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PREFACE: Most of this is bits and pieces from various blogs that I jotted down over the last week, then sent through my own dough hooks to make sense out of it all. I foolishly didn't grab attributions so am left simply saluting the many. I wasn't planning to publish this, just share it with a few people close to me but, as Bar will not retract, I thought it would serve better to get it out despite the limited cites."Underprivileged" is AngliClubpublican for "Black" or This is where I begin bouncing off the walls like so much manic Daffy Duck -- Notes from the blogs, expanded/expounded.* You couldn't write this stuff. Truth, fiction, and all that. There are lots of Marie Antoinette references out there. The relative availability of hard and soft wheat notwithstanding, I think they're too kind. She's a combo of Catherine of Russia, Marie Antoinette, Cruella De Ville and Lucretia Borgia. And all of the conniving Roman women in "I Claudius" and the new HBO "Rome". Q: What's the difference between the Bushes and the Borgias?A: The Borgias left a legacy of great art, literature and architecture. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. He is his mother's son. And it's not like she's all "Don't hurt my widdle biddy bouncing baby boy", either. No, she thinks of W as someone who needs to be kept at arms length lest the vicious little reptile lash out at her. God knows he has reason. For some time, Agrippina influenced Nero, her son, as she had controlled her deceased husband. But soon Nero was fed up with her constant criticizing. He deprived her of her honours and exiled her from the palace, but that was not enough. Three times he tried to poison her, but she had been raised in the Imperial family and was accustomed to take antidotes. Then he built a machine attached to the roof of her bedroom, destined to make the ceiling collapse -- the plot failed. According to the historians Tacitus and Suetonius, Nero then plotted her death by sending for her in a boat designed to collapse, drowning her. However, only some of the crew were in on the plot and their efforts were hampered by the rest of the crew trying to save the ship. As it went down, one of her handmaidens thought to save herself by crying that she was Agrippina, thinking they would take special care of her. Instead the maid was instantly beaten to death with oars and chains. The real Agrippina realised then what was happening and in the confusion managed to swim away where a passing fisherman picked her up. Terrified that his cover had been blown, Nero instantly sent men to charge her with treason and summarily execute her. Legend states that when the Emperor's soldiers came to kill her, Agrippina pulled back her clothes and ordered them to stab her in the belly that had housed such a monstrous son. -- WikipediaPeople took the fall for "Mama Nero" even in her near last moments.If only Babs can "go" as well as Julia Vipsania Agrippina. I'm sure Sonny Boy would have no compunction about seeing the woman who hatched him depart this mortal coil in short order, if only to provide him a modicum of psychic relief...Bush = NeroBar = Agrippina or maybe Livia Drusilla, Augustus' wife or that cold-blooded viper, Tiberius' motherCondi = ImeldaKarl = Person Satan FearsWhen you are going through hell, keep going! - Winston Churchill To Bar and cronies, none of us are "special" -- we're nothing to these AngliClubpublicans which is why she believes that one might as well be poor in one city as poor in another. We're just the "help" in a very apartheid-Capetown-esque manner. (See the specially-gated-just-for-her Houston community and you'll know what I mean. Houston loves dark-skinned poor people. It's the next best thing to slaves. Its economy thrives on serfdom. It's Republican paradise.) She is incapable of wrapping her mind around the fact that, for most of us, having family scattered around the country is a very big deal...we don't all have Air Force One to schlep us a dozen times per month. How many will go stark raving mad? There are thousands of dead and every one of them has a mom, dad, cousins, siblings, and/or others who cared about them and might even have depended on them. And home is just -- home -- the devil you know. People knew NOLA, even if life was lousy fiscally and in other ways. Now they have to start over, still with no resources, in a strange town. One young man staying with people I've communicated with on the internet tries to talk about the wonderful opportunities of starting over, but then his lip trembles as he says, "My childhood is gone. All of it. There's nothing left." Many of them are what they call "3-Blockers", meaning that they never go more than three blocks from home. Families are large and close, often with many generations in the same house or same block. Resources may be scarce but they're shared. Vibrant, viable community in the very best sense of the word happened in the areas hardest hit by flooding. The important things are gone -- the carefully cherished pictures of family and friends -- some long dead. With the clothes on their backs they've been separated, shipped far from home -- no longer rich in the immaterial things but carrying instead an unimaginable load of trauma. Bar is the mother in the Manchurian Candidate -- but Condi is the Bad Seed. (I want...my shoes!) It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you. -- Will Rogers The scuttlebutt is that the big power Voodoo ladies are voiding the Rule of Three and there's going to be ... well, the forces of balance are way out of whack and swirling power big time right now, so there are some shoes I sure wouldn't want to be in. After all, New Orleans has always been one of the thinnest places of all. [The Administration] has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water. ~Olberman Its bad enough that there are people in the world who are so high on their sense of privilege that they would even think such a thing. But to say it? In public?!?!? There's a level of crassness and cruelty there that I cannot even fathom -- no room left on the Outrage Meter. I'm getting tired of having it recalibrated to register higher and higher. WWED: Can you imagine Eleanor Roosevelt instead? When I think of Bar, the word, "ghoul" comes to mind. She looks ever-closer to a cross between George Washington and Tales From the Crypt. Clearly Shrub has a