Saturday, September 01, 2007

Never, Ever, Go To War With Republicans

The way the Republican leadership and rank and file have turned on Larry Craig sent my head back to Viet Nam for a moment.

My team and I had been out in the boonies (the far boonies) roaming around the various spots on the famed Ho Chi Minh Trail where they would cache fuel, ammo, and food. We'd find stuff like that and try to boobytrap it, or simply render what we could unusable. We were mainly seeking targets of opportunity, things like mountain passes we could choke off, bridges that were built a few inches below the surface of the water to avoid being visible from the air. Clever stuff like that. We were not seeking enemy contact of any kind.

Contact came anyway. That can happen when you have various groups of scouts and recon all sneaking around out in the back of beyond. It was a brief contact, but for me it was devastating. I caught a rifle round high on the hip. It blew off a chunk of my iliac crest and cracked my pelvis. Because we knew that they had help they could call for and we didn't we figured our best option was to light a shuck the hell out of there as fast as we could. We knew they had called for help because they were keeping near enough to fix our position, but never closing for another fight. Our only hope was to outrun the bastards.

After some very rudimentary first aid I was being carried on an improvised stretcher made out of rain ponchos and some bamboo. I was in hellish pain. Every step that was being taken jarred my pelvis. Being shot hurts bad enough. It's like being hit with a red hot cast iron cooking pan. There is not only the impact trauma, all the area around and into the wound is burned. My team was stalwart though. By switching off on the carrying chores they were managing to not only hump me through the bush, they were making pretty good time. We figured that we had about twenty five miles to go before we could reasonably expect any air cover or chance of an extraction. Even that would be dicey as hell if we couldn't manage to lose the folks behind us.

There were many times out there that our superior conditioning and nutrition carried the day. We were all marathon quality runners who could keep up a murderous pace all day and all night. What made us even more dangerous is that we were totally capable of running a marathon under pack and then turning to fight in decent shape. It turned more than one tide of folks that thought they had us.

In my pain and fear, and also my shame at being a weak link I began to pester my guys to leave me at a decent vantage point with an M-60, a couple belts and some grenades. I told them that I would hold the bad guys up long enough for the rest of them to get away. Part of it was my wanting to get the team out safely but a big part of it was I really, really wanted to quit bouncing the fuck up and down on those goddamned ponchos. The pain was really unimaginable. It wasn't a question of endurance, they weren't putting me down.

Finally, I thought I had gotten through to one of my buddies. A big huge guy whose given name was Bear. He and I had been together in boot camp in San Diego, BUDS at the Strand, Jump School, all of it side by side. I figured if anybody would understand where I was coming from it would be the Bear.

He called a halt. But instead of setting me up and leaving me to save themselves the team started to dig in all around me. I said "Hey, wait a second, you guys are supposed to go on and get the fuck outta here."

Bear just looked at me like I was the dumbest fuckwad that ever drew a breath and calmly said "If you die, everybody dies."

Those are the type of men that I went into battle with.

The Republicans not only desert each other at light speed, they are capable of eating the wounded raw. They are all up on the TV today talking about what a great leader and statesman Larry Craig is. If he's such a great guy, why didn't they try to help him get through his trouble? Huh? If Mitch McConnell had been in my unit they never would have bothered to pick me up in the first place. They would have all just run as fast as they could.

It shows the shallowness of their character, their total lack of a core belief in anything but their own little fiefdoms.

I didn't think it was something remotely possible but I respect them even less today.

They are not only hypocrites, they are cowards.

Fuck. Them. All.

3B's

Susie Bright Injects a Note of Sanity

And why the hell not? A little sanity would be nice here. I've had a lot of fun being snarky and snide about Senator Craig's self destruction. Still, I didn't think the penalties for his action should have progessed much farther than finger pointing and sniggering.

While the republicans are circling their wagons (talk about a circle of jerks) My hero, Susie Bright is going all academic on this.

Instead of waxing all poetic about the sin and immorality of bathroom sex, Susie goes Kinsey. Why not find out about how people actually behave? Instead of a blanket condemnation, why not find out where we are on this?

Great idea Susie. Here's the link for the survey

Added bonus: Susie Goes First in the comments.

3B's

Friday, August 31, 2007

Just when I Was About to do a Random Ten

The first song to bubble up was:



That's right folks. The Boss. Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuce! Then I got to thinking, like the naughty, naughty, boy I am. . .

