Joe Pawndog

Maybe life is vastly different outside the Heartland, but I've listened to Joe Pawndog here for years, and intensely so since Bushco arrived. Joe figured almost from the beginning, after the hunt for bin Laden went nowhere, that the real reason for it all was oil and "so the rich can git richer and the poor git poorer." Joe thinks simplistically maybe, but rightly so. (Intellectual type Heartlanders call it US military establishing geopolitical hegemony, they don't usually hunt but do have dogs.) Joe may be ignorant in that he tries to ignore what his own government does to him, but he's not stupid. He sometimes has an uncanny sense of the inevitable.

Joe Pawndog, then and now, doesn't much care if Iraq had WMD or not. Nor did he know who Libby was or care about the lady who says she feels her life is in danger after being outed but they keep showing her face anyway.

Joe also figures Mr. Anyone Bigg won't be prosecuted for an "illegal war based on lies" because he's familiar with how trails end in American political hunts. He sniffs that the Niger yellowcake lies are one of many distractions from other things; those four 9/11 planes, the sinking economy, his layoff after 18 years, corruption, rising costs, that it now takes 3 times the money to fill his tank, and all the needless blood and capital spent "over there" just so the rich can git richer.

Perhaps that explains some of the "kill 'em all" mentality in the Heartland – the quicker they're all dead the sooner the Pawndog family might be safe from the "git richer" system.

Joe tells me congressional critters and newshounds knew WMD was hyped; those in government or the media who didn't must be idiots, pretending now to slobber hot on the trail of liars – when it's "just more lyin' like they all do." Scratch Joe's ear on a logical day and he'll tell you all the barking "tricked with lies" is more lying. One Pawndogger told me "they" probably used the Monica/Clinton scandal to keep folks attention while "they" planned 9/11, but he wasn't certain who they are or what they are cooking up now.

For Joe flipping through cable news has some of the drama and music of a nippy night of coon hunting in the river bottoms, but none of the fun because the hunt is rigged. Joe's heard the bay and bark often and knows when the dogs have prey. And knows a snipe hunt when he sees one. His remote button rarely stops to hear the yapping, but sometimes he'll catch a few minutes for secondary noise - like hoot owls or bullfrogs when he really wants to hear the true pitch of the redbone. Wag the masses. Those neocons are treed ain't they?

Joe wasn't feeling duped, but with all the repetition he catches a point or two – yea, that's it, he was tricked. He can howl indignant, he's been lied to, used goddammit! He can roll over and yelp about those low-down lying neocon hounds - and avoid biting the hand he thinks feeds him.