No, this isn’t about my first marriage – it’s much, much more personal.
Ron Johnson, the senator from my adopted home state of Wisconsin, seems poised to retain his seat. There is not enough space in the blogosphere to convey my distaste for him, for his politics, for his everything. “Personal” doesn’t begin to touch how many ways he offends me – LGBT issues, especially Trans protections; freedom of my and everyone else’s uterus to belong to the owner of said uterus; immigration; racial, social, and economic justice; Native American issues; and just being the white, straight, cisgender, cluelessly entitled rich man his is. (If you think of any more, kindly leave them in the comments.)
The worst thing to happen in WI – aside from Scott Walker (former governor) and Joe McCarthy (architect of HUAC and famous conspiracy theorist – back before the term had been coined). No one has given me more cause to shout at my TV since T*rump was in office.
Good news: the aforementioned former president (and fetid toad) seems to have lost momentum. A spark of hope in an otherwise rather dim sky. I know that retaining a 50/50 Senate should feel like a win, and I can work with the result. But Herschel Walker? Really? Like “my eyes cannot roll back far enough in my HEAD really?” Honestly.
As Luka is wont to say, “I can’t even.” Luka has more colorful words, but I will stick with the non-sweary terms. My kid has never missed a vote, and they are 34 now. I have always been ridiculously proud of them. But their understanding of the democratic process is truly on the Top Ten Reasons Luka Rocks.
There will be time enough to rant. Let’s end on the My Kid Rocks part. Amen.
Goldie Hawn in Huckabee’s… dreams
Dawgs, Nuns, Tits & Groooovy
Huckabee Hound for President?
We know cuz his book jest came out
Southern Dawg gonna show the
Yew Ess of A
what them values are all about
Specially all you wimmin
‘Nuns’ is the easy one, fer yer teens
Nun o’ this and nun o’ that
Cept is she goes to a frat party
Then it’s her fault fer bein a slut
(And you better keep that baby, girl)
‘Tits’ is even easier – the bigger they are
the more babies they kin feed
Not bad to look at neither
‘Groooovy?’ Mike wishes us girls’d
be like that little cutie Goldie Hawn
Not the Oscar-winning actress
Not the movie producer
The one with grafitti smeared on her
scanty-panty go-go dancin’ bod
Betty Boopin’ on Laugh-In
Swear to God, I saw it on that Kelly girl’s
FOX show, Huckabee said it on the air
Said all us wimmin shouldn’t swear and
his Southern- fried values include hootchie dancers
Mike’s Values = Deep Discounts for females
Seriously, I wonder if he knows he has a
teenage crush on a Jewish Buddhist
who has had several kids out of wedlock
and advocates for freedom of choice
Can’t you hear Goldie screaming,
“What the F***?”
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I’m back and, as usual, I’m irritated at politics of the Far Right Extremists. Megyn Kelly, the Great Blonde Hope of FOX News, slammed Mike Huckabee during an interview promoting his book/presidential bid, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy (I know, don’t get me started). She cut him off, saying that New York women not only swear but smoke, drink, and use contraceptives for their premarital sex. She had also previously “accidentally” referred to him as Mike F***abee” on the air (pretty obvious way to get the clip into cyberspace and boost her ratings.) That clip was run again, along with a clip of Hawn in the 60’s. Groooooan.
When you’re FOX, that’s edgy. When you are the rest of the world, you realize she’s not talking about casual hookups, smoking pot, lesbian or transgender women… or what the options are when the condom breaks or the Pill fails. And the women in question are undoubtedly white, probably tragically blonde, and definitely straight.
Huckabee is another buffoon, right up there with (my state’s governor) Scott Walker (AKA “Walkandchewgum,” thanks to the Solidarity Singers). Kind of Jerry Falwell without the Jaysus emphasis.
As for Goldie, she fought the Laugh-In stigma for years and has been open about the sexual harassment she endured in her early career. Sock it to him, Goldie. And find this and many other diverse poems at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Open Link!