cold, domineering, manipulative mother and a diffident, absent father, and he got the worst genes from both. (Contrasting Bar's comment with Shrub's praise of "Brownie", we now have irrefutable proof that sociopathy is hereditary.) Supposedly, JEB was the one they were grooming for higher office but they didn't count on Karl Rove -- who is probably getting a huge amount of perverse pleasure in upsetting their plans by helping Dim Son get elected. History, of course, will be brutally unkind to Chimp Gump, as well it should. This could well end up America's darkest hour since the 19th century.She is the only one who knew Georgie's early childhood development. He has Asperger's accompanied by low IQ accompanied by fetal alcohol syndrome. Perfect Storm. And she knew it. If Bar is the Mother Queen Alien, do I get to be Sigourney Weaver in that giant robo forklift suit?I think this quote from Bush on the Couch, Inside the Mind of the President by Justin Frank, M.D., really describes the compassionate behavior of Bar and 41, thus Shrub. The quote is in reference to W's sister who died from leukemia as a young girl."Robin died in New York in October, 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister's illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child's body was buried in a Connecticut family plot. There was no funeral." (p.3) These people are from the freezer. George W. Bush is NOT a cowboy. He is a multi-millionaire.George W. Bush is NOT a regular guy. He is a multi-millionaire.George W. Bush is NOT a compassionate conservative. He is a multi-millionaire.George W. Bush was born in Connecticut. Schooled at Yale and Harvard. He would not have a beer with you. He would not watch a football game with you. He doesn't care about you, because you are not a multi-millionaire. ("As it should be," piped one noted Billionaires For Bush scion.)George Bush doesn't care about poor people. He doesn't care about working poor people. He doesn't care about middle class people. He only cares about extremely rich people who can donate lots of money to his party.Now, take "George Bush" and replace it with "The Republican Party." This is how you're going to get the votes in 2006, 2008; or at least get people to not vote for the party that would let them die in the streets like homeless dogs."Getting on with my life means a life without my dear, sweet boy. I wish a little bike ride could help me get on with my life." Cindy SheehanIt honestly didn't even sound like Bar meant to be malicious or ill-willed: she actually sounded genuinely pleased when she chuckled that she truly believed that the people there in that situation were doing alright. No regard whatsoever, no sobering thoughts to the fact that as she was chuckling about how "well it all might work out for them" that some of those people lost loved ones. Some of those people were traumatized, they had lived through what may be the greatest disaster in U.S. history, and their loved ones had died because of ineptitude!! I guess the loss of a mother/father or brother/sister or child doesn't matter as much if you were dirt poor and now have a government cot to sleep on and a meal placed in front of you like a dog in a pound!!!!!Of course there's that bit near the beginning when she says how "scary" it is that some of them might want to stay in Texas.Scientific American says that, while women get their intelligence from both their parents, men get theirs from only the mother's side. That explains Shrub's statement earlier in the week that "a tidal wave of compassion" was on the way. Of course it was 5 days after a tidal wave-esque storm surge and the beginning of a non-stop tidal wave of incompetence.Then there was Daddy Bush41 being asked about charges of federal government neglect,"The President can take it", 41 said, as though that was all that mattered [carefully note how fast, in contrast, they can get motivated to save their own political hides], and then said something about getting criticized "after losing the football game" or something as if his son was the victim in this tragedy."Too many policemen, no liberty; Too many soldiers, no peace; Too many lawyers, no justice." Lin Yutang (1895-1976) These are parents who defend their chickens no matter what. No wonder that Shrub is incapable of self-reflection, incapable of handling criticism, incapable of learning from mistakes, incapable of admitting mistakes and no wonder that he is deeply arrogant seemingly without being aware of it -- or, as Cindy Sheehan put it, emotionally "inappropriate."Freedom does not march. I saw an invasion. I see an occupation. I don't see a war. "Constant war is not a family value." Cindy Sheehan 8/22/05Perhaps Bar would be happier living out her (please) final days in the NOLA Convention Center Concentration Camp. She should be sent there and locked in with no food and water or sanitation. Condi can bring her nice shoes and let her read the leftover Playbill.Bush = DeathThis whole week has been one long series of jaw droppers. I thought I knew how evil these people were, but they have taught me a lesson: There are depths of depravity we didn't dream of. And the press on the scene of Bar's comment didn't even gasp or do any hard followup questions.So "this is working very well for them"? Why, because they will get money to relocate in new places, a couple of thousand buck in start-up money put in a checking account they don't have? Damn the horror and terror and loss they went through, they will get new (used) stuff.Allow me to rephrase, just so I understand what she's saying:"'Those people' are frequently raped at a young age, are homeless, jobless, and have no food or water for days on end -- oh, and sleep in others of 'their kind's' shit surrounded by corpses. Being allowed to stay here must be like stealing a drink from one of our water fountains and (chortle, chortle) not getting caught."Of course, these are the same folks who compared GITMO to a holiday resort.The revolution is ongoing.Barbara Bush is a perfect example of her class.As are her sons, her husband, her granddaughters, and scads in the BushCo administration. Except for those who wish to join that class but...so far...cannot. (Jews, y'know...and black people. And that ugly little Rove creature. I do not know WHAT you see in those people, George!)I want to point out that the last two Democrats who beat these people were both up from the bottom. