This is the second part to a seven part series that includes an introduction to the Fox News Terror Survival Handbook and a description of the six crucial items that should be carried as part of the Terror Survival kit.
Part 1: The Introduction
Captain Subtext has taken upon himself to bring light to the otherwise deceptive information, data, comments, commentary and other general pronouncements that appear in the media. From time to time he feels that it is his civic duty to clarify the political landscape as he encounters it. On one of his treks through the wonders of the World Wide Web or as he calls it www dot oh my god dot you’ve got to be kidding dot do they think we’re idiots dot what a bunch of morons dot com, he stumbled upon the Fox News Terror Survival Handbook. What follows is his translation of the Fox News’ Terror Survival Handbook version into his unique view of reality. The Terror Survival Handbook text will appear in block quotes followed by the Captain Subtext translation labeled as, well, Captain Subtext translation.
This is the first part to a seven part series that includes an introduction to the Fox News Terror Survival Handbook and a description of the six crucial items that should be carried as part of the Terror Survival kit. Look for Part 2 of Captain Subtext's Translation in the near future.
Part 1: The Introduction Captain Subtext has taken upon himself to bring light to the otherwise deceptive information, data, comments, commentary and other general pronouncements that appear in the media. From time to time he feels that it is his civic duty to clarify the political landscape as he encounters it. On one of his treks through the wonders of the World Wide Web or as he calls it www dot oh my god dot you’ve got to be kidding dot do they think we’re idiots dot what a bunch of morons dot com, he stumbled upon the Fox News Terror Survival Handbook. What follows is his translation of the Fox News’ Terror Survival Handbook version into his unique view of reality. The Terror Survival Handbook text will appear in block quotes followed by the Captain Subtext translation labeled as, well, Captain Subtext translation.
As you can see - I have a problem. It constantly causes me to become disappointed, dismayed, distressed, disaffected, discontented, dissatisfied, disagreeable, discomfited, disgusted, disengaged, disjunctive, distempered, discombobulated and disheartened - well, mainly just damned dis’d. I feel dis’d from my receding hairline to my hemorrhoids - in other words, from an incessant loss to a burning pain. But I might not have that problem anymore; I might be cured. So - what’s the problem? Like many of you, I am hampered by my ideals and a trust that our Constitution will always be honored. There are certain ideals that I thought almost all Americans believe and want to protect. Regardless of how some people abused these ideals, ultimately, something in me trusted that because those ideals were shared they would somehow be protected. I am no longer deluded. This country is in trouble, deep trouble because
Down in the bowels of Fox News lurks Ambush Central, the sacred room where the real decisions are made. Here the Fox News brain-trusts gather for their regular 5:30 am meeting. Seated at a large oval table are Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, Brian Kilmeade, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, Bill O’Reilly, Alisyn Camerota, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, James P. Pinkerton, Neil Cavuto, Liz Trotta. Hovering over the table are the Ghosts of Joseph McCarthy, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush (brainless), Karl Rove (heartless), Dick Cheney (soulless), Donald Rumsfeld (gutless), and Christmas Past (joyless). At the head of the table sits Roger Ailes.
At the dentist office waiting for my daughter to get out of surgery - she was having her wisdom teeth removed - I was having a discussion with my daughter’s mother, (okay, my ex-wife) about immigration. She started it. I won’t go into the details of that issue during which she, in frustration with my well reasoned responses, dug her fingernails into my upper arm. Because she is now to the far right of Attila-the-Hun, her absurd view of the immigration issue really, in my mind, wasn’t the most bothersome of her concepts. Her argument to control illegal immigrants was to have electronic identification implanted in them so that they could be tracked.
Hey, I’ve got two cents, so let me put mine in too.
Suddenly I flashed back to John McEnroe.
John McEnroe:
"What do you mean, you moron!"
"Bullsh*t. That was f***ing out."
"You cannot be serious!"
"Don't give me that crap!"
"Get the hell off the court, lady!" Then he hits a ball that just misses her.
"You’re a disgrace and everyone here’s a disgrace."
"You’re pathetic."
Chair Umpire:
"Code of conduct violation. Unsportsmanlike conduct."
As if it wasn’t enough that Bush used the "fabricated" aluminum tubes which could be employed for the creation of enriched uranium as proof of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, he followed that scare with another enriched uranium accusation that Iran was developing WMDs (not really but they might some time in the future maybe). And of course that meant that they were a threat to the United States. It is unclear if Bush is actively planning to make a move against Iran before he leaves office and leave us with another gift around Christmas time. It seems that the presence of enriched uranium in the Middle East is a point of great concern for this administration.
We hear them again and again, not always from the same people, not always in the same era, but they continually return and effortlessly roll off the tongue. An appreciable number of Americans have grown to love or at least to be cajoled those magical slogans. In fact, they have become such a staple of politicians and power brokers that they can take on a life of their own. They are slippery little things that spread like a virus when people are backed up against the wall of immanent failure or are streaking toward a defeat and have nothing substantial to say.
So, here is a list of my favorites. After them there will be translations from "Captain Subtext." He’s a demented soul who has a bizarre view of reality; that means that he knows the Bush-Cheney-Republican-Neocon mind. (I have resurrected Captain Subtext from the British comedy "Coupling.")
