"We are owned and operated by a bunch of really bad people."

[90-percent]

-Frank Zappa, 1981

Plenty more where this came from, fellow DU'ers.

-90% jimmy

[SHRED]

1. I miss Frank

[lambchopp59]

2. Accurate to the last detail until the very last sentence of our situation

But worse, far worse.
We watched Nixon get impeached in childhood, thought surely the US wouldn't make the same mistake again.
We threw things at the teevee during Ray gun, when airwaves were analog.
We thought surely by the end of his debacle surely the US wouldn't make the same mistake.
We'd seen the little points of light in the sky several times Bush Sr. spoke of in his "kindler, gentler" reign of war on the poor. They were the stars Eldon and I saw on a clear night I from the incognito cardboard box we had to occasionally sleep in as college students.
We thought surely by the end of his debacle surely the US wouldn't make the same mistake.
We continually laughed in appalled shock as GWB fumbled his way through with the whole world laughing beside us. The "Top ten conservative Idioti of the week" were great back then. But Fox New's effect on old folk's scared me, still,
We thought surely by the end of his debacle surely the US wouldn't make the same mistake.
Now long widowed, I'm trying my best to ignore the most embarrassing, imprudent, unwise, ill-advised, ill-considered, half-baked, harebrained, foolhardy; absurd, nonsensical, inane, fatuous, ridiculous and childish regime that ever has seized control of the US.
Now I stand not so certain by the end of his debacle surely the US still won't make the same mistake.
and
I truly shudder, not just because of Trump but because the best we can do is slow the oligarchy at midterm time, but considering Pence's determination to start holy war leaves us all as US citizens with no good way out of this. Unless serious turnaround, reinstatement of humanitarian, democratic socialist policymaking rebounds significantly, I'll be around for the 2020 elections, but shortly thereafter it's retirement time for Lambchopp.
And I'm brushing up on my Portuguese just in case the oily garchy's hate media cheats/brainwashes/mesmerizes/installs another tougher, meaner bescroogier set of Republicans into office.

[90-percent]

4. Been a widower for 4-1/2 yrs myself

I agree with your statement;


"Now long widowed, I'm trying my best to ignore the most embarrassing, imprudent, unwise, ill-advised, ill-considered, half-baked, harebrained, foolhardy; absurd, nonsensical, inane, fatuous, ridiculous and childish regime that ever has seized control of the US."

But, to get your point across more succinctly, just use the word "treasonous" next time.

a good second descriptor happens to be the name of a FZ composition; Treacherous Cretins

Love,

Jim

[lambchopp59]

8. Caught up in the moment

Screaming and pounding my fist in a frustrated tantrum out came string of synonyms.
"Despotic" fits the situation, too. Worst ever.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. K&R. Thanks for sharing. I witnessed those times, too.

I think we're all bewildered at how in denial we've all been for so long.

Thanks for teaching me a new handy-dandy word today: "bescroogier"......

........

[jalan48]

3. It would be great to hear some of today's politicians talk like this.

[RVN VET71]

6. He [Reagan] is a teleprompter President -- spot on, Mr. Zappa

I can't identify the interviewer, but I hope she is alive and has lived long enough to see the absolute truth of Frank Zappa's words. George Carlin made similar observations ("They own you" he once said, and was absolutely correct).

My God, how would Zappa feel today?

We've been through unjustified and unjustifiable bloody and pointless wars in Granada and the Middle East, have supported dictatorships, seen the electoral process whored out to big money and, of course, Mother Russia, and allowed the Federal government to wage a war on the poor, especially the black and brown poor whom it is trying its best to disenfranchise, as well.

Bush Senior wasn't terrible, but he was a Corporate whore on an international scale (Carlyle Group, anyone?).

Bill Clinton was aptly called a "good Republican President" by Michael Moore (Remember Glass-Steagall, the law protecting the little guy from big-bank speculators? Who signed its repeal?), but I think he more than half believed the crap spewed by Alan Greenspan and others of that economic ilk. I also think he did "feel our pain" in a way the sociopathic Republicans who tried to drive him out of office could only mock and hold up to each other as an object worthy of ridicule.

The crowning glory was, of course, President Cheney and his side-kick, GW Bush, who let us know that, if we hadn't the stomach for torture and extra-judicial murders of foreign nationals, we really couldn't call ourselves "real Americans", now, could we?

Obama? My criticism of him is tempered, seriously muted, in fact, by the fact that he was fighting against an openly racist Republican Party, the same Party which ushered in what may be the last Presidency in America, led by the most egregious and venomous liar in our history.

So I wonder what the interviewer would say about how things have turned out for America in the intervening years since she reacted in shock at what Mr. Zappa told her.

[scarletwoman]

7. Thank you so much for this post!

I so miss the old prophets, like Zappa and Carlin.

Obviously, their warnings were not heeded by the populace at large - which has left those of us who did heed, living out our later years in despair at the obtuseness of so many of our fellow citizens.