“They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted — that while they didn’t protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won’t have to pay any money on the money they inherit,” Paul Begala said. “That is bullshit national defense, and we should say that.”

That was an odd piece of demogaugery said by Paul Begala that Michelle Malkin and others pounced on over a month ago. Bush Administration wants to kill us all? Bush Administration isn’t protecting us while they cut taxes (and note the Estate Tax is alluded to.) This is just insane rhetoric, with no kernal of truth down in it!

There are strange synchonicities with this Bush administration. He takes a vacation during August of 2001, the first year of his first term. At the time and after some early successes in enacting his policies, his presidency is starting to fall apart and it’s easy to imagine him stumbling to an inglorious one-term presidency. He comes back from vacation, and is greeted with September 11. He’s a bit slow on the uptake… My Pet Goat, an uneasy flight to Nebraska. Americans want to believe in him, though, and thus when he comes to he is transformed to a president with a 90% approval rating.

He takes a vacation during August of 2005, the first year of his second term. His presidency is seen falling apart on a number of fronts. The vacation is not easy — Cindy Sheehan is upstaging the man. Right at the end of his vacation, Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Course. He is slow on the uptake. He takes 90 seconds to address the situation within a much larger speech designed to tie the War In Iraq into the Glories of World War Two. He… well…

This was Bush slicing up a piece of cake in celebration of John McCain’s birthday. The line “Let them eat cake” doesn’t quite fit here, because… I think the victims of the post-hurricane flooding wouldn’t mind eating cake right about now.

Something about Nero, Rome, fiddling, and burning.

I notice patterns here. Bush was also painfully slow in comprehending the Asian Tsunami. He eventually came to, and let flow the much needed aid, but it appears to me … he cannot comprehend.

MS. MORNIN: That’s good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

This may explain why he couldn’t get into gear solving the first rule of occupation: the electricity, the water, the norms of life must flow. It didn’t occur to Bush Administration.

Analogious to the lack of comprehension with New Orleans and up the Gulf Coast, and the failure to deliver aid. To a group some right-wing punditry has falsely called “those who chose to stay”. (Note to any extra-fundamentalist Christian who cites New Orleans’ sinful ways as the cause of God’s Wrath upon the city: the “Sin” tourists left and who remained… Black Baptists… poor, mostly Christian Evangelical people living outside of the city. And what about the people in rural Mississippi? The Sin-drenched got away!)

Consider Scott McClellan saying in his press gaggle that the Bush Administration has a no tolerance pledge for looting. Consider his answer when someone pointed out that by and large, they’re looting for necessities, out of desperation: food, diapers, shoes… the answer complete tripe that they’ll get the necessary supplies. (This was at a time when Bush hadn’t yet retrained the official line from “This is a successful relief effort” to “Totally unacceptable.)

The answer is tantamont to the Paul Begala line I threw out at the start. They don’t care. They just told them to “Go home and die.” A bit unbelievable?

“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” Thus saideth the president on September 1, 2005. And I experience dejavu… except this time, I myself wasn’t anticipating the breach of the levees — because unlike circumstances relating to Iraq or even an understanding I had pre-9/11 that terrorists would strike the United States, news of New Orleans disaster preparedness was not something I was cognicent of. But the experts knew it!

Anyone watched Bill Moyers on September 20, 2002?

National Geographic Magazine, October 2004:
.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

AND… a listing from early 2001 of the biggest threats to face the United States:

New Orleans is sinking.
And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.
So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.
The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.

Who is Bush talking about? I don’t know. It’s … uncomfortable details. Cut FEMA, cut the breeching of the levees… we have a war to fight in Iraq for some reason or other… we have taxes to cut.

Did I mention that Estate Tax which is at the top of the priority list of Congress (where do these guys get the galls?)… which Paul Begala demagauged that Bush wanted to kill us all for?

(Upon Hitler’s conquest of France and contemplations on its repercussions on the Republican Nomination of 1940.)

Some thought that the winner could be former president Herbert Hoover, the man who was scheduled to be Tuesday evening’s main speaker. That morning, the lead item in Drew Pearson and Robert Allen’s “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column in the Record reported that

Hoover has been pointing out to “Republican leaders” that Roosvevelt had been staking everything on an Allied victory. But not it was no use for the Unted States to go down with them… Hitler was going to rule the world and the United States would have to do business with him. What the country needed was a man who had not alienated Hitler and had contacts in Germany.

Was Hoover describing Dewey, Taft, or Vandenberg? None, according to Pearson and Allen: “It was obvious he had himself in mind.”

