Peter Rants

starving for impeachment

2008-02-14T14:49:00.000-08:00

i suppose the only thing worse might be waterboarding for impeachment, but since a definition for that is still a quandary, we'll stick with starving.....at last count (feb.14) (happy thoughts for valentine's day) there were 35 people on hunger strike until someone - john conyers comes to mind- cranks up some kind of investigation into the possibilities of bringing impeachment proceedings against the current resident of the white house and his pet pig george..... or is it dick?....... i keep forgeting who's in charge here...i haven't forgotten that a number of resolutions have already been tendered in this regard, all ignored for the most part......... in the mean time, while trying to decide our own parts in all of this, we must recognize one betty hall, state representative from the hillsborough district in new hampshire, who has joined the code pink hunger strike for impeachment of bush and cheney..... at age 87, betty hall has remarked that, "i've had a good life. i can't think of a better way to end it."........ while one has to admire the new england stoicism here, one also has to recognize the tone of resignation in her statement.... perhaps since conyers isn't far behind betty on the cosmic timeline he might take more note of her determination to inspire that final step to act on this impeachment thing..... it is a sad commentary though that it takes the threat of self-imposed death to get the constitutional wheels to squeak, let alone turn............what is next....sacrificial lambs...?.....piles of bloodied and beaten puppies and kittens on the steps of congress ?......... a 4x6 postcard to send to get betty to her next meal as soon as possible..................

reasons not to impeach

2008-02-14T14:28:00.000-08:00

well.....there aren't any....there is a list somewhere in my files that covers why not, and then counters with a nonsense barrage that lays each reason to waste..... one of the ones that has always bothered me is the "...more important things for our legislators to do...." excuse, so i looked up what recent legislation had passed and found that the house passed h con res 281 on feb13 "...celebrating the birth of abraham lincoln and recognizing the prominence the declaration of independence played in the development of abraham lincoln's beliefs......" - time well spent....if you're a third grader or an immigrant trying to understand this loony bin........ it gets better- h res 909 passed commemorating the courage of the haitian soldiers that fought for american independence (yes, the REVOLUTIONARY WAR) in the siege of atlanta, and for haiti's independence and renunciation of slavery....... we must note h res 947 which passed days before, which was intended to congratulate "....lee myung-bak on his election to the presidency of the republic of korea and wishing him well during his time of transition..."... blah blah blah..... there was also a memorial recognition of the service to country thing in honor of a border guard killed in the line of duty.... in looking that up elsewhere it turned out that the guy had been run over by drug smugglers while trying to deploy a tire puncture strip...... the bad guys got away.... obviously our reps have plenty of time to pass things about whatever fits their fancy...here is the latest impeachment postcard to send to whomever might listen anywhere............is anybody out there?

resolution

2008-01-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

we had planned to do a burning bush thing for new year's, but that didn't quite work out...... instead, we watched 'pan's labyrinth' which happened to finish just before midnight..... it was decided that yet another coordinated musical and pyrotechnic extravaganza from the space needle was not how we wanted to bring in '08, so instead we watched the final scene from 'v for vendetta', which without stepping into the spoiler zone for anyone who hasn't seen it (and you should) it just seemed more appropriate........ as it turned out....the news footage the next day of a dark space needle with music blaring in the background and failed, undetonated fireworks still strapped to the needle's roof was both comedy and the obvious lesser choice to have made..... as it turned out, we were invited to a xmas tree burning the next weekend and i cobbled together two hand held effigies of bush and cheney out of scraps leftover from my wreath making materials........ we arrived after the pile o' trees had been ignited, and the crowd appreciated the cheney bush wickerman sentiment...... cheney burned up almost immediately (impeach cheney first!), and while bush malingered, i was able to snap a few pics.... on the day i sent these cards out i heard that among the protests bush encountered on his middle east "peace" trip(or was sheltered from as the case may be) there were a number of effigies burned in his stead....... act local- think global........ the attached pics have been converted to jpeg from windows publisher and can be printed as postcards- i use double sided paper....the quote on the back was lifted from william gibson's latest novel - 'spook country'- and seemed a timely and appropriate addition.........

the latest card

2007-10-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

it has been a while..... it seems, though, that not much has changed..... i guess, after not being much inpired toward collaging the next piece, that that lack of change was the inpiration that drove the construction and assemblage of this card....... i continue to be baffled and astounded by the babblings of bush, and that he is listened to and seemingly accepted at face value by a mostly silent public.... this is not true on the fringes, which is where the likes of keith olbermann on one end and jon stewart on the other are the only mainstreamers who regularly take direct aim at "the president"..... from olbermann's merciless special commentaries on msnbc, where his "how dare you sirs" make large incisions into the credibilty and reality of the bush at the head of the world, to stewart's elongated "go onnnn's...." on comedy central's daily show, which mockingly encourage the "news" clips of bushisms to carry on with each umm and uhhh and utter nonsense being put to voice by bush in response to earnest questions that seek to understand an unfathomable presidential illogic...... what else can one do but continue to point at the naked emperor who keeps stepping to the podium with the same tattered speech with its names and places slots left blank so the fearmongering ca be changed to match the latest international verbal offense to be flung far and wide, as the writers and handlers stand at the sidelines with their collective fingers crossed in the nervous hope and wish that the w can pronounce the new names of the objects of intended hatred that have just been pencilled in...............