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. This is nothing less than class warfare now. And the Gores and the Kerrys can't cut it.They have all of the drawbacks of their/my class... a certain Anglican reticence, a feeling that indeed they are better than other people (felt deep inside -- from when they were children), and a sense of guilt at their position as well. But they lack the killer instinct of their cruder Ratpublican brethren. So they get their asses kicked.New Orleans is class warfare. Iraq is class warfare. The exporting of America's industry is class warfare. And the rotten state of schools of poor, working class and middle class America is class warfare.Their children do not suffer. Not Bush's and not Kerry's either. Other people's do.In the best patrician manner, Kerry cedes the battlefield to the victor and goes on the Grand Tour. Skiing in Gstaad. Indefensible.It's their actions that matter -- now -- and their actions are...that they lose. That they run a race of blocked passions. Of that good old Anglican reticence. While the Bushes and Clark Cliffords of this world run a race that is more akin to Satanism than anything else.Disgusting!My wish for Bar: I'd like to see Bar come down with a painful, lingering disease. But not just any disease. I'm talking about a disease that will turn her face all green and warty. A malady that will infect her withered nether parts, causing them to ooze a malodorous pus at all times. A stinky, foul discharge that will induce vomiting in anyone exosed to the noxious stench. There should be a terrible, intractable rectal itch involved, too, preferably combined with a paralysis that won't allow her to scratch. Splitting headaches, the ones that make you cry. Ever get a cramp in your jaw when you yawned? Hers would be chronic. And as long as I'm wishing, I'd like to be able to enjoy her suffering on webcam, with audio capacity so that I could provide her with a few choice comments from time to time.But as for her "beautiful mind"....I want it to remain perfectly clear, perfectly intact. I want her to steep in the experience. I want the scales to balance...I want her suffering to be in equal measure to the haughty privilege she has enjoyed and flaunted.Some years back, there was an article in the New Yorker about the peculiar literary genre of memoirs of people who had relatively unremarkable lives, except whom they're related to. (Think "Mommy Dearest".) The article proposed an anthology of juicy selections from such books. One candidate was an incident from Patty Davis's contribution about growing up Reagan. She recounts how a landscaper/gardener had a heart attack while working at the Reagans. He came to the door, wanting to call for assistance, but Nancy chased him away, presumably feeling violated by his disrespect for proper class relations. The man went to a neighbor for assistance; luckily surviving long enough to do so. And, also luckily, the neighbor didn't have impenetrable security as most would now. Despite all they have in common, Barbara B & Nancy R reputedly can't stand each other.Torture. It's what's for dinars.Listening to Bar's remark made me think of the rationale that Mr. Jefferson gave for keeping slaves: namely, they were better taken care of as slaves than they would be if they were free -- the roots of Manifest Destiny sown growing the karmic weed of pain we still struggle to be free of as a family, as a nation, as a world. [tip o' the hat to Jill Sim]"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr. On Larry King, Bar concluded by saying that we'll probably end up getting a better New Orleans because of this. "Better, safer", she said. Right. Because most of those underprivileged will stay where they've been evacuated to, and the rebuilders (right... Halliburton...) can bulldoze the whole thing and rebuild it into a new version of Disneyland, and the people who go on vacations can go visit and happily enjoy the tourist attractions in peace. (Note to Karl Rove: If Mama can't fake humanity don't put her out there.)Could someone please tell Larry it's time to retire? It will give him more time to play golf with his Bush buddies.What is probably intended for New Orleans Mark II is a New Orleans ala Universal's City Walk imitation of southern California's Venice or what Disney did to Times Square in NYC. All the rough edges will be sanded away. There will be no more "show us your tits" at Mardi Gras. There will be no more alcoholic drinks served in go-cups. It will be sanitized for your protection, pre-packaged, carefully watched by hordes of security guards and safe enough to bring the kids to. Mayor Nagin said as much was his vision for the city -- with a particular eminent domain eye on the poor neighborhoods nearest French Quarter most devastated by the flood -- in a speech while he was barely still a Republican before changing party to run for his current job. Is it any wonder people are reluctant to leave?"Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent." - Gore VidalAnd, driving me nuts, is the Gestalt-gone-madness of the 40% of the public who will back this vile woman and her criminally socipathic litter no matter what. Holding this administration accountable would mean admitting their own culpability in siccing the Bushes on America -- facing their own portion in the needless deaths and misery of their fellow citizens. And they will still be in control in 06, and in 08... because the Democratic "leaders" are worthless.The Drudge Report picked up Barbara Bush's comments as the lead story on their website. There's no attempt made whatsoever on the site to spin the comments favorably for the GOP, which given Drudge's reputation, is really saying something. Another thing to not get me started on is the uncaring, willy-nilly inhumanity of these "family values" preachers taking so little care with family ties. It's so giant slave auction...'We're pulling them out of that hot, dirty, African jungle and placing them into the sprawling plantation homes of God-fearing Americans. So what if they lose track of family members along the way?'Didn't Babs also say that the horrific dragging death of James Byrd worked out well for him since he had a chronic itch?"