutes of this actor's Cyrano railing mercilessly at every idiot around him, and to him, everybody around him is an idiot or a moron or a fop. Wonderful stuff. I must read the book.

A Seattle journalist named David Heath has written thoroughly about earmarks and how they're used by politicians to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Obama was himself a purveyor of earmarks while an Illinois Congressman. Hillary Clinton was one of the biggest earmark provider there ever was. Now Hill's campaign warchest is broke and she's having to go out and beg for contributions. "Hey, Hill, just write some more earmarks for your friends in some nutjob bill or act or rule that's coming up for vote this session." David Heath shows you how Congress hides earmarks, which are supposed to be transparent, but since politicians and CEOs and crooks don't like transparency, they found ways to keep them transparent and hidden at the same time.

Oh well. Don't you think it's so considerate that Obama's going to honor John McCain at his inauguration and have a right-wing fundie Jesus jockey give his inauguration prayer?--and why is it necessary to have a prayer before the inauguration?--or even to swear on a Christian holy book of fables? What a bunch of silly shit.

This dude Leo Girard, head of the Steel Workers Union, I like a lot. He's a cool dude. From Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, one of the most polluted cities in North America due to the many mines and smelters around the "Nickel Capital of the World" as it was one time called. The Sudbury air is full of sulphuric acid.

I'm tired. The Giants lost to the lowly Philadelphia Eagles today in local pro football action. The mighty Giants with their mighty invincible Manning boy couldn't overwhelm the beat-up old Philly Eagles. As a kid I loved the Eagles--especially the team that had Sonny Jurgenson at quarterback--they had Norm Van Brocklin at one time, too. I loved the Bill Parcels Giants--what a great team that was--with Phil Simms at quarterback. But this one was a great pro football game--close all the way the way sports entertainment should be.

atiredandworngrowlingwolf
for The Sunday Daily Growler