as usual, all images on tis latest card have been collected from non-pay/ public domain sites on the web.... the iran/iraq rollover graphic is actually a bumpersticker that can be obtained from northern sun t-shirts at:

http://www.northernsun.com/n/s/index.html

as usual, the constructed image here has been converted from a windows publisher file to jpeg and it is encouraged that you download it, print and send it on to your "representatives" in government.... and as usual, i have recently sent 15 copies of these on 5x7 cards to washington state representatives as well as misters conyers and leahy and ms.'s pelosi and boxer.... they can also be printed to 4x6, which would allow one to use the less expensive postcard postage rate...........send them where you will and be sure to include the message-

IMPEACH BUSH- IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST....... peace

another impeachment thing

2007-06-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

this will be short.....here is the latest photo card and the text that goes with it.....these cards have not actually been sent out yet- they will be soon.......as usual, the photos were from the web and the quote is from a book i'm almost finished with---the genius of impeachment by john nichols---- if you have any doubts as to whether or not the current administration should be run through this basic, constitutionally supported process that was intended to keep our leaders accountable, you should have a seat with this book.....

here's the text i used w/ this card:

“When once a republic is corrupted,” Thomas Jefferson explained in a notation written more for our times than his, “there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”

The Genius of Impeachment– John Nichols

IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST

gotta go....>p<

postcard1

2007-05-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

okay....for six months i've been making photo postcards from pics gleaned from the web.....i have been sending them to our "representatives" in the other washington in an attempt to bring home a message that many of those folks don't seem to be listening to ........what i am offering here is access to these for anyone who wants to send a message.....this first one is in response to patty murray's and maria cantwell's yes votes on the war funding bill....i've converted the image from a microsoft publisher doc to a jpeg .....you should be able to click on it to make it full size and then right click to save it to one of your files.....i've been printing them on a matte paper stock that can be printed both sides...i've got a pre-printed text for this one which i could send to anyone wanting it, but the easiest thing to do is just print this on a 4x6 or5x7 sheet of photo paper and write your own message on the back and send away.a 4x6 goes with postcard postage and 5x7 is regular first class rate.....mostly, my message has been about a call for the impeachment of king bush- impeach cheney first, of course- so i've been calling these impeach-O-grams.......you can call them anything you want....just do it....maybe if they start getting enough of them they might just listen......addresses can be found at:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

queen speaks at bush clown college commencement

2007-05-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

actually, this has nothing to do with the queen- god, or somebody, save her....it has to do with how many times we have to be continually asked-"well, how stupid and gullible are we feeling today?".....this is all in regard to the "terrorist plot" on the good soldiers of fort dix...... first of all- who are these guys?-the terrorists that is- and do they really exist?......i would like to see a REAL and extensive background check into all of them.....my suspicions are that a.) this won't happen and b.) if it did they would be found to be as bogus as their "attempt" was.....come on people, i realize that we are constantly bombarded with darwin award presentations for the absolutely most ridiculous stabs at what some people call life on this planet, and many of them include the criminal element amongst us, but to have one (or many of us) asked to believe that a group that was planning a massive attack on a military base in these united states was absent of mind enough to take a video of their prep work to be copied at some kwikee copy mart for any joe blow to go and blow a whistle on is just too much to swallow.....so i choose not to......this is just more nonsense from the rove fear machine, and i choose not to accept it..........

WELCOME TO PETER RAY RANTS...

2007-05-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

this will be a random exercise in writing...........what we'll explore here is stuff about politics, plants, film, art and pretty much anything else......... some of the most affecting things in my life have been viewings of luis bunuel's 'avenging angel', david lynch's 'eraserhead', francis ford coppola's 'apocalypse now'- 2 versions and the latest release: 'apocalypse redux'- which is a totally different film from the first two with the addition of 28 minutes of footage not shown in the earlier releases....... a new generation of documentaries have become the place to go for information about things that matter- among the ones that have jarred my reality have been deborah garcia's 'future of food', robert greenwald's 'iraq for sale' and patricia foulkrod's 'the ground truth'...... i am currently rereading the dune series, john nichol's 'the genius of impeachment', and two from william gibson....... i photograph every day and send postcards of what i capture.....if you want one, let me know....... i shot the site picture on a motorcycle trip to south central oregon in the summer of 2005-it is not photoshopped.........>p<