“Like Rats off a Sinking Ship…and the Crew

is insane…”

Or: “The Post Office is Busted, and the

mailbox is locked” (Dylan): the end of
Democracy on the High Seas…the last Days
of the Bush Tyranny, and how the guilty
refused to surrender (or even answer any
questions).

(Inspired by the Many Desertions in the

Latter Days of the Bush Presidency)

By

Artemis G. Onzo

Aboard The Executive and Legislative

Branches of our country’s already stranded
vessel, the S.S. Bush, things have gone
from bad to worse. The top-heavy square-
rigger, judged not seaworthy, left port
anyway in 2000, with a captain who was
hardly competent, a distinct yaw and
veered off-course almost immediately. Only
the Captain’s wily associates, and foreign
pirates, made his career at all possible.

In recent months, it has become clear

that this is itself a pirate ship. It was long
mistaken for a U.S. vessel ; in part because
it flew an American flag to fool other ships,
but mainly due to the almost complete
LACK of democracy on board, so
characteristic of pirate ships. However, its
purpose, to plunder and raid, without
mercy, eventually became evident. Not
only were these pirates, but Filibusters,
the nasty sort of privateer adventurer, who
routinely plundered the Spanish Main.

The ship ran aground on a strange

sandbar, populated by its own band of
desperate cutthroats from many nations,
despite Main Master Rove’s declaration
that they had a fair way, off the coast of
Delaware. Shortly before this, the crew
tried several attempts at calling the
Captain, Main Master and Lieutenant to
task for their tyranny, naïvely supposing
that the amoral interlopers would step
forward and be judged!
 After the two “leaders” refused to
parlay, the crew mutinied, quite
uncharacteristic for pirates, and it was
supposed they would seize power, but
most, including the ship’s Master, Karl
Rove, have now shown themselves to be
weak and craven and have apparently
decided to jump ship or scuttle it
completely. At any rate, in a move still
debated by all but the crew themselves,
they mysteriously gave in to the Captain’s
and his cohorts demands, and offered up a
Letter of Marque, (idiotically giving the
former leave to attack and seize anyone’s
property, after declaring them
“enemies”!).

The crew had taken over after Captain

Bush himself had fired several key men,
who could have buttressed his tyrannical
rule, among them: Master Gunner, Donald
Rumsfeld, an admitted bungler when it
came to warfare, while appointing
questionable people in roles of great
power: among these, a female Boatswain,
Condoleeza Rice and Quartermaster,
Alberto Gonzales, both of whom were seen
as toadies to Bush, if not possessed
outright of questionable relations with
him, especially Rice, often called, most
indecorously, “Condi”, by the Captain.

Rice was known for her penchant for

steering by dead reckoning, rather than
using instruments of navigation,
something Bush himself did all the time.
Perhaps this endeared her to him? It was
well known that Captain Bush was really a
landlubber, who knew almost nothing
about sailing a dinghy, much less
captaining a ship!

Bush may have thought of this spate of

firings and demotions, and even
resignations, as a good “breaming”
(burning off the filth from the bottom of a
ship), no doubt under Rove’s influence,
and that of a the grog, of which he was so
fond. However, it was clearly proved bad
thing (for HIM at any rate) , since the filth
was at the TOP of the ship! The promotion
of Gonzales was seen by many as the “last
straw” by the embittered crew, who had
openly opposed his appointment on moral
grounds, which is saying something,
considering their pirate “ethics”!

However, Bush refused to answer to

any critics. It was no wonder that high-
ranking officers began to choose desertion
rather than “kissing the Gunner’s
daughter”, or worse, dance the Devil’s Jig,
at the hands of Liberal, Senate
crewmembers! I refer, of course, to the
recent desertions of various members of
Captain Bligh’s…I mean Captain Bush’s
senior officers, amazingly including his
Master (read what you like into THAT
metaphor!), Karl Rove, known by the
Captain’s detractors and some supporters
as “Bush’s Brain”, or affectionately called
by Cap’n, “Turd-Blossom”.

One wonders how THAT name became

regarded as a term of endearment…but
they are Texans, so it might actually BE
affectionate, in that earthy, cowboy-esque
manner, that Bush has cultivated so
carefully. (No wonder they also have
incredible difficulty sailing a ship!) No
doubt, Bush’s earlier days spent in the
snobby, sea-faring town of Kennebunkport,
Maine, filled with Gentlemen of Adventure,
wore off, due to his increasing snuggles in
the arms of ACTUAL liars, thieves, war-
mongers and general cutthroats, the
Pirates of the Potomac, who live for
plunder and the pointless sacking of
countries.