See, I've learned a lot lately about how to behave in bathrooms. Some of the links I followed talked about "Glory Holes" and well, I bet you can guess the rest. . .p.s. the guitarist that replaced Miami Steve when he went all hollywood and stuff is Mighty Nils Lofgren. A great talent, a clean and sober friend. Tell the boss that I'm sorry bro, I just couldn't help myself. . .


GLORY HOLES

I knew this dude was big time Senator
Back in Washington
Protected our families, our children from sin
Dude got stuff done
I saw him just the other night at this airport john
I was walkin' in he was walkin' out
We went back inside, sat down to do some business
But all he kept talkin' about. . .

(CHORUS)

Glory Holes
At the airport john
Glory Holes
I bet the park has one
Glory Holes, Glory Holes
Glory Holes

There's this girl that he married to keep up the scam
Because it was the best way
He felt some fear so he got him a beard
So nobody would guess that he's gay
Well she's standing beside him, playing along
Even though the secret is out
He's standing there telling us that he's not gay
But all that I'm thinking about. . .

CHORUS

I'm going to the airport tonight
I'm going to stand in the lines for my plane
I'm cuttin' back on the coffee, the pop and the tea
Don't want them thinking I'm strange
I don't want to get myself caught in the trap
Don't wanna get grabbed by no cops
So I'll probably just zip down and whiz fast
And hope that no other shoes drop. . .

CHORUS


3B's

Thursday, August 30, 2007

A Song for The G.O.P. (Gross Old Perverts)

There was a Question of the Day recently at Shakesville concerned the common wrong lyrics that people put into popular songs. One very common one was for Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" where instead of singing "there is a bad moon on the rise." people hear "there is a bathroom on the right."

A Bathroom On The Right?

That's simply to perfect to pass up this morning. Larry Craig, and the rest of you closted Christiopathic scumbags. . .

This is for you (Hit it Tucker!)

I see an airport bathroom
I see a senator go in
I see his toes begin to tapping
I find I can't suppress a grin

(CHORUS)
Don't go down tonight
It's bound to take your life
What's with these bathrooms and the right?


I know that Clinton got a blowjob
She was consenting and of age
I know when Republicans are reading
They want to bend over a page

CHORUS

Hope you can get your shit together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like you're in for nasty weather
November will bring crying time

CHORUS


3B's

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Alexander's Broken Army

July, 326 B.C.E

This was an army that had never been defeated in battle. For twelve years, since the death of Phillip, when Alexander began to bring all of Greece under his control, they had marched from victory to victory.

There had been setbacks. A baggage train here, a scouting squad there, but whenever Alexander, aided by Ptolemy, Hephaestion, Parmenio (until he was executed), Black Cletus (until Alexander killed him in a drunken rage), and other commanders who would have been exceptional military minds in any age, but, together, under Alexander had formed a force that had never been defeated over twelve years of continuous warfare.

They had seen it all. They had seen the sythed warchariots of the Persians. They had seen a walled island city. They had seen war elephants, cataphracts, every manner of archer, slinger, swordsman, spearman and warrior the known world had to offer.

They had done all of this. Now, it was time to go home. Alexander's plan was to march further into India, to the Ganges, follow that to the sea and then sail to Babylon. The army wanted to stop.

(from ALEXANDER, by Theodore Ayrault Dodge)

The Macedonian soldiers had determined to proceed no farther. The had, through their officers, certain rights of protest. These they concluded to enforce. For three months, rain had incessantly fallen, and with it the moral tone of the troops. They were ragged: Their arms were worn out; of armor, there was scarcely any. They were not only unwilling, they were unfit.


Alexander addressed his troops. He reminded them that he had been there with them every step of the way. He stripped himself naked and showed them where he bore scars from every single weapon known to man. It was all to no avail. Unable to sway his troops he called for priests and sacrifices. The omens were taken and the interpretation was unfavorable. Alexander agreed to turn back at last.


Dateline right the fuck now:

George W. Bush cannot call upon any of Alexander's gifts. He has no scars from battle to show. He has no stories to share with soldiers over who saved whose life more times in battle. He has no moral authority or marshal imperitives to claim. He is a shrinking, shirking blame deflection machine. Soon, very soon, an army acknowledged to be without equal anywhere in the world will reach the same level as Alexander's. They will simply stop. Not because they are cowards, but because they can go no farther.