— Charles Peters Five Days in Philadelphia, pg 78-79

These people, I guess are associated with these people.

That particular dream came to a 22-year-old activist named Brian Kim last September. He remembers seeing thousands of people gathered at the Supreme Court with inscribed tape over their mouths, a symbolic representation, he later decided, of the unheard voices of unborn babies. He has no doubt it was a message from God, though he admits to choosing the color later on. “I dream in black and white,” Kim says.

So far so good. It’s coherent enough, and goes right alongside all the biblical stories of God’s Nighttime messages to various prophets and Actors. But then things get a little loopy here:

Another member of the group recently dreamed that Grover Cleveland came to President George W. Bush and said, “There is some- thing about my administration that you need to know about.” In their regular morning meeting, the group was baffled. “Who the heck is Grover Cleveland?” Kim asked. “So one of our guys did some research.” It turned out that the 24th president is the only one to have fathered a child in the White House, a daughter named Esther. God was telling them, they decided, to live like the Bible’s Esther, a Jewish beauty whose courage helped save her people from certain genocide in Persia.

Grover Cleveland? Who the heck dreams about Grover Cleveland? It’s like when Lisa Simpson was saying in her dream “No, George Washington. I won’t let you down.” and Bart Simpson said, “Even in your dreams you’re a dork.” But at least that’s George Washington.

Beyond which… they want Sam Brownback to be the next president of the United States. Keep them in your prayers, I guess.

Horray for Pat Robertson for saying what the majority of Americans wouldn’t say about any trouble-maker or terrorist. He’s one of the few Americans, besides Michael Savage, who is not afraid to speak out and state exactly what needs to be done in the world. Reminds me of that great actor Charles Bronson: He knew exactly what needed to be done in the movie “Death Wish,” and he took care of the problem.

BARRY SELTZER Aloha

At the pro-Bush rally several miles away, there were some heated moments when two members of Protest Warrior, a group that frequently holds counter protests to anti-war rallies, walked in with a sign that read “Say No to War Unless a Democrat is President.”

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs. When Will Marean of Minneapolis kept repeating that he was on the Bush side and tried to explain Protest Warrior’s mission, one Bush supporter shook his hand and apologized.

But… that sign does not align with…

“This lady and the groups that have been demonstrating in front of the president’s ranch in Crawford and following him around are the very same people that were the dropout, turn-on, anti-war peace activists back [in the Vietnam War era],” Pat Boone said.

what with the chants of “LBJ LBJ How many Kids/Boys/etc Did You Kill Today?” and all.

Beyond which, this is a double edged sword that cuts the other way a bit sharper than it does this way.

We fight for Allah!
…………………

I. February 8, 2004, Meet the Press
Tim Russert: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?
PRES. BUSH: They’re not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I am very aware of this basic law they’re writing. They’re not going to develop that, because right here in the Oval Office, I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi(*) and al-Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.

II. March 12, 2004 PRESIDENT BUSH: I want to thank my friend, Dr. Raja Khuzai, who’s with us today. This is the third time we have met. The first time we met, she walked into the Oval Office — let’s see, was it the first time? It was the first time. The door opened up. She said, “My liberator,” and burst out in tears — (laughter) — and so did I. (Applause.)
Dr. Khuzai also was there to have Thanksgiving dinner with our troops. And it turned out to be me, as well. Of course, I didn’t tell her I was coming. (Laughter.) But I appreciate that, and now she’s here again. I want to thank you, Doctor, for your hard work on the writing of the basic law for your people. You have stood fast, you have stood strong. Like me, you’ve got liberty etched in your heart, and you’re not going to yield. And you are doing a great job and we’re proud to have you back. Thanks for coming. (Applause.)

III. August 24, 2005 “This is the future of the new Iraqi government – it will be in the hands of the clerics,” said Dr. Raja Kuzai, a secular Shiite member of the Assembly. “I wanted Iraqi women to be free, to be able to talk freely and to able to move around.”
“I am not going to stay here,” said Dr. Kuzai, an obstetrician and women’s leader who met President Bush in the White House in November 2003.

(note: 2 and 3 lifted from here

IV. 25 August 2005
“Does the administration’s goal — I’ll ask you about the Iraqi constitution. You said you’re confident that it will honor the rights of women.”

“Yes.”

“If it’s rooted in Islam, as it seems it will be — is there still the possibility of honoring the rights of women?”