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us." - former Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson, on barring foreign language teachingSadly, Bar's saying what many of the GOP are most probably thinking. Case in point:I went to freeperville so you wouldn't have to.What did she say that was bad?, wrote one.WHat Barbara Bush said is so true that the usual suspects may choose not to exploit it...because they don't want more sensible people to hear it and say, "She's right." This may not develop into anything., opined another.Why is it that whenever anyone on the right has the nerve to speak the unblunted truth, the left turns it into a weapon? The truth might hurt, but it's more helpful than a comforting lie., wrote a Southwesterner.There is NOTHING wrong with what she said. Only the left & their teensy, twisted minds could find something wrong with the statement. Leave Barbara alone...or I may have to punch you. ;) (Don't blame me, I got the idea from Ms. Landrieu), said a sexist regular.I don't care what they do with the dregs of the hurricane as long as they don't come to California, we have more than our share of lazy welfare cases already., chimed one who had better avoid eating in restaurants unless spittle is his cup-o-tea. ...the silver lining in this very black cloud is that a degenerate and crime-ridden subculture has been disrupted and dispersed......so that they can start up again, independently, in a larger area. It's NOT like they're so centrally-organized that they can't make their own decisions/plans.Take a double-handful of grubs and widely toss them all over your lawn. ARE they easier to kill now, or less of a threat, than if you had dropped them all together in one spot?, went another whose primary website must be one on the Klanwatch watchlist.Babs is just saying what many are thinking, but not saying yet. They will be more openly in a month or two. Many folks in Utah, Indiana, and Arizona lining up to "welcome" evacuees like visiting celebrities now will be denigrating them later for not getting their lives back together and becoming a "burden on the taxpayer." They'll point to middle class black and white survivors who have found jobs and started some semblance of a new life. The fact that everyone got a stadium cot and free meals for a few months will be used as evidence against them.Nixon's words about Barbara Bush came in a discussion with Gore Vidal about the Bush family. Nixon said he had no use for any of them; they were, after all, according to Nixon, the sort of people one appoints to a government position rather than elects. Barbara was the exception -- Nixon liked her, saying, "That woman really knows how to hate."Every book I've read about the Bushes by anyone who's spent any amount of time in their presence says unequivocally that Dubya is "Barbara's child."Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. -- John Stuart Mill There're always the twins to look forward to...Don't forget this one from CNN's Drew Griffin in New Orleans:"I am stunned by an interview I conducted with New Orleans Detective Lawrence Dupree. He told me they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a 'ticket.' Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn't believe these people were afraid they'd be charged for a rescue."Why wouldn't people think they'd be charged, after four years of this administration? In Arizona, there's something called a "stupid motorist law" which says that individuals who become trapped in cars during flash floods must pay for their own rescue if the government can prove that they ignored signs warning them of their own peril. On the Great Lakes in a couple of states they'll charge you for a rescue if you are on the ice and it breaks up. But only if they've issued a warning. The Coasties hate the law.New Orleans isn't the Sonoran desert by any stretch of the imagination and, soaked as it is, it's not the Great Lakes either, but it's those types of laws and the rank, boundless callousness of this administration that lead to beliefs like the ones seen by Dupree.Remember this the next time we're told about "welfare queens" and the "culture of entitlement". In America, the wealthiest country in the world, there are people who have so little, who have been given so little, they don't even believe they're entitled to emergency public safety services.I would not be surprised if the hurricane evacuees are visited by our military recruiters. Imagine it, scare them into thinking they're going to have to repay their rescue and evac costs, persuade them that the armed forces is a great deal (food, clothes, paycheck, etc.) Get them to enlist because well, they really don't have much going for them, so why not? Do not be surprised. MoveOn.org needs to put together some really, really damning ads over this. Put them out in about 2 weeks or so, showing choice quotes and factoids.Clip of Brownie looking like an idiot "Fact: FEMA refused to allow rescue workers and aid convoys to enter the area on at least 7 different times. They specifically prohibited Red Cross, Canadian, and Russian aid workers from helping, leaving thousands to die in squalor."Clip of DeLay blaming the State Government for screwing it up "Fact: The state government declared a state of emergancy on the 26th, two days before the hurricane hit. Aid did not arrive for 7 days. The mayor and governor were begging hourly for federal aid for an entire week before aid finally arrived."Clip of Bush saying "No one expected the levees to break" "Fact: The federal government has been running disaster drills for years in New Orleans, last year including a broken levee disaster. The Army Corps of Engineers, along with hundreds of experts have all gone on record over the past 40 years as saying the levees would break or be overrun with storm surge in a Category 4 or 5 storm."Clip of Bush playing guitar, Rice watching Spamalot, or newspaper clippings describing such "Fact: It took George Bush and Condy Rice 4 days to even bother coming back to work during this federal disaster."Append to all:"10,000 Americans are dead because our Government couldn't figure out how to fill out the proper paperwork. George Bush has shown us exactly how much preparation his administration has set up for another 9/11 in the past 4 years. Absolutely none. And that's a fact."
"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us." - former Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson, on barring foreign language teachingROFLMAOThat has to be one of the funniest things I've ever heard. I think I might have to use that as the new bilerico.com tagline...
Copyright 2005 New York Times Syndicate, Inc.