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
“Duuhmm…” (heavy breath) “…well, it’s about jobs and…” (sigh)
Wisconsin’s Burden (Stale Pale Male Scott Walker)
Scott Walker for Prez?
Vote for him at your peril
He’s blind to injustice
His heart has gone sterile
Dim, inarticulate,
slack-jawed mouth-breather
If he ran for dogcatcher,
wouldn’t vote for him either
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons by Gage Skidmore; attribution HERE.
People on FOX talk about Scott Walker like he’s the new Ronald Reagan.
I rest my case. The “trickle down” from those policies requires toilet paper… from a company owned (as are Walker and Paul Ryan) by the Koch Brothers.
He (along with equally optimistic Paul “Mr. Schu on Glee” Ryan) are BOTH from Wisconsin. Walker has never worked a job in his life, other than nursing off the taxpayer teat since forever. Walker is running for another term as governor (remember 100,000 protestors at the Capitol Dome in 2011? Yeah, let’s do that again.), and he fully intends to ABANDON that position (or at least totally neglect it) to try for the White House. Even if he still sucks, he won’t be there.
Mary Burke is my choice for governor. Mary Burke ran her family’s business, Trek Bicycle, a nationally known concern that turns out quality bikes. She knows budgets; she understands the need for women to have reproductive care (oh, you don’t favor poor and low-income getting advice from Planned Parenthood? No free condoms? No free birth control pills? Then shut the hell up about “too many babies,” unless you’re willing to adopt them ALL). She knows how to balance a budget. She doesn’t LIE about job creation, and she donated a bunch of money to The Road Home, a path for families from homelessness to housing. YOU GO, GIRL!
Peace, Amy
Clothes Make the…
Picture this
A cocktail party
Only chic elites parading in
Ralph Lauren, Valentino
Stella Mc (no, no Butterick)
Dripping in blood from
Harry Winston diamonds
Sleek, shiny, baubled
Finest wardrobe money can buy
Picture this gathering of
the 85 people who own
HALF the wealth of the
planet. 85 = $½ of ALL OF IT*
Crappy, credible math
They drink, snort, and laugh about
those wretched K-Mart shoppers
About the 99% (that’s you and me)
“How do they manage?”
“They should get real jobs”
“I never shop at WalMart,”
smirks one of Sam Walton’s girls
Their gowns, regardless of
high-fashion label, imported
from Chinese sweatshops
from Indonesian factories
Bangladesh burned but they’re
still pumping out product,
thanks to hard-working
child slave labor (and women)
These rich women, coiffed
and manicured, preening
These sons of smarter men, coiffed
and manicured, peacocks
They say clothes make the man
but these schmucks
sure as hell didn’t
make their clothes
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* Per OxFam, a non-partisan worldwide watchdog for the underprivileged
First, a HUGE “thank you” to all who have sent messages asking where I’ve been and if I am all right. Long story short: Played at two Christmas Eve services, then got the holiday/deep winter depression… followed by a flu I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not even GWB. But finally able to sit at my desktop (the messages were monitored on my phone, but it’s no good for posting poetry) and contribute once again.
So off to my “play pond” I ran! Shay at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Fireblossom Friday wanted a poem in which clothing is a major component. See, I can still be politically snarky while writing about high fashion! Peace, Amy
Are We Not Meat Puppets?
They say jump
We don’t ask why; we say, “How high?”
They say pay
We don’t question “Evil Axis”; we ante up the taxes
When did we become a numbskull nation of
Stepford meat puppets? Coughing up money to
support the Machine that pukes out bullets and drones,
that rains down death on the defenseless and our kids,
that defends “democracy” like it’s alive and well
in this incestuous hellhole of a republic that should be
called the Citizens United Shambles of Anglophiles.
Now a 200-year old experiment gone horribly wrong
reveals the abysmal truth: We were set up to fail.
Ben Franklin knew it; we blew it according to his
prediction that the predilection of the predator rich
would supplant rights of the “lesser born.”