We Democrats assumed that the

weakened S.S. Dubya would be
immediately attacked, if not outright
commandeered by its disgruntled
swabbies, the Democratic, and even some
Republican Senators, who had made their
mutinous wishes known for years.

This was their biggest chance to seize

power. Indeed, they had already unseated
many of the Cap’n’s lap-dogs and
“yes”-men in Aught-Six, to the resounding
cheers of Liberals and even petit bourgeois
Capitalists. The latter were tired of seeing
their vessels and trading towns raided by
these thugs, and their profits swiped by
big, corporate interests, usually holed up
on various islands in the Bahamas or
Central America.

Indeed, the Bush and Cheney had even

gone as far as The Barbary Coast, to
befriend ruling Sheiks, in their unending
thirst for riches, sparking (or making
worse) so-called Holy Wars on BOTH sides
of the Atlantic, as well as in the seemingly
opposing religions of Christianity and
Islam. As usual, Judaism is caught squarely
in the middle and blamed by both sides for
everything from attacks on citizens by the
Pirates and the Sheiks themselves, to the
arrest and manic tirade of the H.M.S.
Bounty’s mutinous First mate, Fletcher
Christian, a.k.a, Mel Gibson, when he was
stopped by the Navy for an SUI (“Sailing
Under the Influence”).

Captain Bush, himself, referred to his

attack on the nation of Iraq, led then by
the equally evil, unscrupulous tyrant,
Captain Saddam, as a “Crusade”! Some
Christians hailed this as righteous, but
many shuddered with disgust and
memories of former “Crusades” and
Inquisitions, spawned by so-called
Christians, to justify their violence and
plunder.

The pirates themselves openly avowed

Christianity, while joyfully looting the
riches of the oil-rich East, destroying
pagan temples and the ruined cities of the
Fertile Crescent in the name of “God”.
Many Christians on the mainland praised
these violent, vicious marauders, thinking
of them as “God’s Army” and calling the
Captain, “The Chosen One”, and
dangerously approaching blasphemy, to
true Christians!

It became apparent to savvy observers

soon, and to easily duped Americans later,
that Captain Bush’s real goal was global
power, since he was already disgustingly
rich. And that he was merely using
Christianity and the cry of “let’s spread
Democracy” as a cover to fool his
supporters, of which there were many, due
to rampant poverty, spawned by his own ill
deeds.

His second-in-command, the almost

universally despised, Lieutenant, Dick
Cheney, made no such pretense, wielding
either cutlass or shotgun with equal glee,
as he ransacked the poor, rode roughshod
over the U.S. Constitution (no, not the
ship) and sank enemies and rivals with the
foulest of lies and schemes. He ruthlessly
capitalized on Bush’s childish tendency to
heave ahead, into the worst weather and
shoals, easily convincing him that a
treasure awaited just beyond it. This, no
doubt, is how they ran aground.
 If Rove was “Bush’s Brain”, then
Cheney is his dark hand, dealing out death
and ruin with a smiling snarl, while Bush
remained above the slaughter, piously
trumpeting patriotic platitudes,
mispronouncing words and stumbling over
folksy sayings. He would invariably mangle
them, thusly: “Fool me once, shame on
you, Fool me once, shame on me…wait…
fool YOU…no…shame on…Oh hell, we won’t
get fooled again!”, desperately misquoting
a popular song from his youth. His
“leadership” was a disaster and an
embarrassment, while Cheney’s snarling
disregard for humanity alienated all but
the most vicious bilge rats.

The SS. Bush is now marooned on the

shoal, listing offward, battered by the ever
more intense surf around it, headless,
soulless, and “manned” only by a rag-tag
assemblage of blow hards, cowardly dogs
and naysayers, unwilling to do anything to
improve the ship’s fate. One can only
assume the worst, and no doubt, the huge
ship will founder under its own weight and
the strain of the sea’s fury, and then fall
apart completely, whether or not it is,
itself, plundered by pirates from other
countries from Cathay to Abyssinia.

It seems that, only when the S.S. Bush

is a shipwreck and both its venal “leaders”
and its mutinous crew finally digesting in
the stomachs of angry sharks,
 hammerhead or otherwise (as once
predicted by the great writer, Hunter S.
Thompson), will America possibly seize the
chance to launch a new, proud, truly
democratic ship of state.

What can one sailor say, but: “Yarrr…!

”?

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, New

England, 2007.

* Note: Some of the ranks given above may

be regarded as incorrect, by those
unfamiliar with the different ranking
system of pirate ships. I would refer these
interested parties to the excellent site:

From:
http://www.bonaventure.org.uk/ed/ranks.ht
m

Tags: pirates, ship*of*state, filibuster,

senate*cowardice, bush, cheney, rove, rice,
republicans, democrats