BUSH: MORE LYING UNCOVERED

Here is just another example in a long, long line of media reports that come out every day proving that the homespun, straight-speaking image manufactured for W by Carl Rove couldn't be farther from the truth. They lie, they try to force everybody else to lie, they lie about the lying, and then they lie about lying about the lying.

Now we learn that the Bushites tried to get Colin Powell to give out even more outrageously untrue disinformation than he actually used in his "tour de force" UN speech last winter:

Bushistas Plied Powell with Pure Prevarications

It is remarkable that the conservative mind-control machine is able to transform literally mountains of evidence of Bush's mendacity, inhumanity, ignorance, and heartlessness into the message that Democrats are liars.

It's a testament both to the effectiveness of advertising-like political chicanery and to the abysmal gullibility of barely educated Americans.

Only stupidly selfish people could possibly buy modern American conservatism. And the Bushites know it.

BUSH: PUPPET OF WOLFOWITZ

The Independent reports on a story from an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair in which Paul Wolfowitz (ultra-conservative hawk and architect--together with Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others--of the New American Empire doctrine known as the Project for the New American Century) admits that Bush's "weapons of mass destruction" scare campaign was only a convenient excuse for the political aims of world hegemony that have been openly advocated by principal players in the Bush junta.

Here's the link:

Bush Lies to Get His Hands on Iraq

We can only hope that the more these utterly amoral power-mongers think they are succeeding, the more they will reveal about their real plans under the false assumption that their success is making people come over to their side. When the downfall of such people does come--and it sometimes doesn't come during their lifetimes, unfortunately--it is because they get too cocky about themselves and reveal enough about their miserable characters that decent people finally peg them for the filthy slimeballs they actually are behind their posturing.

Let's hope that day comes for Bush et al. before the nation is wrecked on the reefs of their arrogant follies.

BUSH: MORE LIES FOR A TAX CUT

And just in case there is even one person left out there who still believes that W has even a shred of integrity, here's the news--which the White House waited to admit until AFTER the disgusting tax-cut bill was signed yesterday--that a report done by Bush's former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill shows over $44 TRILLION in deficits as a result of the Bush tax cuts. This dwarfs by a factor of ten the outrageous deficits racked up by Reagan and Bush I.

Here'e the link:

Bush Hides Truth Until He Gets What He Wants

How many times will the American sheep allow these villains to pull the same trick? Bush lied when he told us he was a moderate, and revealed the lie on his first day in office. Bush lied when he told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and now there are none. And he lied when he told us this latests tax cut would be the panacea of all panaceas. Instead, he own people say that it will lead to a massive default on federal obligations, a devastating economic calamity to rival the Great Depression, and a bleak future for the whole world.

But I guess that's just good old conservative values.

A NEW LOW BLOW TO THE TRUTH

Well, folks, now we have seen everything. We thought that politics could not get any lower than the depths to which the current conservative hordes had driven it. But it turns out that it can.

We all know that W is the first PURE image politician. There have been others in the past, of course, who relied heavily on pumped-up, false image-making to present themselves to the people as something they were not. Reagan was one of the major players in this arena.

But no one has ever had less substance and more hype that George W. Bush. It's utterly ludicrous that anyone in this country save the most credulous conservative partisans could imagine that Bush has any heft at all. He is an empty place-holder for the Bush dynasty. They would have preferred it if Jeb had been in position to run for president last time around, because he at least has some intelligence. But W was a nothing, a dunderhead, a loser. He is nothing BUT image--no brain, no common sense, no prudence, no heart. The few defining characteristics he does have--his meanness, his pettiness, his smirking superiority--are so negative that the image makers have to edit them out of his behavior if they can.

Well now for the new low: it turns out that W himself is not a good enough actor to carry the new image of "resolute, determined leader" for very long. Even the recent debased trouncing of a defenseless enemy in Iraq, followed by W's arrogant strut on the aircraft carrier, is not enough to hold up his popularity ratings. So the Rove image grinding machine had to find a new way to keep pumping up the moron troops.

How, you ask? By turning to Hollywood.

Yes, that's right. Hollywood, one of the conservatives' favorite punching bags.

You see, if Bush isn't a good enough actor to play a credible president, Rove can just hire a better one.

And that just what they've done. Check out this link for the full story:

Playing Bush Playing President

The short version is that Rove and the boys have simply written a TV movie that will portray Bush as a hero on 9/11, instead of as the completely out-of-his-depth stick-puppet we all saw in that Florida school where he was trying to read to third-graders. The actor playing Bush playing president will have stirring lines to deliver resolutely. He will make resolute hand gestures, speak resolute near-swear words, mug resolutely. And all of it in surroundings that look imposing.

Of course, none of it is verifiable. The people who know what Bush was really doing during that day aren't talking. My money is on a different scenario: his handlers whisked him off somewhere so they could give him a crash course in what to say and how to act when they finally got him back to Washington. It's well known that it takes W hours to get a few lines right. And the stakes were very high that day.

But of course the truth is not even circling the airport here. The Bush junta jettisoned that long before the 2000 election. No one would even have given W a FIRST look if they had to deal with the truth.

No, this is much better. Write your own docudrama and get it out there before the historians can even ask a question. Much better.

And on top of that, it does away with the pesky unreliability of the real world. Sure, Rove and Rumsfeld and Cheney can do their damnedest to trump up world crises for W to "deal with," but not even they can generate really big crises on the precise schedule needed for presidential politics. Suppose they just can't, no matter how hard they try, get another terrorist attack to happen here in the weeks before the next election? Suppose they just can't start and finish another bogus "war" in time for Bush to do some victory struts close to November 2004? What if W actually has to deal with some important issues in the lead-up to the election because the world won't deliver a big enough distraction? (By the way, I don't think we'll be seeing W in any debates this time around. They'll blame it on his opponents, but they won't take the chance of him messing up now that he holds the seat.)

Problem solved! If the world won't deliver a photo-op, just deliver a photo-op to the world! Whenever W's image needs a shot in the arm, just schedule another docudrama. Done. No more need to rely on reality at all.

The future is bleak, friends. There are only two forks in this road. Either we wake up and realize that we've all been stoned out of our minds to allow conservatives to manipulate politics for the past 25 years, or we sink into a stupor of insubstantial hallucinatory images that will take us further and further down the road to fascism, despotism, and ultimately, destruction.

BUSH: ONLY WEALTHY PEOPLE HAVE VALUE

Just thought you'd like to take a look at this well-written piece on how contemporary conservatives (i.e., radical, right-wing corporatists, capitalists, or asocial libertarians) have dumped the social contract for their own special brand of selfishness: the rights of the wealthy.

Steinhorn: Only Wealthy People Can Create Wealth

As Steinhorn rightly points out, the social contract worked out during the presidency of FDR created a just apportionment of responsibility and creativity to three constituencies of society--Labor, Government, and Capital. This progressive alliance forged the most successful economy in American history THAT ALSO PROVIDED PUBLIC WORKS FOR THE WHOLE NATION. FDR's achievement proved that a government-enforced partnership among those three constituencies not only worked, but worked extremely well. It was a robust social contract, under which all three constituencies did well for themselves, and for the whole nation.