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AUTHOR: Marla R. Stevens
DATE: 9/10/2005 09:41:36 AM
PREFACE: Most of this is bits and pieces from various blogs that I jotted down over the last week, then sent through my own dough hooks to make sense out of it all. I foolishly didn't grab attributions so am left simply saluting the many. I wasn't planning to publish this, just share it with a few people close to me but, as Bar will not retract, I thought it would serve better to get it out despite the limited cites."Underprivileged" is AngliClubpublican for "Black" or This is where I begin bouncing off the walls like so much manic Daffy Duck -- Notes from the blogs, expanded/expounded.* You couldn't write this stuff. Truth, fiction, and all that. There are lots of Marie Antoinette references out there. The relative availability of hard and soft wheat notwithstanding, I think they're too kind. She's a combo of Catherine of Russia, Marie Antoinette, Cruella De Ville and Lucretia Borgia. And all of the conniving Roman women in "I Claudius" and the new HBO "Rome". Q: What's the difference between the Bushes and the Borgias?A: The Borgias left a legacy of great art, literature and architecture. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. He is his mother's son. And it's not like she's all "Don't hurt my widdle biddy bouncing baby boy", either. No, she thinks of W as someone who needs to be kept at arms length lest the vicious little reptile lash out at her. God knows he has reason. For some time, Agrippina influenced Nero, her son, as she had controlled her deceased husband. But soon Nero was fed up with her constant criticizing. He deprived her of her honours and exiled her from the palace, but that was not enough. Three times he tried to poison her, but she had been raised in the Imperial family and was accustomed to take antidotes. Then he built a machine attached to the roof of her bedroom, destined to make the ceiling collapse -- the plot failed. According to the historians Tacitus and Suetonius, Nero then plotted her death by sending for her in a boat designed to collapse, drowning her. However, only some of the crew were in on the plot and their efforts were hampered by the rest of the crew trying to save the ship. As it went down, one of her handmaidens thought to save herself by crying that she was Agrippina, thinking they would take special care of her. Instead the maid was instantly beaten to death with oars and chains. The real Agrippina realised then what was happening and in the confusion managed to swim away where a passing fisherman picked her up. Terrified that his cover had been blown, Nero instantly sent men to charge her with treason and summarily execute her. Legend states that when the Emperor's soldiers came to kill her, Agrippina pulled back her clothes and ordered them to stab her in the belly that had housed such a monstrous son. -- WikipediaPeople took the fall for "Mama Nero" even in her near last moments.If only Babs can "go" as well as Julia Vipsania Agrippina. I'm sure Sonny Boy would have no compunction about seeing the woman who hatched him depart this mortal coil in short order, if only to provide him a modicum of psychic relief...Bush = NeroBar = Agrippina or maybe Livia Drusilla, Augustus' wife or that cold-blooded viper, Tiberius' motherCondi = ImeldaKarl = Person Satan Fears When you are going through hell, keep going! - Winston Churchill To Bar and cronies, none of us are "special" -- we're nothing to these AngliClubpublicans which is why she believes that one might as well be poor in one city as poor in another. We're just the "help" in a very apartheid-Capetown-esque manner. (See the specially-gated-just-for-her Houston community and you'll know what I mean. Houston loves dark-skinned poor people. It's the next best thing to slaves. Its economy thrives on serfdom. It's Republican paradise.) She is incapable of wrapping her mind around the fact that, for most of us, having family scattered around the country is a very big deal...we don't all have Air Force One to schlep us a dozen times per month. How many will go stark raving mad? There are thousands of dead and every one of them has a mom, dad, cousins, siblings, and/or others who cared about them and might even have depended on them. And home is just -- home -- the devil you know. People knew NOLA, even if life was lousy fiscally and in other ways. Now they have to start over, still with no resources, in a strange town. One young man staying with people I've communicated with on the internet tries to talk about the wonderful opportunities of starting over, but then his lip trembles as he says, "My childhood is gone. All of it. There's nothing left." Many of them are what they call "3-Blockers", meaning that they never go more than three blocks from home. Families are large and close, often with many generations in the same house or same block. Resources may be scarce but they're shared. Vibrant, viable community in the very best sense of the word happened in the areas hardest hit by flooding. The important things are gone -- the carefully cherished pictures of family and friends -- some long dead. With the clothes on their backs they've been separated, shipped far from home -- no longer rich in the immaterial things but carrying instead an unimaginable load of trauma. Bar is the mother in the Manchurian Candidate -- but Condi is the Bad Seed. (I want...my shoes!) It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you. -- Will Rogers The scuttlebutt is that the big power Voodoo ladies are voiding the Rule of Three and there's going to be ... well, the forces of balance are way out of whack and swirling power big time right now, so there are some shoes I sure wouldn't want to be in. After all, New Orleans has always been one of the thinnest places of all. [The Administration] has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water. ~Olberman Its bad enough that there are people in the world who are so high on their sense of privilege that they would even think such a thing. But to say it? In public?!?!? There's a level of crassness and cruelty there that I cannot even fathom -- no room left on the Outrage Meter. I'm getting tired of having it recalibrated to register higher and higher. WWED: Can you imagine Eleanor Roosevelt instead? When I think of Bar, the word, "ghoul" comes to mind. She looks ever-closer to a cross between George Washington and Tales From the Crypt. Clearly Shrub has a