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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

January 05, 2005

Strutting, Smirking, as if the Mad Plan Was Working

Out Old Year

by FRED GARDNER

Out old year, you weren’t pretty
Out with Janet Jackson’s titty
Out with Bill O’Reilly’s loofah
(Which made miss Macris hit the roofa)

Go get lost, two thousand four
We really cannot take much more
Of Ahnold and Maria Shriver,
Rudolph Giuliani’s driver

Paul Bremer’s failed mission
Fallujah’s demolition
George Bush strutting, smirking
As if the mad plan was working

The coalition of the "willing"
The Passion of Curt Schilling
Ascendant Talibangelists
>From Charleston to Los Angeles

Please already drop the curtain
On Cheney, Dick and Haliburton
Privatizing everything
Down to the Army’s dishwashing

His daughter Mary selling beer
His wife Lynn, selling fear
His pseudo-rival Colin Powell
A hawk passing for an owl

And Prissy Condoleeza Rice
Let us make a sacrifice
Of her and Rupert Murdoch
Karl Rove, Kid Rock

David Stern, Donald Trump
(among the very first we’d bump)
Berlesconi, Tony Blair,
Biden with his phony hair

A Bronx cheer and demerits
For Bob Novak, Marty Peretz
Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity
Chip chip chipping at our sanity

Global warming, that don’t frighten
Best seller Michael Crichton
Glaciers melting? What me worry
It won’t happen in a hurry

And when we die we just grow wings
And leave behind the underlings
Evolution’s just a theory
Have some Paxil feel more cheery

Take Cialis, have some sex
Celebrate with Celebrex
You always said you needed "strokes"
Now’s your chance step right up, folks

Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck
They all know their drugs don’t work
But nothing’s standing in their way
Since they bought the FDA

Enough of two thousand four
Take your baggage out the door
Hurricanes and beheadings
Much ado ’bout gay weddings

Your Intifadas and crusades
Pack ‘em up and quickly fade
You don’t deserve to survive
Make room for two thousand five!

Done before the wave hit
(Now why even save it,
A trivial poem, a silly ode) a
Really catastrophic coda.

FRED GARDNER can be reached at journal@ccrmg.org