But capital is never satisfied with doing well. It wants to do spectacularly. Greed knows no bounds, especially when it has been morphed into religion by hypocritical theocrats.

Hence the fierce, prolonged attack on the New Deal social contract that was pushed through to a near rout during the Reagan-Bush I years, and that has almost completely triumphed under the Bush II occupancy. The capitalists have enlisted the fundamentalists--under the guise of religion--in the cause of greater concentration of wealth; they have enlisted the macho, xenophobic, ultra-radical, anti-government libertarians--under the guise of patriotism--in the cause of demolishing governmental structures that limit the concentration of wealth; and they have enlisted women--under the guise of traditionalism--in the cause of reversing the advancement of women into the halls of money so that the pool of wealth is not diluted by having to distribute it to some many newcomers.

This new, virulently selfish strain of conservatism--which you can see all over the face of its poster boy, W--is a cancer in the heart of the republic. Our only hope is to excise it before it metastasizes and eats away the whole body politic.

ANTI-SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE CAPITALISTS

On the heels of Warren Buffett's article excoriating the latest Bush tax-cut in the Washington Post last week (which we discussed in real time), letters to said Post by disaffected millionaires started to come in. Here is one of those letters:

Rich Person: Don't Bother Me with Buffett's Conscience

As usual, this self-centered conservative doesn't care at all about the struggling workers who will see little if anything from Bush's massive "welfare for the wealthy" tax boondoggle; she doesn't even mention Buffett's quite rational argument that the $350,000,000 in tax savings that he might gain from Bush's giveaway to the rich would stimulate the economy much more if it were given out in $1000 batches to 350,000 lower-income Americans, who would certainly put it into the economy.

No, this letter relies only on the same old conservative crapola: the whole tax cut is only a miniscule fraction of the gross domestic product; getting the money out of Washington is the only way to prevent its being spent; all economists agree that tax-cuts are good for what ails every government; oh, and don't forget a final ad hominem attack just to show how "fair and balanced" you are.

As usual, it's all conservative cant. The ratio between the size of the tax-cut and the size of the GDP is completely irrelevant. What matters is the ratio between the size of the tax-cut and the size of the federal budget. And that ratio is so large that all the federal programs relied upon most by the American people--including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal education programs, federal jobs programs, homeland security, and even the military--will start to suffer drastically in very short order. And by the time people figure it out and elect democrats who will raise taxes, it will be too late. Our children will have to go to Europe (or some other progressive place) to find the American dream, because it won't be found here in the US.

Getting money out of Washington is the stupidest possible, most shortsighted way to deal with waste and pork in government. Unless, of course, it's only a socially acceptable way of covering up conservative selfishness. Since a conservative knows full well that in front of well-meaning people he can't express his anti-social belief--namely that he is not willing to pay for anything that might help others at his own expense--he uses the "blame Washington" dodge to hide his greed and lack of common decency. Then he thinks he will be able to get away with engineering his true aim: sqeezing off the flow of all revenue that might be spent on the general welfare instead of on his own personal welfare. There is no other reason at all for this sham slogan, since a rational person recognizes that in every human venture there is always waste, which must be controlled by continual stringent oversight and periodic reform.

The third bit of crapola is conservatism in high form: not only is it bald-faced in its contradiction of reality, but it is arrogant in its bearing toward those who are not "smart enough" to have grasped the superior "truth" of the massive lie that is propped up as a fact. The truth is that no reputatble economists (i.e., those who would be in the running for a job at an institution that is not run by conservatives) believe in tax-cuts as a panacea for the ills of society. Only ideologically conservative economists believe that tax-cuts do any lasting good for an economy, and they believe it out of sheer stubborness in the face of all evidence. The only tax cut in living memory that didn't result in disaster was Kennedy's tax cut (which conservatives just love to harp on), and all that did was keep the economy in the doldrums rather than heading south. Moreover, the reason it worked (which conservatives will never admit) is that the highest tax rate at the time was something like 91%! At that level, even liberals should be screaming that taxes are too high. But at lower tax levels cutting taxes does not work: Reagan's tax cut just led to massive unemployment and a huge deficit; W's first tax cut has done nothing to stem the tide of unemployment or ballooning deficits. Of course conservatives always have excuses for these failures. They have to have excuses, because it's unthinkable that they could be wrong about keeping everything for themselves. Selfishness does not want to see that generosity is much better.

And finally, the gratuituous ad hominem attack--well, what can you expect from people who see no problem with shouting down someone you disagree with instead of trying to persuade, who prefer a belligerent ignoramus to a civil intellectual, and who will use any means necessary, no matter how underhanded, to preserve their privileges?

So, all in all, we think Warren Buffett's article has much more common decency that 350,000 self-serving letters from holier-than-thou, my-me-mine conservatives.

We know that there are a lot of conservatives out there who don't like the way they are. People who would rather be congenial and have decent friends instead of having to socialize with swaggering bullies and lug-headed chest-thumpers. People who don't remember how they became addicted to the neo-fascist talking heads on FOX News, or how they started beating up on "liberals," or how they started to feel that everyone who disagreed with them was trying to rob them of their money or their freedom or their values.

We want you to know that there is help for you. You are not alone. There are 12-step programs and counselors to help you find your way back to the society of decent people.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

SOLUTIONS TOO SIMPLE FOR CONSERVATIVES

Today the usual Sunday mini-sermon is a just brief look at the conservative conscience--if that isn't an oxymoron. (And it is.)

In order to have their current round of mindless tax-cuts, conservatives are more than willing to gut the treasury of the federal government for decades, if not forever. The money given back to the rich and the borderline rich today will not be there tomorrow to pay for Social Security, Medicare, prescription drugs, education, national security, and all the services that government provides to its citizens.

Conservatives, of course, don't care about all this. They think they can get along just fine on their own. Of course they're wrong, but the simple fact that they couldn't survive without the good will of others is just too galling to them to be true in their mindset; so they ignore it. entirely.

The solution to the whole difficulty is another simple fact that conservatives can't see: just keep the tax structure the way it is, and it would go a long way over the next ten years to pay for the shortfalls that Republicans are causing with their brainless "taxes are bad" lunacy.

And if you really wanted to close the gap in the government budgets, all you would have to do is raise taxes a little on corporations and the wealthy. Two or three percentage points on those people would more than fill the coffers of the nation.

But of course conservatives can't even countenance such a rational notion as getting a few extra dollars from those who can afford it most, who have the most to be thankful for, and owe their success to the freedom American protects.

Why not?

Because, as we have pointed out many times, conservatives are essentially SELFISH. The whole slogan that people should "get to keep more of their money" is an appeal to selfishness that works well on the selfish heart of a conservative.

Let us pray, brothers and sisters, for the deliverance of all the benighted conservatives out there who refuse to see the truth, and who cause endless suffering for everyone they know. It is sad to see so many lives blighted by such profound ignorance, all in the service of selfishness.

May they all wake up, and see the errors of their ways.

And if not, may we throw them all out of office in 2004!

