A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto Me.
- Matthew 25:40

First off, if you haven’t already, watch this clip of Kayne West going off-script while doing a plea for hurricane relief with Mike Myers. 

NBC cut that portion from the West Coast portion of the broadcast, and a commentator from Fox actually suggested that they should have had their fingers on the bleep button, him being a rapper and all, you know?  Seeing as how he didn’t curse or even come close to vulgarity, one must conclude that criticizing the president is now considered an obscenity. 

This is America in 2005.

I’m with George Carlin – I believe words in and of themselves are neutral, so I don’t believe that in and of themselves they can be obscene.  But actions can be.  And certainly the actions, or rather, inaction of the government this week would certainly qualify as an obscenity - a criminally negligent, transparently racist obscenity that showed very clearly what happens when you combine high levels of incompetence and indifference.  Is it possible to be hyperbolic about last week?  Can one possibly be too shrill in denouncing the government’s response?  Can you blame black America if they think it was intentional, or when they toss around words like genocide?  I don’t think it was a coordinated plan anymore than I think Bush planned 9/11, but goddamn it - how many people have to die on your watch before people start wondering if you’re running up the score?

This is happening in your country in 2005.

Pick an outrage.  Betcha can’t pick just one.  Was it that Mike Brown’s previous job before being made head of FEMA was being commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association for nine years, a job he was sued out of?  I mean, he was the college roommate of the previous head of FEMA, but I’m sure it was the horsy thing that bowled them over. Wait, could your central outrage be reports that FEMA actually refused aid in more than a dozen different instances, and inexplicably kept the citizens stuck in the Superdome from walking into another city by armed guards? That Halliburton got a rebuilding New Orleans contract?  That Bush was pickin’ and grinnin’ during the emerging emergency, Condi Rice was shoe shopping until Wednesday, and Cheney was mansion shopping pretty much the entire time? Or that when Bush finally did arrive to help, he diverted helicopters and brought in firemen from Atlanta to serve as a backdrop to his staged “briefing” and prevented even more from flying miles around the site due to restricted airspace around Air Force One?  Since blacks have served as little more than props to this regime, is it any surprise he would let them die for stagecraft? 

And yes, this is all going down in the United States of America in the 21st century, not in a third world banana republic at the turn of the last century.  Little more than five years ago, this country, despite its many problems, was very strong and (comparatively) pretty good for a superpower.  Now we’re very bad and very weak, which seems like a inexplicably shitty tradeoff to me. 

This is what happens when you let Republicans govern.  Simple as that.  It can’t be much of surprise, though.  When a party’s central tenets all revolve around the impassioned rejection of the social contract, and most of the other basic tenets of the Enlightenment, it’s a little disingenuous to get the vapors when life gets a little medieval under their thumb.  They preach anarchy**, of course they’re going to try to practice it.  Safely in their SUVS and gated communities, mind you – while they leave our federal government stuck together with chicken wire and wishes.  Life is beginning to look more and more like a Paul Verhoven movie, but way less entertaining.  I myself like a little distance from dysotopia.   

Enough of my ranting.  Check out the pros.   

Keith Olbermann – the Jon Stewart of non-fake newcasting, gives his incendiary take, and a Parish president gets emotional over being abandoned. 

This is my personal favorite clip of the week – the Fox News reporters on the ground find their conscience swimming among the dead babies and raw sewage, and argue with their overlords about “perspective.”  Actually, that’s a good metaphor for America nowadays: dead babies floating in a river of shit.

Shithead racists come out of the woodwork and would rather play blame the ‘savages’ than conclude Jr. did anything wrong, ever.

**The pretentious altered quote in the title (after me, the flood) is
from Louis XV, who knew things would go to shit after his reign.  Bush
didn’t want to wait that long, I guess.

**and yes, little Randians - libertarianism breeds anarchy – ask any one of the countries who have tried “free market reforms” how long it took their country to devolve into lawlessness. 

 

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