Liftingthefog: Political Humor from Barbara Sehr

Exposing the Foggy Bottom from the Third Rail

Exposing the Foggy Bottom from the Third Rail

Is "Sacrifice" Restricted to Baseball?

All Seems Plentiful on the Homefront

Taking Liberties

Congress Checks In, Checks Underwear

Phoenix, AZ — As the Pentagon builds up its war machine in the Persian Gulf, some questions are being raised at the homefront, even among those who support the struggle against OPEC.

Days after the administration announced its latest economic stimulus plan, some question if this generation is being asked to sacrifice enough. As the administration continues to accuse those who oppose its policies of being "terrorists" a Justice Department raid at an Arizona assisted living home netted the arrest of several dozen World War II veterans and their wives. The war veterans had demanded that the Bush administration force sacrifices upon the American people in preparation for the possibility of war.
The seniors will be charged with slandering the homeland security effort and at least one 89-year-old great-grandmother will be charged with assaulting the reproductive rights of a federal officer after she kicked a Justice Department official in a vulnerable place. "During the great war, Churchill promised blood, toil, tears, and sweat," the woman said before duct tape was placed over her lips, as restraints were locked to her arms and feet, "This administration wants us to stop paying taxes, what kind of sacrifice is that?"

The detainees were threatened with deportation to the administration's terrorist holding facility

"Stimulus, Schwimulus, "one of the arrestees yelled out. "When I was a young kid, we had to walk five miles in the snow to sign up for a rationed rubber band. We had to stretch out one roll of toilet paper for the entire course of the war… whenever someone in the family caught a fever - we bunched up close to feel the heat."

in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba if they continued their desecration of the Bush administration's new economic "stimulus" plan. "Stimulus, Schwimulus, "one of the arrestees yelled out. "When I was a young kid, we had to walk five miles in the snow to sign up for a rationed rubber band. We had to stretch out one roll of toilet aper for the entire course of the war… whenever someone in the family caught a fever - we bunched up close to feel the heat."

Another member of the veterans group herded off said the sacrifices the homefront endured during World War II made them better Americans. "We all learned that life was not about daddy opening doors for you to get into college, or to avoid war service by having your daddy get you a National Guard commission where service was optional," he said. "Sacrifice meant sometimes having to declare responsibility for what you've done."

While some seniors appreciated the concept of not having to pay taxes on dividends, most said it wouldn't do them any good. "I remember when I was still living back in Houston, then-governor Bush kept showing us how wise an investment Enron was, an elderly man recalled. "I bought lots of Enron stock so I could live on the dividends….now I don't have to care about taxes on my dividends anymore anyway…."

Most of the seniors noted that the baby boom generation doesn't even know what sacrifice is. "I once tried to get my son-in-law to trust me with the remote control," one woman remembered," I would have had an easier time getting Yasir Arafat to speak at a B'nai B'rith fundraiser.

The World War II veterans said they still believe in America, but are having trouble with some of the concepts of the current administration. One veteran, now a retired educator who got in early during the "New Math" craze in educational circles says he is having trouble calculating the administration's plans to greatly reduce taxes, fight a war on as many as two fronts, and avoid cuts in Social Security and Medicare. "If I were a banker, I would not open a checking account for this administration…." the mathematician told his interrogators. "Even that night we celebrated V-E day in the wine country in Burgundy, I never saw any member of our division trickle down as much as this administration expects."