BUSH: LYING WITH IMPUNITY

Conservative hypocrisy, unlike Liberal hypocrisy, is not limited in any way by reality.

When liberals find their self-delusion conflicting with the real world, they begin to feel guilty about it, and this sense of shame prevents them from doing too much harm to others just in order to maintain their own self-delusion.

Conservatives, on the other hand, being motivated at the deepest level by selfishness, do not recognize any limits on their hypocrisy. They will maintain their self-delusion at anyone's cost; and since they don't really care about anyone but themselves (and perhaps their families), they don't care who gets hurt by their self-delusion.

This dynamic is always on display in conservative circles, but never more prominently than it is right now with W and his puppeteers in the ascendency. Bush and his minions are the most audaciously mendacious leaders this country has ever had, but--true to conservative hypocritical propaganda--they all must be portrayed as the more honest than George Washington, more patriotic than Jean Paul Jones, more courageous than Indiana Jones.

Bush lied like a rug his whole life about everything, big and small; he lied shamelessly as governor of Texas; he lied continually during the 2000 election; and he has lied monstrously from his first day in his usurped office.

But conservative self-delusion demands that he always be portrayed as a man of character, integrity, and firmness. (The self-delusion part belongs only to conservatives who are too dumb to be aware of the massive PR front that generates these images to cover over the man's utter moral bankruptcy, his abysmal ignorance, and his mean-spirited soul. More intelligent conservatives know the truth, but are willing to use lies to achieve their ends because they are even more depraved than W himself, who is too stupid to be self-aware at all and probably believes the images fed to him by his handlers. In other words, Bush is self-deluded; his handlers are Machiavellian.)

Here is an article detailing the lies told by the Bush junta JUST OVER THE PAST EIGHT MONTHS.

Bush: Olympic-Class Liar

Until we get rid of these "evildoers" (to use one of W's favorite terms), none of us can sleep easily. They will steal our rights and tell us at the same time that they are protecting our rights. And one day we'll all wake up just like the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and the unknown numbers of political prisoners Ashcroft has already locked up anonymously in pusuance of the Patriot Act--prisoners of a nightmare America from which there can be no escape.

1984 came a little late, but it's here now.

BUSH: BACK DOWN LOW

Well the spike that Bush got from the unprecedented preemptive attack on Iraq has faded. The latest NBC/Wall Street Jounral poll shows W's numbers back at or below the pre-war levels. Here's the link:

Bush Returns to Set-Point

Of course, we can count on the lapdog, corporate-owned press to try to buoy up their puppet leader. This morning on the Today show, Campbell Brown, who has shilled for Bush since the election, described the 12.67% decline in approval from 71% to 62% in one month's time as "a small drop."

Since Bush is the first completely image-based "president"--i.e., the first utter non-entity ever to hold the job (even the worst presidents of the past could always at least speak for themselves without babbling nonsense)--his handlers are going to have to come up with more and more publicity stunts to keep the numbers from sliding to where they should be--which is far below 50%, since the only people who really support W are the hard-core Republicans, who constitute only about 25% of the voting public, which is much less than the population at large.

Vermont's Bernie Sanders said it best yesterday when speaking to an audience of young people. It all depends on turnout, he said. If we get 70=80% turnout, we win. If we get 40% turnout, they win.

It's as simple as that, because the majority of Americans are not yet as vicious, nasty, and mean as hard-core Republicans, and if we could get them off their butts and out to the polls, they would not support the ethically challenged conservatives who are currently trying to demolish everything that promotes the public welfare in order to line the pockets of the wealthy.

Aut pugnate aut perite! (Fight or perish!)

BUSH: A MEAN BUDGET-BUSTER

Oh, and by the way, Warren Buffett wrote a great op-ed in the Washington Post today that explains, in plain English that anyone can understand, just what the Bushites are doing to the country with their dividend-tax repeal. As you might suspect, it's all for the purpose of making the rich richer and the lower middle-class pay much more than their share of the bills.

Here's the link:

Bush's Giveaway to the Rich

Keep fighting the Bush occupation!

NEO-CONS: THE PNAC IS A DEVIL'S DEN

For the regular reader: in order to understand the scariest aspects of the current usurpers in charge of our government, you need to understand the PNAC or Project for a New American Century. The architects of the war on Iraq, Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are all signatories to the manifesto of that Project, which strightforwardly urges substitution of might for right, of power for law, whenever possible.

You can read all about it here:

The PNAC: Evil Afoot in America

Please become familiar with this fascist conspiracy that has gained control of our government; it will change your mind about how close we are to the first American totalitarian government.

MEDIA: CONSERVATIVE CONTROL REVEALED

Here is a link to an article that shows some evidence of the way in which one major American television network tightly controlled its news operation so that criticism of the Bush administration would be minimal and favorable presentation maximal during the Iraq adventure.

Note in particular how honest and straightforward the treatment of the evidence is, even to the point of questioning its veracity. This is an attitude one never sees in the conservative media, which present bald-faced lies as unquestionable truth if it serves their purposes.

Here is the link:

TruthOut: Media Message Controlled by Conservatives

Among many other tidbits:

(April 4) ...sharply rising unemployment numbers, this should be countered with official interviews stressing that the unemployment situation is now stabilizing and expected to fall soon.

(March 30) Because of the seriousness of the spread of SARS, actual figures of either the infected or of any deaths from local medical facilities must be carefully vetted via the CDC press information office in Atlanta. From the highest level, it is imperative that the American public not panic over the very rapid spread of this disease. Speculations of the actual nature of SARS is not under any circumstances to be permitted. Keep in mind the currently in- place rules following the outbreak of Legionnaires Disease.

(April 4) ...a discussion of French desecrations of American and British war graves in France are to receive specific notice. Also, damage to the 9/11 memorial in Paris is to be included. No pictures of swastikas or other defamatory and anti-Administration graffiti are to be shown. French official apologies are permitted...no comments equating the President with Hitler will be made...and the invasion of Iraq may not be compared with Hitler's invasion of Poland, and such allegations now being made extensively in offshore media coverage are not to receive any attention. The Iraqi campaign is officially a campaign by a democratic United States against ruthless cruelty and oppression.

(April 5) ... comments appearing in the left-wing British Guardian about the occupation and administration of a conquered Iraq by American military personnel are to be ignored. Pacification, liberation, freedom and gratitude towards US forces, and the President are to be stressed.

(March 29) The President's goal, to achieve oil autarchy by the United States, is suggested as a future series. Congressional denial of drilling in various environmentally "sensitive" areas may be derided as foolish misunderstanding of America's vital oil needs. The interdiction of oil shipments to the United States from Venezuela and Nigeria are not to be commented upon. The attitude of Chavez towards the United States is also considered a non-topic. He was removed from power once and it can happen a second time. File footage of large crowds of distressed and unhappy Venezuelans should be prepared against the time he is removed from power again...

Gee...sounds like Fox to us. Do we smell Roger Ailes?

BUSH: AFRAID OF OLD LADIES

By the way, I just came across this great article in the Knoxville News Sentinel by David Hunter on Bush's fear of the media, together with the ministrations of his handlers to keep the public from seeing examples of Bush's subnormal capacities on national television.

