Mr.Piffka's Quotes

Think of all the nations and political entities in the world as kids on a school playground:

America is the big "fat dumb & happy" kid, (physical fatness being but a symptom of the underlying energy-guzzling American economic engine), generally well-liked, as rich kids tend to be, and pretty much the life of the playground party. For the last five minutes (the Sanctions), we've been picking on this no-good gypsy kid (Iraq) that was helping us pick on another kid (Iran) we liked even less during the last recess, while the rest of the kids on the playground either stand around watching (France, Germany), hoping we won't decide to pick on them next (Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen), or suck up to us and help kick Iraq (Britain) or cheer us on (Poland, Australia, Japan) because they want to be us or because they fear us (...and I remember that playground, too).
Then there's this skinny, squeezy-lookin' kid that America frankly hasn't been paying much attention to, hanging out back behind the monkey bars, who walks up and pow! punches America in the nose. Blood all over our shirt, and if you've ever been punched in the nose, you know how debilitating it is. I've heard you can drive off sharks that way. If it weren't for the fact that we grew up as the late-born child of a big family (Europe) and used to a lot of pushing and shoving, a bloody nose like that might have really intimidated us.
George's America comes up swinging wildly at the offender and lands a couple of glancing blows. We're still breathing hard and out of the corner of our eye we see that goddamned gypsy kid with just a threat of a smirk on his face, and pow! we slug the gypsy kid. Like the guy who gets reamed by a customer at work, then comes home and kicks the dog.*
Then we turn back to the asshole that gave us the bloody nose, and he's vanished.

Some say we should call in the zombie-like senator from Massachusetts, and if he doesn't get it going, then four years from now, we give McCain a whack at it. Might as well tell the whole bullpen to start warming up; it's going to be a long game.
But the reason George will win this election is that the number one thing many Americans want right now is to seize the enemy by the throat and clobber him but good, and feel it unnecessary to change ourselves, let alone our president, in order to accomplish this. America's votes will in some part be cast not as votes for either candidate, but as a message to the enemy, that we will not be intimidated, and that it is not worth the reversal of even the worst American decision ever made to accommodate our enemy's pathetic agenda. And that whatsoever our enemy despises the most, we shall now willingly be, if it permits us to hack the scourge of Islamic fundamentalism loose from the body politic. Some American voters are spoiling for a fight, and will choose Bush simply to give Osama the finger. There are enough of that type of voter to turn what would have been a tight race into a Republican landslide - that is my prediction, in which I would be happy to be incorrect.
I, of course, will continue on as a voice crying in the wilderness of our hillbilly nation, as the great petroleum-powered Bus of State sails majestically off the cliff of failed energy/environmental policy, with unruffled, reassuring, confidence-inspiring George smiling behind the wheel.

Who died and made us boss of the world? There are thousands of groups with real or imagined gripes, and thanks to the West's insistent zeal for arms-making and selling, many of these angry people are armed to the teeth. We learned from the lessons of Yugoslavia and Spain that a dictator can and will ruthlessly deal with would-be insurgents. That is unfortunate for the insurgents, and not too good for the populace, but better for those who live elsewhere. Has it been worth a thousand deaths of our sons and brothers to remove the despot Saddam, who ruthlessly controlled the many rebellious groups in Iraq? Yes, we are trying to rebuild Iraq. We are trying to build schools, power plants, water works, even mosques and churches. Yet this war in Iraq has had nothing to do with terrorism or WMD, but only with attempting to accomplish some unfinished business. The war was based on faulty intelligence that came out of the CIA (uh, the same CIA that was restructured by daddy). And now our boys are dying in the same sort of loser malaise that characterized Vietnam.

"...freeing [Iraq] from a murderer and dictator..." sounds like a swelled-chest, patriotic, Glorious, love-thy-neighbor, 'peace through strength', freedom-making, all-American, save the world slogan. But now we are swimming in debt, our sons are dying, there are standing $2500 bounties on dead Americans, we have empowered the greatest hate-America terrorist breeding ground since 1948 Israel, and there is no end in sight. Will my son be drafted to fight six years hence?

I recall that dread evening in 1969 when I shared a rare dinner with both parents. Conversation devolved into a deep political discussion about the war in Vietnam. Dad took the Bird-Colonel conservative line of trumpeting the Domino Theory, saying we must stop the spread of Communism right there at China's doorstep. No matter that we assassinated Vietnam's dictator, conducted sham elections, imposed our "freedom" on a foreign peoples who only knew us as G.I.s, and by the way, turned my whole generation into casualties of war...all this from mom. Dad said that (Mr.P) must fight because our country called. Mom said the draft for a non-declared war was wrong, that (Mr.P) should have gone to Canada with parental blessing. (She did not mention that she had taken to visiting graveyards in the afternoons in order to prepare for the worst.) Finally dad played the patriotism card, that we must support our soldiers and sacrifice our children because America's very freedom depended on them. Dead silence hung in the room, not even broken by tink of fork. Finally mom said quietly, in a leaden voice and in a way I shall never forget, "So. When all other arguments fail, we should fall back on patriotism as reason to kill our sons..."

Thanks, Panzade. I'll pass on your compliments. Clever & bittersweet is Mr.P's outlook, but he's also very funny & kind. You'd like him.