As technologically superior as they are, as well armed as they are, they are still men, with human limits. The soldiers on their third tours have already spent far more time on the front lines of conflict than any other soldiers in our history. We did have wars that lasted longer, but, during the Revolution for example, there was a distinct "campaigning season," and with the exception of only a few battles that were significant because they occured so wildly out of season, there were only four or five months of combat a year. In some cases there would be a year or more between battles. In Iraq, our young men and women are out there, in the middle of it, in the gunsights and bombsights of the enemy every minute of every day for stretches of fifteen months. Then they get a breather, of sorts, maybe break up the tedium of having to be in Iraq with a six to eight month trip to Afghanistan. This is quite simply, beyond the limits of human endurance.

I remember one horrible period of a little over thirty six hours where my unit, along with a battalion of marines were subjected to continuous shellings and assaults by combined NVA and VC forces right at the beginnings of the Tet offensives. We fought because we had no where to retreat. We fought because we had no alternative. At one point we were dodging mortar and rockets, running around our lines passing out ammunition and water containers that had been looted from the dead and those wounded so seriously they were unable to hold a place on the line anymore. I ran across a young buck sergeant who was losing it. This young man was incoherently sobbing and shouting gibberish curses. I tried to reach him. I grabbed him and called him by his rank, I was about to strike him when I was stopped by his Gunnery Sergeant. The Gunny was a man I trusted and respected, and he was directly in this man's chain of command. He put his arms around the young man protectively and admonished me saying "This boy is a good goddamned Marine. He's just had too much, that's all. We don't get to choose our breaking points. He found his. You leave him alone, he'll either snap out of it or not. A couple more assaults like the last one and it won't fucking matter even a little tiny bit. So you keep passing out gear, I'll try and form up some kind of fucking order. But leave this boy alone. He's a good Marine. He's just had too much. That's all."

I said "Ooorah Gunny." To the young sergeant I said "Sorry troop."

Pretty soon the military forces themselves will stop this fucking war. They will still be good soldiers, among the best in history. They will just have had too much.

Because he has never had any at all Bush will never see it coming. He'll find somebody else to blame. He always does.

**/rant**

3B's

New Orleans, Two Years Later

Is.
Still.
A.
Fucking.
Mess.

That's a shame.
It should be a scandal.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Susie Bright Is My Hero

Is There a Republican Senator Who's NOT Having Bathroom Sex?

It a totally brilliant piece of work that sums up how I feel perfectly. From now on those hypocritical bastards are presumed to be closeted shamebased bathroom cruisers. It's only sensible.

But, I'll let Susie tell it, since she was first and better than anything I could muster.

Like:
From now on, as far as I'm concerned, every single Republican legislator is a Reeking Freak Closet Case until proven innocent.

These men wouldn't know "safe, sane, and consensual" if you tied it to their weener with a red flag. I won't call them "gay" or "kinky" because that would be an insult to the healthy spectrum of human sexuality. Instead, they're the worst face of sexual repression, because they don't care who they hurt, or how many lies they tell. Their whole life is a SHAM.

The GOP Narcissists aren't the exception to the rule— they ARE the rule. They personify the very sexuality they campaign against. If they vote against gays, we know they're queer. If they're hopped up about "child porn," we can guess their internet habits. If they hold up monogamous marriage as a Christian ideal, we know they're adulterous, blasphemous fools


or:

Here's what they all have in common; They pretend it didn't happen. They try to buy people off to shut them up. They cry that they've been victimized. And then they continue to persecute everyone else by:

Voting YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.
Voting NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes.
Voting NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation.
Voting YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Voting NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

They generously fund the coffers of the vice squads and the surveillance creeps— the very people who later catch them in the act. And who wants to repeat all the disgusting insults and conceits they proselytize in public?

I can't take it anymore. I could spend seven days a week on this blog reporting what new dirt bag has shown his ass on the public square. But I'm fed up. Worse, I'm exhausted with the elected "liberals" and self-proclaimed "feminists" and Democrats who share offices with these pathological liars— and just bury their heads in the tearoom bowl.



Tell it Susie!

You. My. Hero.

3B's