Watching the zeppelin of the neoconservative movement burst into flames, tethered to the mooring mast of George W. Bush’s presidency, I experience a shiver of such undiluted schadenfreude it’s like to blew my earlobes off. What joy to see these scheming, lubricious barghests come undone, sinking beneath the hubris of their utter assurance that they alone are blessed with the vision to fulfill mankind’s destiny: to shovel money into their pockets, regardless of the cost to life, love, or the future of the world. May a trillion satanic parrots empty their fetorous bowels on the sleek Italian suitings of these cruel arch-manipulators throughout a sulfurous eternity. When any organism behaves in a manner contrary to the mandates of survival, it perishes. This is the single law of life. So the neoconservatives and their Republican strongmen have behaved, and so they succumb. All well and good. But it’s not over yet. The Right-wing beast is not dead. Do not rejoice until the monster’s head is stuffed and mounted over the fireplace, and even then, keep a fire axe close to hand, and watch its eyes. Because anything that lives on greed, lives forever. It will need killing again before long.
There’s been overmuch crowing on the Left at the misfortunes of the rulership: look, hurricanes and sputtering economies and ill-got wars and evil in all its banal and exotic forms, a once-great nation drowning in its own effluent. Bird flu and cancer, radioactive waste and Chinese capital; we little righteous folk may suffer, but we suffer less for being the least culpable. At least our consciences are clean as we’re flung like bundles of faggots at the feet of the self-martyred burning swine that sought to rule the world. So what? We’re being just as gullible as swing voters. After all, even if the cabal disbands, its members will be richer than the greatest Caesars of Rome, more powerful than all the Medicis and Rothschilds and a gross of King Louies together, even in disgrace. The laws are bent in their favor, the rules loopholed to suit their game; Croesus never had it so good, and the rest of us, besotten on good-on-yer revenge, will continue to eat cold soup out of cans and live three to a bedroom in shambolic obscurity until it’s time to die.
The neocons have won, and won the long game, even if Bush goes down, which he may not. The media loves a comeback story. If Bush cleans house, fires a couple of front men and replaces them with photogenic ringers, and goes on the road, the least penitence will earn him congratulatory spreads in People magazine that would make an actress emerging from rehab blush. A comeback narrative! O joy. O POTUS, promote us. And his poll numbers will go up and he’ll see to it that abortions are made illegal and the IRS is devoted only to harrying the poor and the War on Frightening People goes on and on forever and the loot pours into the coffers of a few corporations with which he’s friendly. Legacy? His legacy is secured henceforth, no need to accomplish more. There is fifty years of work ahead of us to repair the damage done to our republic, and two hundred years of goodwill lost, and five hundred centuries of novelty weather to contend with, and if there is a God, he is big wroth, daddy. I call that a win for the folks that couldn’t care less about such trifles. The rest of us have work to do. For the next hundred years.
For one thing, America doesn’t work properly. We need to fix that. The two-party system has done what all binary systems do: it has settled into stasis. Neither side has much more sway than the other, and so both sides have drifted into the gravity of a larger body, in this case money. Immense quantities of money have caused the so-called Left and Right to enter an orbit around it. A third party would throw the system out of balance, and then some progress might be achieved. Strip corporations of their spurious human rights. That also would help. But whatever else must be done, we must not imagine the fight is over. Winston Churchill, at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in 1942, said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Obviously he was drunk, but the fat lady hasn’t even cleared her throat yet. Semper vigilans, me hearties. The beast lives.
BEN TRIPP is an independent filmmaker and all-around swine. His book, Square In The Nuts, may be purchased here, with other outlets to follow: http://www.lulu.com/Squareinthenuts. Swag is available as always from http://www.cafeshops/tarantulabros. And Mr. Tripp may be reached at credel@earthlink.net.