American royalty (the Bushes, the Kochs, the WalMartons),
bred and more often inbred into simpering, faded Xeroxes
of hypocrisy, invading Congress (or buying a senator or two,
plus a Supreme, a real bargain these days)
They co-opt the middle class covertly
Privatizing public schools
(Susan B. Anthony reels in her grave)
Privatizing health care
(Big Pharma wanks the banks)
Busting unions and demonizing the rank and file
(Mother Jones rattles her bones)
Abusing immigrants
(State of Liberty or Torch Your Ass, Amigo?)
Espousing the Trickle-Down Theory
(Paul Ryan, please pass the toilet paper,
or your budget – they’re the same thing)
Citing voter fraud and discouraging minority voters
(we NEED ID because four cases were proved)
Continuing worst practices in banks
(FDR was a socialist; rich people deserve bonuses)
With help from some bastard pastors who live
in mansions, drive limos (or are driven in same),
who wouldn’t give Jesus a dime or the time of day
if they passed Him on the street (Private police
will handle homeless, and they won’t have any
Big Government oversight in how they handle it)
With help from us, the pathetic apathetic…
they strain our brains and even our mercy through
media propaganda and corporate corpulence
And we fall for it, fall into it, ground up into
walking, talking, FOX-spewing meat puppets
And as Monsanto and their ilk skip off to another
Koch Brothers cruise to the mutilated, prostituted
Caribbean, we say
Have a nice day and
Why doesn’t somebody do something about them and
Kim Kardashian is really getting fat and
Honey Boo-Boo is on, microwave some popcorn and
Wow, this (genetically engineered, dye-infused,
growth hormone-laden, e coli infected) beef is
too expensive, but fire up the grill and pass me
a cold one or two or twelve
Where is our indignation?
Is it American Idol or American Idle,
cause this sure ain’t American Idyll
NRA, FOX, ALEC: know your acronymns and
dismantle their poisonous, licentious, homophobic,
woman-hating, war-profiteering, racist, divisive
shitmongering, unconstitutional, IMMORAL machinery
By any nonviolent means necessary
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
So Kerry at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads wanted a rant, in remembrance of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Since this angry state of mind is so utterly foreign to me, I did my best to act like a political activist and member of the Christian Left. Hope I succeeded. (wink)
Peace, Amy
REJOICE
No more cracks ‘bout “voter fraud”
Not a peep from Hair That’s Odd*
Ryan, back to same old lying
Mitt’s hair won’t need so much dyeing
Mister Prez must buckle down
Get it straight in Lobby Town
Stop the war, stop the fracking
Congress, he can start a-smacking
Beef up this new Health Care Act
ALL need coverage; that’s a fact
Give my friends the right to wed
You don’t need to see their bed
But the best must surely be
No more smack ads on TV
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* Donald Trump tried to make this election about himself. “Birthers” should get over it.
You know how I voted, because I’m an unapologetic leftie. But I voted by default this time, not by mandate. Until our country reverses policy on energy – no Pipeline, no more fracking (all the water we have is all we’re getting, folks. Earth recycles it, and the more polluted it gets, the deeper trouble we’re in). Germany is awash with solar panels, something like 80 percent, and we have so many great places for that as well as turbines.
Don’t get me started about the war. I will keep pressing to bring our troops home NOW. Why not join me? Here’s a link to find out all your U.S. congressional contacts – click HERE. Don’t wait until January. There’s no reason they should sit on their asses on your dime!
Class warfare is not ended with this election, although the Right spent over six bucks for every vote, and the Left won with a little over ONE buck per vote. Since the election, racists are ramping up their rhetoric, and gays don’t have equal rights yet. Hell, WOMEN don’t have equal rights yet!
Next time, let’s see what a woman can do. As long as it’s the right person, I’m game. Peace, Amy
November Dilemma
Conflicted electorate.