Here's the link:

Hunter: Bush Won't Take On 82 Year-Old Woman in Fair Fight

The lickspittle press has degenerated into the 10,000th Estate. Most of these career hounds aren't even smart enough to recognize a lie, let alone resourceful enough to do some research and put the liars to the test.

Helen Thomas puts the rest of them to shame. If the Washington press corps had any integrity, the next time the Bushites try to pass over Helen Thomas, the person called on should inform the spokesperson that Ms. Thomas has the right of first question, and that no one else will begin until she does.

That might put the fear of God into these arrogant power-mongers!

BUSH: IMAGE AND LIES

Two excellent op-eds appeared over the weekend that point out--in the civilized and understated manner that is characteristic of liberal columnists but much too sophisticated for the blood-and-guts simple-mindedness of the average conservative--the vile cynicism of the Bush junta. The first was by Michael Kinsley, who cleared up the monstrous hypocrisy of Bush's recent staged photo-op at MCT Industries in Albuquerque on Monday 12 May, which was stage-managed to drum up mob support for the Bushite tax-cut. Among other things that clearly demonstrate the Bush disdain for truth and the people, Kinsley mentions that MCT, which was supposed to be a prime example of "small business" making it by hard work and entrepreneurship, has instead benefitted from all sorts of governmental cronyism. For instance,

• June 1997. MCT, as a local company, competes against a national waste management firm for a local garbage collection contract. It wins the contract and sells the business to the national firm the next day.

• August 1999. Waste News reports that Albuquerque has a bizarre regulation requiring all city garbage trucks to be made out of a particular brand of steel. Only one company sells trucks made out of this material. Guess.

• July 2002. The Bureau of Indian Affairs approves an MCT municipal garbage landfill on an Indian reservation. Also, the New Mexico Rural Development Response Council and several state agencies help MCT acquire land for a factory to build platforms for aircraft repairs.

So, as usual, Bush's handlers just used the convenient company of a wealthy supporter (MCT is a big GOP contributor, no surprise) to provide a backdrop, and then they lied about the company entirely to falsify the image of what is actually the most corporatation-friendly administration since the Gilded Age.

Here's the link:

Kinsley: Bush's Deceptive Imagery

The second good opinion piece came from Ellen Goodman, who returned to the now-forgotten question of why the Bushites repeatedly, and in many different ways, lied to the nation about the presence of so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now that the US's own investigative team has left Iraq without finding anything, it seems pretty clear that Saddam either didn't have any left, or that the US intelligence community is completely and utterly hopeless at its job.

The Hammer, of course, doesn't believe the latter. Neither do the Bushites, who simply disregarded US intelligence when it wasn't giving them the answer they wanted about WMD in Iraq, and turned instead to their own "sources," namely Iraqi interest groups that wanted Saddam out and themselves in his place. From those "sources" they got the answers they wanted, and then they put those answers out to the public as though they were developed by our intelligence services.

Anyway, Goodman writes a sober little piece on how a disinterested America that lets Bush and his crew get away with blatant lie after blatant lie will have no one to blame but themselves when they wake up and find Bush to be our new fascist dictator, with Ashcroft playing the role of Goebbels.

Here's the link:

Goodman: The Unvarnished Lie

Finally, just a mention of one funny line from this past Saturday's Saturday Night Live. Darrel Hammond, imitating Chris Matthews leading into a mock interview with the moronic PA Senator Rick Santorum, introduced Santorum this way: "Next, the man who put the 'idiot' in 'he's an idiot..."

How many GOP dimwits (Bush is at the top!) could this be said about!

CONSERVATIVE VALUES

In place of this Sunday's mini-sermon, which substitutes for the usual weekday battering of the Bush junta, the Hammer simply wishes to reflect for a moment on a few disgusting items from recent experience, and ruminate on the origins of the current penchant for brutality in American life.

First, let's begin with the outrageous hazing incident at Glenbrook High School outside of Chicago. (Here's a link, in case you are one of the few who hasn't heard about this:Girls Haze Girls.) Because of the extensive videotaping of this event, the story has much longer legs than it would have had if there were no titillating footage to show over and over again on all the local news stations. Predictably, the bread-and-circus mentality of the American public causes the couch-potatoes out there to profess that they are shocked--shocked!--at such represhensible behavior. Yet they continue to watch the same revolting scene repeatedly. But the baseness of American taste is not exactly what we're discussing today. We will get around to that in a minute.

Second, let's listen carefully to a phrase in a currently running television commercial for a Chevy truck, which contains the following edifying question: "Are you looking for 'get-out-of-my-way-or-I'll-kick-your-butt' power?" Isn't that delightful? And what an irresistible selling point! If this strikes you as crude and violent, I guess you are in the minority. But the indiscriminate judgment of Americans is not exactly what we're discussing today. We will get to that in a minute.

Third, let's recall the recent study that links violent video games to aggressive behavior in young people, and possibly to criminal violence in later life. (Here's a link for information about the study: Why Johnny Can't Do Without a Gun.) America, land of the free, is also the sewer in which we allow young people to waste their freedom inculcating violent responses to life under the guise of "entertainment." The study shows that young people--boys especially--can even get addicted to the rush of the game-violence; so much so, in fact, that they have to play almost continually and with ever more violent games in order to keep the high. This attraction to violence in America IS what we're discussing today. So let's get to the point.

The current surge in tolerance for all things violent and aggressive in America is a direct result of the twenty-five year rise of conservative ideology in the nation.

Oh, the Hammer will be getting a lot of hate mail about that statement. But that just proves the point: conservatives tend to write HATE mail rather than messages containing rational argument, precisely because their inclination is toward anger, rage, and violence rather than toward peaceful coexistence.

Of course, they will deny these vices even as they are damning you to hell, but that's no surprise; hypocrisy, as we have often pointed out, is almost requisite in conservative circles, because the underlying selfishness of conservatism is too mean to put on display in polite company, and too disturbing for most conservatives to admit to themselves.

Of course, they will also blame all the negative tendencies of American society on liberalism. In this they show the typical simple-mindedness and self-flattery of conservatism: we are all right; they are all wrong. That's the self-justifying attitude that gets them through their days. Naturally, it's not only self-deceptive, but so simplistic that it's just plain wrong. Like most of reality, which is too complex to fit into the conservative mind-mould, the issue of increasing violence in America is simply too complicated for conservative dialectics.

It is true, of course, that undisciplined liberality can lead to laxness in personal behavior. On this score, even the most pinheaded of right-wing moralists can rightly claim to have grasped a truth. But it is no less true--and this is where intelligent people start to lose conservatives, who seem incapable of holding two ideas in their head at the same time unless they are trying to excuse away one of their own inconsistencies--it is no less true that undisciplined conservatism can lead to laxness in personal behavior. And the Hammer contends that unrestrained conservatism leads to much more socially destructive behavior than unrestrained liberalism. Let's see how this is so.

