Trash Talking

If they ever come up with a swashbuckling school,
I think one of the courses should be
"Laughing, Then Jumping Off Something"
--Jack Handey, SNL

The devil went down to Georgia,
he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind 'cos he was way behind
and he was willin' to make a deal
--Devil Went Down to Georgia,
Charlie Daniels Band

... there was no difference in how Democrats and Republicans
conducted the business of government.
The game stayed the same:
It was always about favors and friends,
and who controlled the dough.
Party labels were merely a way
to keep track of the teams;
issues were mostly smoke and vaudeville.
Nobody believed in anything
except hanging on to power, whatever it took
--Sick Puppy, Carl Haissen
_________________

While duking out in last week's debate here in Tampa, the mighty Republican contenders pandered to the Cuban bloc by venting their supposed white-boy bile over 85-year-old Fidel Castro.

Mitt Romney hoped for Mr. Castro to “return to his maker,” while Newt Gingrich outgunned him by saying he hoped Castro would go “to the other place” (we guess that with his now being a good Christian that it is not polite to take Satan's lodging place in vain.)

But Romney ratcheted up the ante: “If I’m fortunate enough to become the next president, it is my expectation that Fidel Castro will finally be taken off this planet,” he said. But what does that mean? Will he become a spirit child and be sent to the planet Kolob? We know it is not considered very politically-correct to play with another's cosmology, but it's also not nice to hint one will assassinate another.

Even as late as U.S. ca. 2008, it was unseemly for a candidate to say such a crass thing as, "(W)e'll take him out," but such was the rhetoric of then-candidate Barack Obama (“If the United States has al-Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take him out”). Despite, or because of, that tough-talk, Obama won the election.

Still, it seems awfully puny and anti-climactic to suggest he, Romney, might be the one to take Castro off the planet. What might have been sporting back in JFK's day is just not really cricket today, but catch phrases win or lose elections.

Remember Ronald Reagan's disparaging dismissal to the callow Carter? "There you go again!" he would chide Carter as being the inappropriate little upstart, and all that followed was reduced to a whimper. Today, one must be hard-charger to compete with men like those of Seal Team 6. Sarah Palin was cute trying on the role in her moose-and-woodland pattern way; Hillary is simply a woman in man's clothing (or vice versa), and we do not like it much -- you just KNOW that she could NOT fire an RPG if her life depended on it; maybe not even a six-shooter. Despite any of his other failings, Ron Paul cannot win in Republicanlandia because is will not WAR.

We are now post-Sopranos, and trash talk is the order of the day. But what did Castro do to merit everlasting damnation?

Was it achieving a literacy rate surpassing that of the U.S.? Perhaps it was the universal health care he delivered to his island nation? Could it be their 1.6% unemployment rate? Maybe it was that Castro didn't wear the fancy suits pretending to be what he wasn't, yet actually did represent the Cuban people.

Maybe these men are just pissed that the CIA couldn't take him out, so they fancy with an insertion by that crack assassination team ST6 they just might be able to take that glory for themselves.

Hopefully one day soon, that feigned machismo will become a faded and degraded form of glory.

--Jim and Lisa