It may be presumptive of me to suggest this, and it may already be ongoing, but none-the-less here it is. It is time for a grass roots Super Delegate campaign because the Super Delegate concept was established to do precisely what Hillary Clinton is trying to do and hopes it will do.
As my daughter and I were getting ready for work and school, I heard an echo. It was Vietnam. It was a politician talking about "withdrawal with honor." It sent a shiver down my spine. The last time we had a politician talking about an "honorable withdrawal" it was Richard Nixon and it cost 1,987 additional American lives. Officially, the first American soldier was killed on July 8, 1959 and the last soldier was killed April 29, 1975. Nixon’s "honorable" withdrawal started in November of 1971 and, according to the National Archives, American soldiers were still dying there for the "honorable" withdrawal in 1998. http://www.archives.gov/...
According to a March 2008 Gallup poll, 28% of Clinton’s supporters are taking their ball and going home or rather giving it to McCain. They are NOT as Loyal to the Democratic Party as Obama Supporters?
A March 2008 Poll by Gallup revealed the following alarming results:
28% of Clinton supports would vote for McCain if Obama wins.
Gallup Poll
Gallup pollster Frank Newport concludes the following:
As would be expected, almost all Democratic voters who say they support Obama for their party's nomination also say they would vote for him in a general election matchup against McCain. But ....
Pure and simple, for me this election is an indicator, a test, of level of racism and racial separation in the United States. Why is this election different? Other African-Americans have run before, but never before has any had a real chance at any time. For a while it looked as if there might be a chance that America had made a significant step away from racial separation and racism, but as the end to the race comes closer, the true nature of the meglomedia and the lemmings that they influence has surfaced. The 19% of Pennsylvanians (that is, the ones who admitted their racism) confirmed this. It is clear that from the beginning of this election, the Feces (Fox) News Network and their constituents were not comfortable with an African-American holding the highest office. After all, they might lose their genetic advantage on the road to success.
I was sitting on the side of my chaise lounge "sipping on a lemon phosphate," crunching on some "Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads," and watching The Cheap Detective on my personal DVD player. The movie’s setting was San Francisco during WWII, and the fog had rolled in. Then out of the mouth of French expatriate Paul DuChard, played by Fernando Lamas, comes, with exaggerated conviction, "We must open a two star restaurant in Oakland where all free Frenchmen can gather around the radio to listen to the war."
By now Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons have been extracted from their context and examined as if they comprised the totality of his sermons and discussed (dissected) to the point of distortion. But more important than that, they have been extracted from the history from which the Black community’s anger was born.
Please, I am in no way belittling the Iraq War, which I feel is a horror, or our courageous troops whom I greatly admire. These socio-economic battles are normally referred to as class wars. In addition, if we had not lost the class war, we would not be fighting the Iraq War because we would never have elected George W. Bush who believes in welfare for the wealthy.
Actually, the war is over. There was a class war; however, it doesn’t seem that the most of middle and lower class were aware that it happened. Using a very slick argument of "fairness," the wealthiest Americans, mostly Republicans, made sure that it stayed under the radar of most middle class people. Rather, I should say the lower class people because the middle class has joined the lower class; I guess that’s the price of defeat and the Republican idea of "fairness."
I used hyperbole in writing the title. I was not attacked physically, rather, verbally. Actually, I was verbally attacked by a whole bunch of people. I really need to explain what hyperbole is and to be more skilled at making sure that people know it is hyperbole. Lesson learned.
I posted a diary entitled, "The United States Needs to Be Invaded and Occupied." I was attempting to use hyperbole to get people's attention back to the war in Iraq, which has slipped further into the background. A few people "got it." Most people did not. However, one of the comments came from a supporter of the American Family Association. In fact, he kindly posted it on his bulletin board. Of course he only post the title and two paragraphs and did not contend with the rest of the post. I'm hoping that I get a chance to respond on his bulletin board without his convenient editing.
First, one needs to have a clear picture of the commentator. Here's the disclaimer for the site:
I just received the Republican National Committee’s "Liberal Agenda Ballot," and the level of their fear that a Democratic presidential win is eminent is readily apparent. The triple "R"s (right-wing, rigidly-religious, ridiculously-rich) are girding their loins for a fight and are slapping on their "Depends" in trepidation that they’ll lose it.
Here’s a list of the fears that they expressed in the letter that accompanied the "Liberal Agenda Ballot" that I received in the mail. After quoting their expressed fears, I’ve included their real fears in parenthesis.
While Obama may want to end the divisiveness in this country and may claim that it wrong to think that the rich do not care about the poor and that this should not be a battle between the rich and poor. The battle is between the rich and the middle class and it was declared by Ronald Reagan and has been successfully waged by their lobbyists and Presidential supporters who shifted the tax burden to the middle class and the National Debt. They hit the mother-load, and they would rather see this country go bankrupt and the middle-class lose their homes than redistribute the wealth by paying higher tax rates. Now that the rich have won the battle they want a truce. The results of the war that was waged on behalf of the wealthy against the middle-class are below. The following alarming information which was gathered from the Federal Reserve Board’s "Survey of Consumer Finances" and the Congressional Budget Office reports.