Undisciplined liberality, if carried to extremes, can lead people to indulge their appetites and desires to the point of self-destructiveness. This self-permissivness is clearly a failing. What is worse, however, is that people who fall into this abyss almost always fail to see that they are destroying themselves, and--what is more important--they fail to see how they are harming others. They rationalize their behavior with the mantra of excessive laxness: "As long as I'm not hurting any one else, I have the right to do what I want." They fail to understand that everything you do, everything you think, everything you say affects everyone else to some degree. But the essential thing to note about degenerate liberality is that it's failings harm the degenerate himself most directly, and others only to the extent they are involved in his life.

No so with undisciplined conservatism. It too, if carried to extremes, can lead people to indulge their appetites and desires to the point of self-destructiveness. But conservatism's innate selfishness is not simply the sort of natural selfishness that leads people to satisfy their own desires; it is a selfishness buttressed by self-justification, a selfishness that demands not just the RIGHT to do as it likes (which is all that the degenerate liberal asks for) but also the POWER to force other people to give it what it wants. So the degenerate conservative hardly ever simply suffers the wages of his or her own undisciplined behavior: he or she almost always tries to take it out on others.

Combine this focus on power with the insistence on privilege that goes hand in hand with it, and one has an explanation for almost every aggressive and violent trend in American life. Where did that hazing incident come from? From the conservative-sanctioned fundamental belief in privilege, even the privilege to subject others to debased physical punishment for no other reason than a rite of passage. Where did the "butt-kicking" advertising appeal come from? From the conservative-sanctioned beliefs that power is everything, and that you can make the whole world go your way with enough brute force. Where did the superviolent video games come from? From the conservative-sanctioned belief that personal martial behavior is superior to civil justice as a means of protection.

To sum it all up: where there is an appeal to aggressive, violent behavior, you can be sure that the instigating force was conservatism.

And this is not just on the personal level, but also on the international level. It's not a coincidence that the current conflicts in the world are all the result of conservative politics. As soon as conservatives gain control of government at any level, they substitute power for justice and start trying to get their way by brute force. Obviously, this approach can only result in hatred and in an escalation of brute force in a never-ending spiral.

So once again we see, contrary to mass-media opinion, that it is conservatism, because of its selfishness, its obsession with power and privilege, and its asocial nastiness, that is dragging civilization back into the quicksand of power politics, from which it only emerged a little over 200 years ago.

Can't we do better? The Hammer hopes that all those who have actually understood the message and the hope of the Enlightenment, which animated the spirits of the American founders, will come together to overcome the power-besotted conservative forces that are now threatening to wipe the dream of rational self-government from the face of earth.

Otherwise, the darkness now falling will never lift again.

BUSH: PASSING FOR NORMAL

Adding another item to the list of conservative hypocrisies: "Hollywood is evil."

It's only evil, it seems, when it supports liberalism; when it goes conservative it's just fine. Here is an article detailing how W's handlers use movie magic on every detail of every appearance the Dimwit-in-Chief makes:

Don't Be Afraid--It's Only a Movie

Bush is so pathetic that only constant manufacturing of every detail of his on-screen life could make him appear even close to normal. And even then not everything can be caught: if he forgets one of his lines, he starts mumbling nonsense; if he forgets to freeze his facial muscles, he starts making mean, arrogant, or ignorant faces; if he gets overexcited, he begins to make inappropriate gestures with his arms.

Remember how the Republican convention in 2000 was so completely orchestrated using Hollywood glitz that not even many Republicans could take it seriously?

The Bushites obviously see nothing wrong with pasting phony images on their low-life puppet.

Do you?

CONSERVATIVE PONZI SCHEMES

For those of you who imagine that there the rules, regulations, and laws governing political activities in the US actually mean anything anymore, just take a look at the following detailed story by Cheryl Seal on how the Republicans have even circumvented the courts system to protect the large-scale ponzi schemes that sell their utterly fraudulent political policies to the witless mobs who eat up conservative propaganda:

Seal: Pushing Garbage

Pay particular attention to how the Bushites ordered the IRS to overturn its judgment on the fraudulent ponzi scheme in which Newt Gingrich played a role EVEN AFTER THE COURTS RULED THAT THE JUDGMENT WAS CORRECT!

Conservatives don't play by any known rules, and they consider those who do to be suckers. The rest of us have to learn how to go after them hard, or soon there won't be any chance left to protect our freedom.

BUSH: LIES AND BIG OIL (2)

As we wrote in yesterday's post, the Bush junta invested a lot of energy in trying to make the Taliban come around to their goal of draining oil from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan. They tried to bribe the Taliban with $40 million in aid, then they tried to appease them by calling off the aircraft carrier that Bill Clinton had dedicated to locating and destroying Osama bin Laden; and when these "carrots" failed, they turned to the time-tested conservative tactic of bullying. (The now infamous meeting in which a US envoy was reported to have told Taliban representatives that they could have "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" has never been investigated by the American media, who simply accepted the out-of-hand denial issued by the Bushites. Here is a link: Bush Tries Extortion)

But the Hammer believes that the Bushites entered into a zone where their typical conservative nastiness, as exemplified by their outright hostility from the first day of their tenure in office toward any constituency--domestic or foreign--that disagreed with them, was consciously transformed into a doctrine of provocative aggression.

By the middle of 1991, Bush was already looking like a one-term loser. The only thing that had gone right was his massive, deficit-generating tax cut. Everything else he had touched had turned fetid. The hostile Bushite stance toward everything and everyone non-conservative was backfiring, and his habit of issuing ultimatums was also blowing up in his face. Bush had already logged more vacation and entertainment hours than any chief executive in history, and his utter disdain for the job that had been purchased for him was becoming groaningly apparent, even in conservative circles. Something had to be done to change the equation.

The Hammer believes that some members of the junta made an explicit decision that the best scenario for recovering the lost ground would be an attack on American interests. Such an attack--no matter how insignificant--would give them all the excuse they needed to thump their chests and start using military might, which would in turn allow them to pump up the "patriotism" and use it to beat their political opposition over the head.

Given the state of international relations after several months of Bushite condescension and outright hostility, these junta members knew that they wouldn't have to do anything underhanded themselves to bring about the desired result. All they would have to do is become even harsher, more strident, and more demanding in foreign relations. Someone with a grudge would certainly step up to the plate and do them the favor they wanted.

Now although the Hammer usually doesn't put anything past conservatives--the extensive history of Republican dirty tricks, immoral deceptions, and outright illegal acts shows that they will stoop to just about anything to satisfy their greed for power--we do not, in this case, actually think that the Bushites foresaw the enormity of the attack on the World Trade Center. We chalk it up to their unmitigated arrogance and their confidence in their own power that it didn't dawn on them--despite the intelligence to the contrary--that something big would happen in this country.

On the contrary, the Hammer believes that the Bushites were imagining another embassy-bombing in some third-world country, or another nightclub bombing, or another battleship bombing. Something far away that would probably kill less than 100 Americans. That would give them their opportunity.

Unfortunately, while they were waiting for this to happen, they ignored all the evidence compiled by US intelligence that the big one was coming.

