When the Fiends Cry "Kill!"
September 10, 2004
By Sheila Samples
So I'm sitting here with a sack over my head, trying to come to
grips with reality. Facts just don't compute anymore. For example,
it's a fact that on Sept 7 the New York Yankees turned in the worst
loss in their entire century of kicking baseball ass. It's a fact
that the Yanks lost 22-0 to the Cleveland Indians - but is it logical?
Believable? Is it reasonable?
My friend Bernie says stuff happens, even if only once a century
and - sadly - even to the Yankees.
"Look at it this way," Bernie chuckled, "the Yanks turned in a
perfect loss. They gave up 22 runs on 22 hits and didn't commit
a single error. Not one! And," he continued earnestly, "your guys
got five hits. Five big ones - and if Matsui had pulled his head
out of his backside even two seconds earlier, he mighta been the
only one to make it to third...
"Go home, Bernie. Go home to Cleveland."
"Awww, come on out of there," Bernie wheedled. "You usually don't
slap on the sack 'till the Jets suit up and stagger out on the field.
Besides," Bernie said brightly, "I think this could be good news."
I raised the sack and peered hopefully at him. "Good news? Hoop
scores on the diamond is good news?"
"Work with me here," Bernie said impatiently. "I'm talking about
your other team - the Democrats. I'm not saying it's true, but this
could be good news for them. Think about it - who was in town that
week? The Republicans! Who's their biggest, fattest donor in the
Big Apple? Steinbrenner! Remember, it was Steinbrenner who let Bush
use the 2001 Series to whip the country into such a patriotic rage
it broke the Yankees' concentration as well as their World Series
winning streak."
"Think about it," Bernie said, "who's the least likely bunch of
guys on a $180 million payroll to fall off their game - all of them
- all in one night? You tell me..."
"Sheesh!" Bernie said, "We probably had the largest, most in-your-face,
anti-Bush statement of the campaign - a Pinstripe Protest! - and
you didn't even notice. Heck, if Billy Martin was still at the Yankees'
helm, the entire world woulda seen right through it by the third
inning, and the cops woulda cuffed the whole damn bunch and tossed
'em into the tank."
Bernie's right! Or not. But when you think about it, the Yankees
came to a fork in the road, and they took it - a one-night wake-up
call to Americans everywhere - showing them that losing is what
happens when you don't fight back. If the people continue to be
intimidated by a team that cheats, has no game plan, no record and
no agenda other than threats, war, terror and danger - the people
are going to lose. Big time.
The Orwellian line-up that took the field at Madison Square Garden
were, for the most part, Republican "smiley faces" and won't be
suiting up after the election. It's interesting to note how easily
these moderates chose to launch a steady stream of dishonorable
and malevolent attacks on Senator John Kerry rather than address
the looming economic and domestic problems endangering this nation.
It's difficult to come to grips with reality. Who can believe
that Elizabeth Dole, a caring, reasonable, former American Red Cross
director - and John McCain, an honorable Vietnam war hero and former
POW - would allow themselves to become so morally twisted and desensitized
in four short years that they would stand before the American people
and justify Bush's feral assault on Iraq, which was nothing but
a fiend howling for the blood of a prey he could get because the
one he should be after got away?
In her brief, celebratory remarks before she bowed, scraped and
backed away from the podium, Dole praised Bush's "courageous and
decisive leadership." The mere thought of all the "honor and dignity"
Bush has restored to the White House made her giddy, and Dole "saluted"
Bush for displaying "the peace that surpasses all understanding"
even as the dead continue to pile up around his strong-willed self.
Americans too lazy to check hard-right, mean-spirited lifetime
voting records love John McCain. He's the guy who has something
for everybody. It's inspiring to watch him straddle the political
fence, lie to both sides of the fence out of both sides of his mouth,
make each side believe it's hearing the truth - and do it in such
a self-deprecating, yet self-aggrandizing way.
"It's a big thing, this war," McCain announced dramatically to
cheers and chants of four more years...four more years...
"and much is expected of us." Then, after assuring the enchanted
crowd that only George Bush could lead us out of a wilderness that
only George Bush led us into, McCain smiled benevolently and inanely
echoed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's revelation that, "This generation
of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."
Republicans are either sitting there with sacks over their heads,
too immersed in guilt to face the reality of more
than 1000 dead US servicemen, or they agree with McCain that
American citizens are "the wages of war" that we are willing to
pay. Does anybody but the families of these brave souls even know
they're dying, and at a clip of more than two a day? Does anybody
care that more than 5,800 soldiers and marines have been sent home
to face their own "rendezvous with destiny" because of disease,
and that even with the Pentagon's haphazard cover-up attempts, more
than 7,000 have been wounded - maimed for life?