Convictions worn like armor
or on sleeves, bleeding
or, better yet,
whispered in the back rooms
of country clubs and
boo-yahed in skinhead bars: Are you
white enough, is the White House
white enough, is the First Lady
blonde enough for you?
If the robber barons manage
to steal this one, we’ll be
back to Reaganomics and
a president who, like Ronnie,
dyes his hair. Just. That. Vain.
The Trickle-Down Theory
will be the law of this land…
once again, the Free Market
(“as opposed to the slave market,”
joked a RedStateNeck who thought
I wasn’t listening), yes, the
Free Market will reign. And rain.
Trickle-Down Economics.
We know what’s gonna be
trickling down on us; we’ll need
lots of toilet paper to clean up
that mess. Should I buy stock
in Kimberly-Clark? It’s bound
to shoot higher than
Mitt’s real hairline.
Ah, but Kimberly is owned by the Kochs,
who invented the Tea Party (ironic,
those initials: T.P.).
Thus, you see
my dilemma.
Shall I profit off
the grief of the majority
or continue to
fight the moneyed minority?
Yeah, like there’s an option!
This year, make “Blues in the Night”
a victory dance,
if we stand a chance
against Diebolt and Hype Finance.
Or will we be finessed
by Salt Lake City’s best,
confessed, silk suit pressed?
(Though his agenda for the oppressed
shows him decidedly undressed.)
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday: P is for Politics! Check in a few days to hear it at Buddah Moskowitz’s Virtual Poetry Reading site. Also at the politically non-affiliated hub of activity, Poets United. Adding to the dverse Open Mic Night, too!
HOOPLA!
In silly, obtrusive hats
they banter on the floor of
the convention, knowing
the intention and the rules.
Their duty, to nominate
their candidate… yet, they’re
only in their element
acting like damned fools.
No matter which party,
they’re mostly foolhardy.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday (Banter, Duty, Element) and ABC Wednesday (H). Also at the convention of brilliant poets (who let me write there, too!): Poets United.
PROCESS NOTES: Yes, I watched BOTH the Republican and Democratic conventions, as much as I could, some online. The stupid behavior and outlandish dress displayed by members of both parties was truly a turnoff, considering the solemn duty they are to perform.
I hope all voters will take time to watch the speeches (now that they are so easily accessed online) and visit the various fact-checking sites to evaluate, to discern… not simply go for the usual line. However you vote, GET TO THE POLLS! Otherwise, I really don’t want to hear your complaints. Get active, get American, get real. Peace, Amy
We Interrupt Your Regularly Schedule Program
(a full-tilt boogie political rant)
As the prez drones on
Americans are bored.
As the drones fall on
Afghanis, they’re gored, ignored by
the drumbeat of war, the military
rhythm of their streets, their football meets,
their homes, Rumi roams their graveyards.
American values pressed upon them
like Nagasaki tattoos in hues of death
searing their flesh, a mesh of
indelible reminders that cling to
the very marrow of their own beliefs.
Skies, fly-bys, murmurs of surprise,
more stealth attacks by wealthy whackadoodles
with poodles whose pedicures cost more than
the Dewers that fuels their mules, duly noted.
I voted, but it didn’t matter, records
shattered for brazen fundraising.
TV talking heads walking through it,
praising Lindsay Lohan working the program,
no grams up her button nose; I suppose it’s
intensely interesting to the Real Housewives of
Stepford, but it IS. NOT. NEWS.
The view expressed by Fox’s best,
yelling bellicose foghorns with degrees in
anything but journalism, kernels of truth
plus one ton of pure Hereford fertilizer?
THIS. IS. NOT. NEWS.
Our rights taken from us, our voices choicely
squelched by Citizens United, dividing the
green from the lean, the rich bitch from the
working, lurking stiff upper lips standing in line
at the Union Hall, all shirking off unemployment
because there’s always a job for any slob who will
do it. Screw the indignity of the position, it’s their
mission to have purpose percolating in the mass of days,
rife with strife, but it passes for life in America.