Of course, once it did come, it was far more than they had hoped for. An attack on such a scale would justify their corrupt desires in perpetuity. 9/11 could be the excuse for clearing the Taliban out of Afghanistan to make way for the big-oil pipelines; it could be the excuse for clearing Saddam Hussein out of Iraq to make way for the big-oil control of Iraqi resources; why, in the hegemonic imaginations of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, it could be the excuse for unleashing unrestrained American military might anywhere in the world at any time!

So far they've gotten what they want. The pipeline projects in Afghanistan are now in full swing (Oil Flows Through Afghanistan); the US has seized control of Iraqi oil (Iraq's Oil Belongs to Halliburton); and warmonger Donald Rumsfeld now feels justified in threatening Syria, Iran, South Korea, and any other counrty toward which he develops a dislike with military force, even nuclear destruction.

Tell me again, Mr. Dickens: is this the best of times or the worst of times?

BUSH: LIES AND BIG OIL (1)

Since we've gotten started on on the topic of Bush's fantastic mendacity, it might interest some of you to know that the Bush cabal has been deceiving America from before W got into office about their connections with, and ministrations for, big oil.

The Hammer started following this story as soon as the Supreme Court handed down its shameful "decision" on the Bush v. Gore case, because we knew that Cheney--a well-known big oil conspirator--was connected with oil company attempts to steal the oil from the Caspian Sea all the way back to the 1970s.

As a result of the early '70s OPEC embargoes, the American oil companies vowed that they would gain control of all the world's oil in whatever ways possible. By the late '70s, they had parcelled out among themselves control of the oil under the Caspian Sea, and were actively establishing bases in Afghanistan to pump the oil through that country and through Pakistan down to the Persian Gulf.

When the Soviets pushed into Afghanistan in 1979, it became too dangerous for the oil interests to stay, and so they simply abandoned their investments in the Afghanistan/Pakistan corridor. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1986, the oil conglomerates began to reconsider ways to get back into the Caspian Sea project, but the dismal state of the American economy after the Reagan reverse-miracle of unheard of deficits, combined with the growing influence of the Taliban in Afghanistan made it a risky venture. Still they made plans and starting working on possibilities for the future. UNOCAL was one of the companies on the forefront of this activity.

The election of Bill Clinton slowed the oil interests down a bit: without rapacious Rebpulicans in control of everything, it is more difficult for the oil cabal to pursue its cutthroat adventures. But Clinton did not stop them. Unocal especially engineered new companies that would be poised for rapid insertion into the Caspian Sea treasure if ever Republicans returned to power and trashed all government oversight of corporate activities. Unfortunately, it somehow became known to the public that Unocal was involved in such dubious ventures, and they received so much bad publicity from it that they had to manufacture a sham "sale" of their interests in the Afghanistan connection in order to get the media off their case.

But other oil companies acting on the behalf of Unocal simply took over the project, and they all were salivating like hyenas when their concerted effort to buy the Presidency for W actually paid off. And with good reason--the Bush cabal started to pay them back even before they got into office.

It's not news now that Cheney made the federal govenment the private reserve of big oil within a few weeks after he took office. What is not commonly known is how much effort he put into reviving the Afghanistan project. By March of 2001, less than three months into his term, he had arranged to try to bribe the Taliban into acquiescing to a renewal of US influence in the Afghanistan by offering them $40 million in aid. The hatred of the Taliban for the US was so great, however, that they would not be beholden to the Bush cabal for anything, so they refused the aid. Next the Bushites tried to lessen tensions by having Bush himself order the standing down of the aircraft carrier that Bill Clinton had put in place to do nothing but try to track the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and take him out if possible. (THAT'S RIGHT--BUSH HIMSELF CALLED OFF THE US HUNT FOR OSAMA! And all in the hopes that it might get Afghanis to calm down and let his oil buddies make some money off them.)

When none of that worked, the Bushites started to do what they know best: they started trying to intimidate Afghanistan with threats about sanctions and possible regime change.

When this tactic too failed, the Hammer believes that the Bushites decided on a new and even more nefarious course of action. This belief is conjectural, but it certainly fits in with the known facts and with the utterly debased, amoral, and vicious character of the Bush cabal.

The next post will take up the story from this point. Yes, that's right--this is cliffhanger.

NEXT: HOW THE BUSHITES PROBABLY PRECIPITATED 9/11

BUSH: LIES, DAMN LIES, AND BUSH LIES

Well, after all this time it has finally happened: a nationally syndicated columnist has finally decided to point out the fact that W is a bald-faced liar. Since the lies were pouring out of him even while he was governor of Texas, and since not a day goes by when he doesn't expectorate dozens of utter falsehoods, it is absolutely astonishing that the entire media has simply conspired (consciously or unconsciously) to look the other way.

Those of us who have an ear for mendacity have been completely flummoxed by this phenomenon. "How can it be," we find ourselves thinking over and over, "that this creature spouts virtually nothing but lies--and no one even notices?!" America became a surreal place when the Bush cabal bought little W the Republican nomination in 2000, and it's become more and more Fellini-esque with every passing day.

But now, finally, E. J. Dionne has mildly pointed out that W is a much, much, much, much bigger liar than Bill Clinton or Al Gore could ever be even if they took intensive dissembling courses at Liberty University. Here's the link:

Dionne: Bush, Master Liar

As grateful as we must be for Dionne's willingness to point out the obvious, we can't resist making this observation: at this rate it will take a millenium before anyone in the press would dare to mention that Bush can't answer a question without a prepared response--a fact that is obviously the reason they don't let him out in public without intensive cramming of pre-packaged formulas.

TEXAS DEMOCRATS STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY

If you haven't heard yet about the courageous action of Democratic legislators in Texas this week, who left the state rather than give the controlling Republicans a quorum for continuing their vicious assault good government in that state, check out this link:

Texas Dems Fight Brutal GOP Thuggery

Finally enough Democrats have come together to stand in the way of at least one group of fanatical, mean-spirited, and unprincipled Republicans.

Speaking of mean-spirited Republicans, check out this link to Molly Ivins' latest column:

Ivins: Texas Republicans vote in lockstep to ensure an unhelpful government

And since I think I mentioned a while back that conservatives long ago exchanged any pretense of civil discourse for pure bullying, here is a note from someone who has thought about how a decent person handles thuggish bullies when they try to steamroll over a discussion:

Republican Bullies Don't Have to Be Treated Civilly

Let's all take heart from the Texas Democrats and keep fighting against the convservative occupation!

CONSERVATIVE FOLLY

As per usual on Sundays, the Hammer will be discussing abstract conservative politics rather than basing Bush for the latest bloody-minded outrages his handlers have thought up.

Today's topic is the utter disingenuousness and downright foolishness of the conservative attitude toward taxes.

Conservatives are hopelessly unclear about the concept of taxes. The old joke about conservatives and taxes, which once caused them some discomfort because it showed their mindless inconsistency, now is worn as a badge of honor: "Should we lower taxes in good times?" the philosopher asks the conservative. "You bet," says the conservative. "Should we lower taxes in bad times?" asks the philosopher. "You bet," says the conservative. "When should we raise taxes?" asks the philosopher. The conservative thinks for a minute before answering, "Catch those Knicks last night?"