Perhaps Republicans like Dole and McCain reel off the party line
because they're grateful to be invited under the Big Tent with the
high rollers and holy rollers and screeching war vultures who are
the real backbone of the Republican Party. The predatory main string
is crouching in the locker room in exultant anticipation of continuing
their assault at home on our US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
They are ramping up their bloody campaign abroad to control the
world's resources and to force upon that same world the deadly "Feith-based"
New World Order by killing anyone we don't like, anyone who doesn't
like us, or anyone who might someday have the intention of not liking
us.
September the Eleventh. That's the way Bush says it. Not 9-11
or September 11. He rolls September the Eleventh around in his mouth,
savoring it, stretching it out before reluctantly releasing it,
only to search for an excuse to fill his mouth and his imagination
with it again and again. September the Eleventh is the source of
all his wet dreams, his obsessions, his visions, his grand schemes
- his plan for changing the world. Small wonder, then, that he made
a conscious and malicious decision to return to the September the
Eleventh crime scene to demand four more years - not as President
of the United States for he does not wear that mantle well, but
as its Commander-in-Chief.
When the flags burst open and George Bush strutted to the symbolic
mound to pitch his "vision for a safer world and a more hopeful
America," the crowd, like a collective parent whose vulgar little
bully finally copped the lead in a third-grade school play, furiously
waved their flags - squirmed in ecstacy - lip-synced along with
him.
"In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat," he lied yet again, "and
I faced the kind of decision that comes only to the Oval Office,
a decision no president would ask for, but must be prepared to make.
Do I forget the lessons of September the Eleventh and take the word
of a madman (No! No! Boo! No Way!), or do I take action to
defend our country? (YES! Kill! Kill!) Faced with that choice,
I will defend America every time." (Praise God! Praise George
W. Bush! Four more years! Four more years!)
Nobody "works a crowd" better than Bush. Make the "lie" pie higher
and higher then, after you throw in a few patriotic slogans, tell
'em there's power in the blood and they'll follow you anywhere.
When the fiends cry, "Kill!" it mesmerizes the faithful, and psychologically
destroys the enemy's reputation, his will to fight - his very existance.
Bush is emboldened by the fact that the media will accept, even
promote, his lies while parsing and twisting every word uttered
by his opponent.
Fiends have a tendency to play fiendish games. Midway through
his speech, in an arrogant stroke of sheer cruelty, Bush made up
a story for political purposes and campaign points about a letter
"one Army specialist wrote home."
"We are transforming a once sick society into a hopeful place,"
Bush maintained the unidentified soldier wrote. "The various terrorist
enemies we are facing in Iraq... are really aiming at you back in
the United States. This is a test of will for our country. We soldiers
of yours are doing great and scoring victories in confronting the
evil terrorists."
Even if I had not heard these words verbatim in countless Bush
stump speeches, I spent an entire career communicating with Army
specialists, and I cannot imagine a single one of them - drunk
or sober - who would write such garbage - especially to folks
at "home." When a lying fiend tosses you onto a bloody battlefield
with little concern about whether you're properly trained or equipped,
and you're over there pounding sand, sucking in depleted uranium
and getting shot at and shit on 24/7, you don't write your mother
and announce primly, "We soldiers of yours are doing great and scoring
victories in confronting the evil terrorists."
Haw. Ain't gonna happen.
The man who would use a United States soldier - even a ficticious
one - to channel his own warped views about good versus evil - to
pat himself on the back for having the "will" to continue the slaughter
- is beyond dishonorable. Bush is the Commander-in-Chief and, as
such, owes American servicemembers and their families an apology.
As I write this, seven Marines were blown to bits in Iraq, many
more wounded. The fiends responsible for this barbarity are not
worthy of a single American vote.
George Bush has declared the upcoming election a war for Republicans
to control the hearts and minds of the American people. John Kerry,
unlike Bush, has been to war, and knows Democrats cannot afford
to lose this one. He knows the stakes are much higher than seizing
control of American hearts and minds. It is about freeing and protecting
American bodies and souls.
Americans have come to a fork in the road and, like Yankees' philosopher,
Yogi Berra, once said - we need to take it.
I agree. It's time we threw the fiends out.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer and a former
US Army Public Information Officer. She will accept praise and atta-boys
at: [email protected].
Complaints and death threats should be directed to her cousin, Junior
Samples, at BR-549
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