“I’ve talked to Condi, and there is not — as I understand it, the way the constitution is written is that women have got rights, inherent rights recognized in the constitution, and that the constitution talks about, you know, not ‘the religion,’ but ‘a religion.’ Twenty-five percent of the assembly is going to be women, which is a — is embedded in the constitution. OK. It’s been a pleasure.”

“What else are you going to do? Are you going to bike today?”

…………………………..

There’s time yet. The Kurds get some measure of autonomy ; The Shiites get an Islamic state and the oil they’re sitting on; The Sunnis get bitter resentment with which to stew in. Everybody wins!

(But Iran wins biggest.)

(*) Yes. Chalabi told him so. That’s how Bush knows. This is self parody.

IA. Donald Rumsfeld: April 24, 2003 “If you’re suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn’t going to happen.”

(*)A:, Ahmad Chalabi, Abdul Aziz Hakim, and Adnan Pachachi: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?:
August 27, 2005 “The negotiation is finished, and we have a deal,” said Ahmad Chalabi, the deputy prime minister and a member of the Shiite leadership. “No one has any more time. It cannot drag on any longer. Most of the Sunnis are satisfied. Everybody made sacrifices. It is an excellent document.” […]
The decision to move forward was a heavy blow for the Bush administration, which had expended enormous energy and political capital to forge a constitution that included the Sunnis. On Thursday, in a last-ditch effort to get a deal, President Bush telephoned Abdul Aziz Hakim, a cleric and the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, to press him to offer a more palatable compromise to the Sunnis.[…]

Mr. Pachachi, one of the Americans’ closest friends in Iraq, said he was growing increasingly worried about the overweening power of the cleric-dominated Shiite political leadership, which maintains extensive ties to the Iranian Islamic government next door.

“They want to inject religion into everything, which is not right,” Mr. Pachachi said of the Iraqi Shiite leaders. “I cannot imagine that we might have a theocratic regime in Iraq like the one in Iran. That would be a disaster.”

Indeed, under the constitution now completed, Islam will reign as the official state religion and as a main source of Iraqi law. Clerics will in all likelihood have seats on the Supreme Court, where they will be empowered to examine legislation to make sure it does not conflict with Islam. They will be given an opportunity to apply Islamic law in family disputes over matters like divorce and inheritance.

…………………

I noted this at a message board I wander across:

On the August 24 edition of the 700 Club, Robertson claimed he wasn’t actually calling for Chavez’ assassination, but that there were other ways of “taking him out,” such as… KIDNAPPING!

Yes, you got that correct, He now suggested that we might want to KIDNAP a foriegn president! That’s two strikes, as both kidnapping and assassinations are TERRORIST ACTS!

The US government would NEVER kidnap a foreign leader. That’s just insane!!

US officials are dismissing allegations that US troops forced Jean-Bertrand Aristide to leave Haiti.

African-American activist Randall Robinson says he got a similar call from Aristide — who said he’d been ousted in a coup and abducted by US soldiers.

A good rule of thumb is that a foreign leader does not “meekly step down” to a popular uprising uplifting a new government whose pocket of popular support does not really follow. (I know I mentioned it on my blog at the time… here it is.) (The story template for the American backed-coup never changes. Go back and read the New York Times articles on the Monarchist Uprisings Bringing to Power the Shah in Iran. And the small story laughing at Pravda for the ludricous notion that this was a US backed coup.)

I noted this story here… which seems to either lose something in translation or is written partly in Aesopian parable. See… Chavez recently threatened the US with $10 gas prices. Which suggests why Pat Robertson is full of it: the US government cannot kidnap Hugo Chavez, because the storyline of “meekly resigning” does not fit into his personality. The government is just going to have to assassinate him.

Actually, I find this paragraph hilarious:

Chavez asserted that there has never been an empire more brutal, more cruel, more cynical, more savage, more hypocritical, and more dangerous than the one led by his counterpart, George Bush. He said that “Mr. Danger,” like all other U.S. presidents, is not a person but an imperial system of hegemony that personifies within himself all other names and figures.

Mr. Danger is not a person but an imperial system of hegemony that personifies within himself all other names and figures.

Mr. Danger is not a person but an imperial system of hegemony that personifies within himself all other names and figures.

Hm.

I note some more news on the Hugo Chavez front. He’s now offering the US some assistance in fighting poverty:

But Chavez said what did concern him was the level of poverty of certain people in the United States, and he offered aid from his government to help with the well-being and health of the American people.