cold, domineering, manipulative mother and a diffident, absent father, and he got the worst genes from both. (Contrasting Bar's comment with Shrub's praise of "Brownie", we now have irrefutable proof that sociopathy is hereditary.) Supposedly, JEB was the one they were grooming for higher office but they didn't count on Karl Rove -- who is probably getting a huge amount of perverse pleasure in upsetting their plans by helping Dim Son get elected. History, of course, will be brutally unkind to Chimp Gump, as well it should. This could well end up America's darkest hour since the 19th century.She is the only one who knew Georgie's early childhood development. He has Asperger's accompanied by low IQ accompanied by fetal alcohol syndrome. Perfect Storm. And she knew it. If Bar is the Mother Queen Alien, do I get to be Sigourney Weaver in that giant robo forklift suit?I think this quote from Bush on the Couch, Inside the Mind of the President by Justin Frank, M.D., really describes the compassionate behavior of Bar and 41, thus Shrub. The quote is in reference to W's sister who died from leukemia as a young girl."Robin died in New York in October, 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister's illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child's body was buried in a Connecticut family plot. There was no funeral." (p.3) These people are from the freezer. George W. Bush is NOT a cowboy. He is a multi-millionaire.George W. Bush is NOT a regular guy. He is a multi-millionaire.George W. Bush is NOT a compassionate conservative. He is a multi-millionaire.George W. Bush was born in Connecticut. Schooled at Yale and Harvard. He would not have a beer with you. He would not watch a football game with you. He doesn't care about you, because you are not a multi-millionaire. ("As it should be," piped one noted Billionaires For Bush scion.)George Bush doesn't care about poor people. He doesn't care about working poor people. He doesn't care about middle class people. He only cares about extremely rich people who can donate lots of money to his party.Now, take "George Bush" and replace it with "The Republican Party." This is how you're going to get the votes in 2006, 2008; or at least get people to not vote for the party that would let them die in the streets like homeless dogs."Getting on with my life means a life without my dear, sweet boy. I wish a little bike ride could help me get on with my life." Cindy SheehanIt honestly didn't even sound like Bar meant to be malicious or ill-willed: she actually sounded genuinely pleased when she chuckled that she truly believed that the people there in that situation were doing alright. No regard whatsoever, no sobering thoughts to the fact that as she was chuckling about how "well it all might work out for them" that some of those people lost loved ones. Some of those people were traumatized, they had lived through what may be the greatest disaster in U.S. history, and their loved ones had died because of ineptitude!! I guess the loss of a mother/father or brother/sister or child doesn't matter as much if you were dirt poor and now have a government cot to sleep on and a meal placed in front of you like a dog in a pound!!!!!Of course there's that bit near the beginning when she says how "scary" it is that some of them might want to stay in Texas.Scientific American says that, while women get their intelligence from both their parents, men get theirs from only the mother's side. That explains Shrub's statement earlier in the week that "a tidal wave of compassion" was on the way. Of course it was 5 days after a tidal wave-esque storm surge and the beginning of a non-stop tidal wave of incompetence.Then there was Daddy Bush41 being asked about charges of federal government neglect,"The President can take it", 41 said, as though that was all that mattered [carefully note how fast, in contrast, they can get motivated to save their own political hides], and then said something about getting criticized "after losing the football game" or something as if his son was the victim in this tragedy."Too many policemen, no liberty; Too many soldiers, no peace; Too many lawyers, no justice." Lin Yutang (1895-1976) These are parents who defend their chickens no matter what. No wonder that Shrub is incapable of self-reflection, incapable of handling criticism, incapable of learning from mistakes, incapable of admitting mistakes and no wonder that he is deeply arrogant seemingly without being aware of it -- or, as Cindy Sheehan put it, emotionally "inappropriate."Freedom does not march. I saw an invasion. I see an occupation. I don't see a war. "Constant war is not a family value." Cindy Sheehan 8/22/05Perhaps Bar would be happier living out her (please) final days in the NOLA Convention Center Concentration Camp. She should be sent there and locked in with no food and water or sanitation. Condi can bring her nice shoes and let her read the leftover Playbill.Bush = DeathThis whole week has been one long series of jaw droppers. I thought I knew how evil these people were, but they have taught me a lesson: There are depths of depravity we didn't dream of. And the press on the scene of Bar's comment didn't even gasp or do any hard followup questions.So "this is working very well for them"? Why, because they will get money to relocate in new places, a couple of thousand buck in start-up money put in a checking account they don't have? Damn the horror and terror and loss they went through, they will get new (used) stuff.Allow me to rephrase, just so I understand what she's saying:"'Those people' are frequently raped at a young age, are homeless, jobless, and have no food or water for days on end -- oh, and sleep in others of 'their kind's' shit surrounded by corpses. Being allowed to stay here must be like stealing a drink from one of our water fountains and (chortle, chortle) not getting caught."Of course, these are the same folks who compared GITMO to a holiday resort.The revolution is ongoing.Barbara Bush is a perfect example of her class.As are her sons, her husband, her granddaughters, and scads in the BushCo administration. Except for those who wish to join that class but...so far...cannot. (Jews, y'know...and black people. And that ugly little Rove creature. I do not know WHAT you see in those people, George!)I want to point out that the last two Democrats who beat these people were both up from the bottom. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. This is nothing less than class warfare now. And the Gores and the Kerrys can't cut it.They have all of the drawbacks of their/my class... a certain Anglican reticence, a feeling that indeed they are better than other people (felt deep inside -- from when they were children), and a sense of guilt at their position as well. But they lack the killer instinct of their cruder Ratpublican brethren. So they get their asses kicked.New Orleans is class warfare. Iraq is class warfare. The exporting of America's industry is class warfare. And the rotten state of schools of poor, working class and middle class America is class warfare.Their children do not suffer. Not Bush's and not Kerry's either. Other people's do.In the best patrician manner, Kerry cedes the battlefield to the victor and goes on the Grand Tour. Skiing in Gstaad. Indefensible.It's their actions that matter -- now -- and their actions are...that they lose. That they run a race of blocked passions. Of that good old Anglican reticence. While the Bushes and Clark Cliffords of this world run a race that is more akin to Satanism than anything else.Disgusting!My wish for Bar: I'd like to see Bar come down with a painful, lingering disease. But not just any disease. I'm talking about a disease that will turn her face all green and warty. A malady that will infect her withered nether parts, causing them to ooze a malodorous pus at all times. A stinky, foul discharge that will induce vomiting in anyone exosed to the noxious stench. There should be a terrible, intractable rectal itch involved, too, preferably combined with a paralysis that won't allow her to scratch. Splitting headaches, the ones that make you cry. Ever get a cramp in your jaw when you yawned? Hers would be chronic. And as long as I'm wishing, I'd like to be able to enjoy her suffering on webcam, with audio capacity so that I could provide her with a few choice comments from time to time.But as for her "beautiful mind"....I want it to remain perfectly clear, perfectly intact. I want her to steep in the experience. I want the scales to balance...I want her suffering to be in equal measure to the haughty privilege she has enjoyed and flaunted.Some years back, there was an article in the New Yorker about the peculiar literary genre of memoirs of people who had relatively unremarkable lives, except whom they're related to. (Think "Mommy Dearest".) The article proposed an anthology of juicy selections from such books. One candidate was an incident from Patty Davis's contribution about growing up Reagan. She recounts how a landscaper/gardener had a heart attack while working at the Reagans. He came to the door, wanting to call for assistance, but Nancy chased him away, presumably feeling violated by his disrespect for proper class relations. The man went to a neighbor for assistance; luckily surviving long enough to do so. And, also luckily, the neighbor didn't have impenetrable security as most would now. Despite all they have in common, Barbara B & Nancy R reputedly can't stand each other.Torture. It's what's for dinars.Listening to Bar's remark made me think of the rationale that Mr. Jefferson gave for keeping slaves: namely, they were better taken care of as slaves than they would be if they were free -- the roots of Manifest Destiny sown growing the karmic weed of pain we still struggle to be free of as a family, as a nation, as a world. [tip o' the hat to Jill Sim]"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr. On Larry King, Bar concluded by saying that we'll probably end up getting a better New Orleans because of this. "Better, safer", she said. Right. Because most of those underprivileged will stay where they've been evacuated to, and the rebuilders (right... Halliburton...) can bulldoze the whole thing and rebuild it into a new version of Disneyland, and the people who go on vacations can go visit and happily enjoy the tourist attractions in peace. (Note to Karl Rove: If Mama can't fake humanity don't put her out there.)Could someone please tell Larry it's time to retire? It will give him more time to play golf with his Bush buddies.What is probably intended for New Orleans Mark II is a New Orleans ala Universal's City Walk imitation of southern California's Venice or what Disney did to Times Square in NYC. All the rough edges will be sanded away. There will be no more "show us your tits" at Mardi Gras. There will be no more alcoholic drinks served in go-cups. It will be sanitized for your protection, pre-packaged, carefully watched by hordes of security guards and safe enough to bring the kids to. Mayor Nagin said as much was his vision for the city -- with a particular eminent domain eye on the poor neighborhoods nearest French Quarter most devastated by the flood -- in a speech while he was barely still a Republican before changing party to run for his current job. Is it any wonder people are reluctant to leave?"Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent." - Gore VidalAnd, driving me nuts, is the Gestalt-gone-madness of the 40% of the public who will back this vile woman and her criminally socipathic litter no matter what. Holding this administration accountable would mean admitting their own culpability in siccing the Bushes on America -- facing their own portion in the needless deaths and misery of their fellow citizens. And they will still be in control in 06, and in 08... because the Democratic "leaders" are worthless.The Drudge Report picked up Barbara Bush's comments as the lead story on their website. There's no attempt made whatsoever on the site to spin the comments favorably for the GOP, which given Drudge's reputation, is really saying something. Another thing to not get me started on is the uncaring, willy-nilly inhumanity of these "family values" preachers taking so little care with family ties. It's so giant slave auction...'We're pulling them out of that hot, dirty, African jungle and placing them into the sprawling plantation homes of God-fearing Americans. So what if they lose track of family members along the way?'Didn't Babs also say that the horrific dragging death of James Byrd worked out well for him since he had a chronic itch?"