Meanwhile, Koch-heads yacht a lot, spend and spit
on us, that’s your trickle down theory, they piss and
don’t miss as we struggle, strain to avoid their toxic rain,
strive, staying alive even if it we lose our house to the bank that
tanked playing rushing roulette with our debt. The rich
don’t create jobs, don’t create anything, moving
money around is their pursuit of happiness.
Happenstance made them rich, not effort.
THIS. IS. NEWS. The kind that should be reported,
not distorted, nor distended, deliver as intended.
Families living in cars, sitting at bars, behind bars,
that’s news. Mental health strategy a traumatic
tragedy, that’s news. Not Happy News that gives you
a toy made by a Chinese boy in a sweatshop, top of his
head covered with Communist slogans, paid in tokens.
It’s not Good News for the FUNDAlack of MENTAL
functionISTS, but it passes like gasses from blowhard
Beltway asses whose glasses were replaced by Lasik on
our dime. I’m sick and low-income? Sorry, chum,
you’re a lazy bum. What becomes of you won’t show up
on The View. Gee, you think? Don’t blink.
The new news is glitzy, blonde tanned ditzy reporters
distorting but clueless that their teleprompters spew
lies on abortions, on choice, our voice no longer heard
because “Corporations are people, my friend,” will that horse’s
end please shut up, four deferments from Nam, never heard
a bomb, cuz he was Mormonizing in France, dancing at
draft rallies all the same. Who’s to blame if he dodged it, the
logic is on his side, but don’t turn hawk if you balked
when it was your turn. Even had de Gaulle to show up at
draft rallies, tallies not in his favor, but winning’s his
favorite flavor. THIS. IS. NEWS. (reported on the BBC, not
through Corporate Corpulent American Broadcasting)
Today the news is: Gays are hated, Liberals are jaded, Latinos
berated, Treyvon wrong-shaded and Dems are Commies. Filthy Zim,
the trimmer of black population, zoned on medication, toting
a habit of hatred, a habit of meds, side effects include an itchy
trigger finger. America is for the armed, the beautiful, and
the moneyed. Honey, it’s the way things are; don’t complain
about CEO gain and golden parachutes or hoot and holler about
the borrowed dollars Bush cushioned on a credit card to wage war
on a third world country, Weaponless but we brought the Mass
Destruction. The fact is, that war never made our taxes, and no
draft left the middle class daft. Elections cost billions, one
candidate worth millions, he laid off thousands, and though he
says his corporation may be a person with a thumper of a
tickertape heartbeat… it has no heart. THIS. IS. NEWS.
Reporting live from the edge of democracy, trying damned hard
not to be pushed off the edge, this is Amy Barlow Liberatore from
WASHthemoneycleanINGTON. Good night and good luck.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thank you, Aaron Kent, for reminding me to rant away like I used to, spitfire style and purely politically.
For Three Wd. Wednesday: Cling, Murmur, Taken. Also at my poetic tickertape access, Poets United.
C’mon. Don’t tell me you didn’t see a rant coming this week! Politically yours, Amy
Naked at the Tea Party
Morning mist lifts over Madison
yet a cloud remains
following the foolish victor who
occupies a solid gold throne
furnished by a Faustian family
from a land far, far away
As he breaths through his mouth
he complains his crown
is bulky, unwieldly (gotcha! He doesn’t know that word)
adored as it is with spangles, sparkles
the spoils of ill-gotten gains
and still – ill repute remains
He resigns himself to another day
of allowing teachers to go home (forever)
Freeing children from pesky doctor visits
Yet his doom looms: HE IS JOHN DOE
Jump one hurdle, slam into a wall
The drumbeat grows: Indict “Koch Lite”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday: Bulky, Mist, Reign.
Also at my poetic soapbox, the ever-trusty Poets United (not a PAC, incidentally!).
Image courtesy of the magazine named for my patron saint: Mother Jones.
Sharp Little Pencil 