“Venezuela is also offering energy aid. We could assist some poor communities by selling them gasoline directly. If we sell directly they could save a lot of money. If you are going to New York or San Francisco, the price of a barrel of Venezuelan gasoline is $80. That is almost double the price at which it leaves us, because intermediaries speculate and raise the price. We are prepared to help poor communities with doctors but also with fuel.”

The easiest thing to call Pat Robertson (and Jerry Falwell — the two are basically the same person-mass, so I’ll tend to confuse them in my mind) at this point in time is “Mullah Robertson”. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say he’s thrown out a Fatwa on Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and now Venezuela President Hugo Chavez.

I want to unpack his quote on Hugo Chavez just a wee bit.

ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in.

This is a lie. There wasn’t a popular coup to overthrow Chavez. There was a coup-attempt from his political opposition, backed by the weight of the US government. It was here that Hugo Chavez started to get a bit paranoid about the United States government, seeing Bush attempting to overthrow him at every corner — a very understandable feeling, actually. He has since been re-elected by a large margin. (Incidentally, Hugo Chavez tried to coup his way into power years before he became president. He failed, but went on to gain power through an election.)

He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy

Perhaps. But, for most Venezuelans, it was broken before he came to power. The poor masses voted him in. The general left-wing assessment of Latin America is of a batch of post-globalization governments, accumulating a block of anti-corporate governments. Lulu is supposed to be the tops. Chavez is supposed to be a bit troubling in terms of some of the things he’s doing.

, and he’s going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

Wow. We’ve been facing Islamo-Facism. Now we have to deal with Islamo-Commies? And the Islamo-Commies are hiding out in South America??? I have an idea! Let’s get the Islamo-Facists to fight the Islamo-Commies! They can kill their way into oblivion, and we’ll just swoop in at the end and take the oil that’s left.

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.

Please note the assumption that we oughta start a war. Consult the National Review issue with a cover with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro and the words “Axis of Evil Latin American Edition!” In the craps game to figure out “who will be next” on the list to war with (You know the one … is it Iran or Syria or…), Venezuela was always a sort of dark-horse waiting in the wings. (And the agit-prop was always there). The question: What did Hugo Chavez do to us other than successfully foil our coup?

And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United … This is in our sphere of influence, so we can’t let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly.

Well… Monroe Doctrine… Oil… Imperialism writ large, ain’t it?

We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

So, the news polls oughta start asking this question:

What should our policy toward Venezuela be?
(a) War
(b) Covert operations to assassinate Hugo Chavaez.

Green Day’s “American Idiot” album — undoubtedly the rawk critics will end up considering a “seminal album of the oughts”, permanently placed on various rock-and-roll listings of such things 40 slots after Led Zeppelin IV– has four singles released from its tracks.

Two of the songs are political: “American Idiot” and “Holiday”. Two of them aren’t “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Wake Me Up When September Ends”.

But looking at the videos… the only video that is political in nature is “Wake Me Up When September Ends”. The band managed to sort of de-politicize to the greatest extent possible “American Idiot” and “Holiday”. And, by adding a few minutes of a sappy little story to stick “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, they turned the song into an anti-recruitment video. (Found here.

Perhaps that effect is a result of the re-election of Bush and the meaning of the War in Iraq. I don’t know.

Anyway… The Decembrists’ 16 Military Wives is found here.

Something called “Aryan Fest” is apparently in town — somewhere or other — today. It sort of crept past the awareness of the city permitters, with the work of misleading paperwork on the part of the “Aryan Fest”ivalists. Electronic news reports chime in with the idea that “They say they’re non-violent racists, but those two words don’t really go together.”

I google and see that it’s a concert. I’m having trouble understanding what can be misleading in turning in the paperwork — if they called their get-together “Aryan Fest 2005”, and they put it on the paperwork, what’d be the confusion. Perhaps they neglected that part of the equation, and called it a concert for “Non-violence”. (And another google search shows that it’s an annual concert. Aryan Fest 1988 figures highly in the biography of Tom Metzger, who I suppose I could include as a “Portland celebrity”. Also, the photographs for the 2004 event are quite comical — I swear it’s an audience of two dozen.)

Racial tensions seem to have risen here in Portland. And we get this comment about the recent downtown spate of club violence. Also, we get observations that violence has long been a problem in North Portland (which is where Portland’s fairly small black population reside — and mind you, Portland historically is the most segregated Northern city), and yet Mayor Tom Potter and the police chief are making a special deal about the violence downtown. This, though, is not directly racist but business-related — they’re protecting businesses and profit more than anything else.

Though the Aryan Fest pretty well lives in a bubble.