The point is that conservatives have no more understanding of taxes than a child does about an allowance. All they know is that they are not allowed to keep some of "their" money, and this infuriates them. It infuriates them so much that they never stop to think what they get for this money.

Could any one of the millions of anti-tax conservatives provide defense for this country? Could any one of them provide disaster relief even for themselves and their neighbors, let alone for the whole country? Could any one of them provide social security and health care for the nation? Could any one of them patrol the borders, fight disease, research chemicals, underwrite college educations, plan and build and maintain interstate highways? In short, could any one of them provide the benefits that we all enjoy from the federal government? Of course not. But conservatives, true to their selfish core, care only about the money that is "taken away" from them, not about the benefits they receive in return for the money.

If conservative logic about taxes were allowed to reign--as is apparently now the official policy of the Bush junta, which announced today that it wants a tax cut every year Bush is in office--there would eventually be no taxes, and thus no military to defend us, no police to protect us, no educators to teach us, no federal government to regulate business, employment, heath care, or transportation. Where would conservatives get their money from under those circumstances? In reality, our taxes pay for all the conditions that make it possible for us to live stable lives of promise and opportunity. Conservatives, because of their myopic selfishness, simply do not want to see that they have a DUTY to support the government that makes it possible for them to succeed, and without which they would probably not survive more than a few days.

The truth is that conservatives are not really against taxes, because they are more than willing to take the services that taxes support. They only IMAGINE that they are against taxes, and that is the result of their profound selfishness and unrestrained indignation at "losing" some of "their" money.

Instead of always bitching about lowering taxes on the premise that no tax is a good tax, conservatives ought to decide just how many services they are willing to use, figure out how much taxes they have to pay in order to support that level of services, and then tell the rest of us what we cannot have because of their unwillingness to pay any more.

If conservatives were forced to give up the hypocrisy of their ludicrous anti-tax propaganga and were made to detail the list of services they were willing to pay for, the country would clearly see their pettiness and mean-spiritedness, and would probably never vote Republican again.

That's why it pays for the Republicans to be the party of the utterly hypocritical tax-cutters.

REPUGS: ANYTHING THAT ACHIEVES THE END...

For the first time in sixty-five years, conservatives see the possibility of hornswoggling credulous Americans into supporting a rollback of hard-won workers' rights. The current generations have no memory of the vicious and deadly practices used by corporate management against their own workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so they don't know how vile unrestrained capitalism can be.

And conservatives have played up this ignorance in the past thirty years by using a version of their usual "morality" argument. Just as they profess shock and outrage when their mean-spirited attitudes are pointed out to them, so too they profess shock and outrage when the bottom-line, cut-throat corporate attitudes are pointed out to them. "Those rotten liberals," they cry, "won't give businessmen even the benefit of the doubt that they will ever do the right thing."

Here's the article detailing the Republican attempt to cut into the overtime pay laws:

Republicans Want to Shaft Workers--Again

There is a perfectly good reason why corporations and their management cannot generally be trusted to do the right thing: the worker is always at a great disadvantage because he or she does not have the capital to hold out against oppressive actions taken by corporations. Since he or she must work in order to pay the bills and cannot wait very long to do so, while corporations can sit on their capital and outlast the workers, might is always on the side of the corporations. And even a kind-hearted CEO (and there are a few) will probably not be able to withstand the overwhelming temptation to exploit the workers when the pressures of bad times come along. Or even before, if the CEO isn't so kind-hearted.

That is why we have labor laws.

And because conservatives can't be trusted except with their own selfish interests.

BUSH: COVERING UP 9/11

Here is an article detailing how the Bushites will try to deny important information to the independent 9/11 commission:

Bush Hiding 9/11 Facts

Does this surprise anyone? Do the Bushistas want people to know that they first tried to bribe the Taliban with $40 million in aid in March of 2001, and then they removed the battleship detail that was tracking, under Bill Clinton's orders, Osama bin Laden's activities and trying to take him out, and then they tried bullying the Taliban--all in an attempt to get the long sought pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea down through Afghanistan for their oil cronies?

Once again I say it: the next Woodward and Bernstein won't have to investigate anything at all if they want to get the goods on Bush; there is more than enough unethical, unpatriotic, and illegal activity in the public record than any reasonable person would need to impeach this "president."

BUSH: TIRED OLD TAX-CUTS

And just in case you are witless enough to still buy the old snake-oil line about lower taxes producing all kinds of economic stimulation, even after a century of evidence to the contrary and the almost unanimous agreement of all real economists to the contrary, here's a little article to rain on your parade:

Krugman: Bushista Economics

The reality of taxes has nothing to do with the childish conservative rants about "letting the people keep their money." The reality of taxes is that government is established to do for the people what they cannot do individually. The definition of a conservative is "someone who is so deluded by affluence (or imagined affluence) that he actually believes he doesn't need anyone else and doesn't owe anyone else anything."

OH, SO IT REALLY WAS ABOUT THE OIL

Ah, in spring an illigitimate "president's" fancy turns to thoughts of world hegemony. After all the denials and all the sophistical gobbledygook of the pre-war push toward aggression, we now find out that it WAS about the oil after all.

Yahoo: It Really Was About the Oil

Funny how it just seems that it doesn't take long to discover that the Bushites lie about everything.

BENNETT: POSTER BOY FOR CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRISY

Thanks for the messages asking for more posts. The Hammer has been working hard on many anti-conservative projects, and time to post has been difficult to find, but we hope to begin posting more regularly after today.

Today's commentary has to do with the recent flap over Bill Bennett's gambling addiction. In many ways, Bennett's response to the revelations of his hypocrisy is typical of the way conservatives act when they are caught not living up to their self-righteous cant.

What was Bennett's first reaction? To blame those who point out his
failing! He hadn't done anything wrong. Oh, no. And how dare anyone impugn his integrity? There isn't anything wrong with his gambling, he said, or with anyone gambling if they can afford it. He doesn't owe anything to anybody. Mind your own business, if you please.

As usual, this bluster is all self-serving garbage. If there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, then why did he hide it all these years by making sure that his trips to the casinos were secret and that his identity was kept under wraps while he was wagering? These certainly aren't the actions of someone who believes he is doing something that is unexceptionable. These are the actions of someone who believes that he is doing something wrong.

But just what was so wrong about his gambling that he felt he had to hide it? Isn't he right that he isn't hurting anybody if he wants to throw away $8 million (or whatever sum it actually was) at the gaming tables? After all, as he said, he doesn't owe anybody anything, and he can afford it.

This also is typical conservative garbage. They always point in the wrong direction hoping that no one will look in the right direction. If the press were just a bit intelligent and not nearly so craven, they wouldn't put up with such pathetic temporizations. It's easy to cut through Bennett's parsiflage.