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us." - former Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson, on barring foreign language teachingSadly, Bar's saying what many of the GOP are most probably thinking. Case in point:I went to freeperville so you wouldn't have to.What did she say that was bad?, wrote one.WHat Barbara Bush said is so true that the usual suspects may choose not to exploit it...because they don't want more sensible people to hear it and say, "She's right." This may not develop into anything., opined another.Why is it that whenever anyone on the right has the nerve to speak the unblunted truth, the left turns it into a weapon? The truth might hurt, but it's more helpful than a comforting lie., wrote a Southwesterner.There is NOTHING wrong with what she said. Only the left & their teensy, twisted minds could find something wrong with the statement. Leave Barbara alone...or I may have to punch you. ;) (Don't blame me, I got the idea from Ms. Landrieu), said a sexist regular.I don't care what they do with the dregs of the hurricane as long as they don't come to California, we have more than our share of lazy welfare cases already., chimed one who had better avoid eating in restaurants unless spittle is his cup-o-tea. ...the silver lining in this very black cloud is that a degenerate and crime-ridden subculture has been disrupted and dispersed......so that they can start up again, independently, in a larger area. It's NOT like they're so centrally-organized that they can't make their own decisions/plans.Take a double-handful of grubs and widely toss them all over your lawn. ARE they easier to kill now, or less of a threat, than if you had dropped them all together in one spot?, went another whose primary website must be one on the Klanwatch watchlist.Babs is just saying what many are thinking, but not saying yet. They will be more openly in a month or two. Many folks in Utah, Indiana, and Arizona lining up to "welcome" evacuees like visiting celebrities now will be denigrating them later for not getting their lives back together and becoming a "burden on the taxpayer." They'll point to middle class black and white survivors who have found jobs and started some semblance of a new life. The fact that everyone got a stadium cot and free meals for a few months will be used as evidence against them.Nixon's words about Barbara Bush came in a discussion with Gore Vidal about the Bush family. Nixon said he had no use for any of them; they were, after all, according to Nixon, the sort of people one appoints to a government position rather than elects. Barbara was the exception -- Nixon liked her, saying, "That woman really knows how to hate."Every book I've read about the Bushes by anyone who's spent any amount of time in their presence says unequivocally that Dubya is "Barbara's child."Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. -- John Stuart Mill There're always the twins to look forward to...Don't forget this one from CNN's Drew Griffin in New Orleans:"I am stunned by an interview I conducted with New Orleans Detective Lawrence Dupree. He told me they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a 'ticket.' Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn't believe these people were afraid they'd be charged for a rescue."Why wouldn't people think they'd be charged, after four years of this administration? In Arizona, there's something called a "stupid motorist law" which says that individuals who become trapped in cars during flash floods must pay for their own rescue if the government can prove that they ignored signs warning them of their own peril. On the Great Lakes in a couple of states they'll charge you for a rescue if you are on the ice and it breaks up. But only if they've issued a warning. The Coasties hate the law.New Orleans isn't the Sonoran desert by any stretch of the imagination and, soaked as it is, it's not the Great Lakes either, but it's those types of laws and the rank, boundless callousness of this administration that lead to beliefs like the ones seen by Dupree.Remember this the next time we're told about "welfare queens" and the "culture of entitlement". In America, the wealthiest country in the world, there are people who have so little, who have been given so little, they don't even believe they're entitled to emergency public safety services.I would not be surprised if the hurricane evacuees are visited by our military recruiters. Imagine it, scare them into thinking they're going to have to repay their rescue and evac costs, persuade them that the armed forces is a great deal (food, clothes, paycheck, etc.) Get them to enlist because well, they really don't have much going for them, so why not? Do not be surprised. MoveOn.org needs to put together some really, really damning ads over this. Put them out in about 2 weeks or so, showing choice quotes and factoids.Clip of Brownie looking like an idiot "Fact: FEMA refused to allow rescue workers and aid convoys to enter the area on at least 7 different times. They specifically prohibited Red Cross, Canadian, and Russian aid workers from helping, leaving thousands to die in squalor."Clip of DeLay blaming the State Government for screwing it up "Fact: The state government declared a state of emergancy on the 26th, two days before the hurricane hit. Aid did not arrive for 7 days. The mayor and governor were begging hourly for federal aid for an entire week before aid finally arrived."Clip of Bush saying "No one expected the levees to break" "Fact: The federal government has been running disaster drills for years in New Orleans, last year including a broken levee disaster. The Army Corps of Engineers, along with hundreds of experts have all gone on record over the past 40 years as saying the levees would break or be overrun with storm surge in a Category 4 or 5 storm."Clip of Bush playing guitar, Rice watching Spamalot, or newspaper clippings describing such "Fact: It took George Bush and Condy Rice 4 days to even bother coming back to work during this federal disaster."Append to all:"10,000 Americans are dead because our Government couldn't figure out how to fill out the proper paperwork. George Bush has shown us exactly how much preparation his administration has set up for another 9/11 in the past 4 years. Absolutely none. And that's a fact."
AUTHOR: Kay
DATE: 9/10/2005 02:48:54 PM
Jeez-o-pete, Marla. You really need to write a book before it's too late. When/if you do, I'll be the first in line to have my copy signed.
AUTHOR: bilerico
DATE: 9/10/2005 09:32:58 PM
"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us." - former Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson, on barring foreign language teachingROFLMAOThat has to be one of the funniest things I've ever heard. I think I might have to use that as the new bilerico.com tagline...