Let's accept for the moment Bennett's assertions that he can afford it and that he doesn't owe anybody anything. Does that make it OK? By the hard-line moralistic standards Bennett himself has championed for so many years, he is clearly in the wrong. That $8 million could have been given to a charity that would have done some permanent good with it, instead of being blown on the momentary thrills of gambling. The great apologist for self-restraint and abstinence and volunteerism could not or would not rein in his personal pleasure in order to help his fellow man.

But, the conservatives point out, Bennett already gives a lot to charity. So what? THAT $8 million didn't go to charity; and it could have if Bennett were a better person. But this is typical conservative logic: If I give away some of my excessive treasure to the needy, I can purchase a clear conscience when I blow the rest on selfish triviality. Conservative logic, like all of their thinking, is exceedingly selfish.

But we do not need to grant Bennett's assertion that he can afford it and doesn't own anybody anything. Ask yourself this: Why can Bennett afford it? The answer is that he is well-connected in wealthy circles, so that he has any number of ways to replenish the store of excess capital that funds his gambling vice. Lose a few million? Just go to one of your buddies at the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Society for a refill. Or write another ideologically driven attack against "liberalism" and get a huge advance from the conservative-connected publishing industry. There's no lack of money for the well-connected conservatives in and around Washington.

But does that make his vice OK? How can it? If an unconnected person has the same gambling addiction, Bennett himself would consider him a moral degenerate because his inability to curb his desires would lead him and his family into bankruptcy. But Bennett's exact same behavior is to be considered fine, just because he can avoid bankruptcy through handouts from his connections. This is typical conservative "morality": what's bad for poor people is just fine for rich people.

And what about this garbage that he doesn't owe anybody anything? Again, the blindness of conservatives concerning the extent of their beholdenness to others is staggering. Bennett can only "afford it" because of his well-heeled contacts; he certainly "owes" them for making his affluence possible, even if neither he nor they understands this. And this doesn't even take into account the debt that we all owe to the rest of humanity not to allow our vices to corrupt us to the point of harming our fellows by our rampant self-satisfaction. But this is a point that conservatives only seem to get when they are on the receiving end of someone else's arrogant, self-absorbed pleasure-seeking--not when they themselves are doing it. And that's the essence of conservative hypocrisy: trying to hide from themselves and others their venality and self-centeredness.

Does widdle Bill feel sad that all the big, bad, mean "wiberals" are picking on him just because he's a tremendous hypocrite? Unfortunately, he has earned this reward himself: rigid, uncharitable, and uncompassionate moralists have no right to expect sympathy when they are caught failing to live up to their own hard-hearted, hard-line dictates.
"As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

The last word on Bennett: he's just one more of the many hypocritical conservative "moralists" who have been caught making a mockery of their own rhetoric. His case is particulary instructive in that it shows quite clearly the pattern followed by conservatives when they get caught in hypocritical behavior: accuse the critics, distract the public with irrelevant misdirection from the true baseness of the behavior, and then keep your head down.

As for those of us who are not so blinded by the right, we have an ancient proverb to buck us up through these dark times: Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

BUSH: THE RICH GET RICHER...

Oh, and by the way, here's a new study showing that none of the nation's school teachers, firefighters, health care workers, and other service-oriented workers can afford to buy a house in Bush's America.

Bush Washes Out the Salt of the Earth

Them're conservatives for you--the peons are fine for doing all the work, but we have to keep them in their place, darling.

BUSH: HYPOCRISY AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

You long-time readers know that the Hammer is no fan of the Bush Putsch. But for a long time it's felt like we've been hammering in the wilderness.

Finally, however, more and more people are coming out and saying that the "emperor" not only has no clothes, but also has no principles, no morals, no heart, no brain, and no shame.

Here are two links for your edification:

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Bush's Hypocrisy

PAUL KRUGMAN: Bush's Hypocrisy

Maybe the day is coming when the mean-spirited conservative mind-control will lift from the land like a dispersing cloud cover, and the people will suddenly see that they don't need to be oppressed by regressive, selfish thinking any more.

Or maybe pigs will fly.

BUSH: LATEST OUTRAGE

O.K. So we know that Bush lies more than Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar. But the scale of the lies has become just mindboggling. I go through my days feeling like we've descended into some Alice-in-Wonderland world where everything is twisted completely out of shape, patently absurd, and none of the inhabitants seem to notice.

Now we get the latest whopper, which was completely expected by those of us whose vision does not seem to be clouded by the fog of conservative propaganda: according to high-placed U.S. officials, Iraq DOES NOT HAVE
"weapons of mass destruction."

U.S. Lied About Iraqi WMD

Of course those of us who opposed the war knew this was coming. But we also knew that Bush was lying about being a "compassionate conservative," about being a moderate, about supporting terrorism defense, about his education policy, about his environmental policy, about his monetary policy, about his foreign policy--one could go on for hours.

But I guess Americans have finally become just too stupid to care--unless there's sex involved.

CONSERVATISM: VICE DESTROYS A GOOD IDEA

In this third and last installment of our analysis of contemporary conservatism, we show how conservatism's besetting vice corrupts and vitiates its one little good idea.

The notion that the best of the past should be retained--the one good idea at the bottom of conservatism--is quite reasonable and beneficial in the abstract. But as soon as it becomes implemented, it degenerates into pure and unrestrained self-interest on the part of the privileged. There is no mystery as to why this happens: the privileged regard the best of the past as including their own privileges; and so they insist that preserving the best of the past actually means maintaining the supremacy of themselves and those like them. And since they already have the wealth and the power, they have all the advantages they need to keep a close hold on their own privileges while denying those same privileges to others.

That's really all there is to it. A complete analysis of conservatism boils down to this relatively brief statement: Conservatism is pure selfishness disguised by the abstract idea that the best of the past should be retained.

There is not a conservative position in existence that cannot be seen through if one simply keeps that statement in mind. Take, for instance, the conservative mantra that taxes are evil. "It's always better for the people to keep their money than to send it to Washington" is the mind-controlled, RNC-approved chant used by almost all Republicans almost all of the time. But it's pure selfishness (keep YOUR money) combined with the notion of preservation of property (KEEP your money), while at the same time ignoring the fact that NO ONE WHO SAYS THIS denies the fact that taxes are necessary if society is to accomplish things that individuals cannot do (like provide national defense, supply coordinated disaster relief, provide national disease-control, and so forth). As usual, the conservative line is an emotional con-job: its appeal to naked self-interest is hidden by the apparent reasonability of the premise of retaining what one has and by directing attention away from the amoral or even immoral consequences of accepting such a narrowly self-interested premise. This is the unfailing trademark of all conservative arguments: they make an emotional appeal to base human appetites while disguising the vicious consequences of those appetites.

Pick any conservative position at all and see if it doesn't resolve itself into these components. It's a great exercise in seeing through hypocrisy.

So the next time some conservative acts all offended when you call them on their hypocrisy, don't buy into their feigned delicate sensibilities. George Bush tried this on Al Gore during the campaign debates, remember? "You don't know what's in my heart!" he told Gore. And Gore took the bait: "I believe you are a good man," was Gore's response. That response was a mistake. There is only one good response to such a tactic, given to us by a very wise man over two thousand years ago: "By their fruits shall ye know them." (Matthew 7:20)