Dubya's Erector Set

I didn’t watch Dubya’s speech the other night because his vocal cadence and facial expressions make me crazy. I read about it instead, detecting in the text the hand of Herr Karl Rove. For the first time in his presidency, Dubya admitted responsibility for failure. What a moment, what a concept, what a breakthrough for our man-child president. He’s human! He even mentioned poverty and racism, although he failed to note how the hard-hearted policies of his administration have contributed to the perpetuation of both.

I saw on the TV news a day later footage of Dubya with a bullhorn, exhorting rescue workers or was it a small crowd of hand-picked supporters, thoroughly screened for ideological purity? Hard to say with Rove & Co. They’ve elevated political spin and fakery to an art form during the past five years. Anyway, Dubya promises a massive rebuilding effort on the ravaged Gulf Coast, all to be accomplished without raising taxes or revoking his tax cuts for the wealthy.

In other words, more of the same “starve the beast” policy. How in the hell can the federal government lead a massive reconstruction effort on the cheap? Dubya says wasteful or unnecessary government spending will be cut in order to fund reconstruction. Is he serious? Does he think people believe that crap? He’s already slashed millions of dollars from public health, environmental protection, education; the list goes on for a mile or more. I didn’t hear Dubya pledge to end our disastrous and money-sucking occupation of Iraq.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times calls Dubya “Incurious George.” Dubya claims not to read newspapers or watch Fox News, and he frowns on his staff bringing him unpleasant news, so there’s a fifty-fifty chance that he’s unaware of the massive federal budget deficit, debt which is currently being financed by China and Saudi Arabia. Note to Dubya: Get Over Your Failed Ideology and Raise Taxes so all Americans share the reconstruction sacrifice.

Considering how badly Dubya and his cronies fared in the reconstruction of Iraq, it’s difficult to imagine them succeeding on the Gulf Coast. This administration is good at corruption and cronyism, not so good at construction.

Wake Up, Dems

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina offers the Democratic Party a historic opportunity to show the country what makes it different from the Republican Party, and not just in terms of capping on George W. Bush's piss-poor leadership. Bashing W. isn't enough. What the Dems must do is offer Americans a sweeping vision of what this nation might become if we adopt different political principles.

This is the time for the Dems to step forward with a vision of a nation dedicated to promoting the welfare of all its citizens, not just those who can afford to pay; a nation dedicated to fairness and equality of opportunity, civil rights, and a prudent, cooperative foreign policy; a nation that understands that we're all in this together.

Unfortunately, I suspect the Dems will only offer the usual platitudes. The party is cowed, wimpy, unsure of what it stands for, alienated from its traditional base, afraid of Karl Rove and the Republican PR machine. Kerry, Clinton, Biden, none of them have the vision or the language to move beyond business as usual or mount an ideological challenge to the GOP.

Democrats onced believed that Government had a role to play in the everyday lives of citizens, that Government could be a factor in achieving greater good for more people. But that ideology has been discredited by a savvy conservative apparatus which tells us that Government in almost all its guises is bad -- bad for the economy, bad for individuals, bad for entire classes of people. Paradoxically, conservatives are quick to use Government to further their own agenda, lavishing subsidies on their corporate allies, fat contracts to political cronies, and tax "reform" for the wealthiest citizens.

Freedom, opportunity, equality, fairness, a sense for the collective welfare that can only be achieved through Government investment in roads, highways, bridges, schools, public safety and public health, these are all traditional Democratic values that should be revived in the face of a horrible tragedy that was made worse by the ideology of, "You're on your own, man."

Oh, Bob, The Only Disconnect is in Your Head

Bob Noel has made his share of inane, outrageous and self-serving statements during his tenure as a school board trustee, but to claim that the school board was out of the loop when critical decisions were made about Measure V projects is classic Noel gibberish.

Who was really in control? Bob asks in a long op-ed piece in the September 4, 2005 News-Press. A better question to ask is: where the hell was Bob Noel when all those projects came before the board for approval? Surely he was on the dais with his fellow trustees, scowling his trademark scowl as he pored over charts and graphs and tables and other minutiae of the public education game; surely he realizes that the district has a bond oversight committee whose membership includes at least one trustee. If Bob was so concerned about the morality of using Measure V money for softball scoreboards and swimming pools, why didn’t he raise his hand and sound the alarm before significant dough was spent?

It might be informative to dig into the record and see how old Bob voted on the many projects that came before the board. Being the contrarian voice on the board gives him a thrill, not to mention a photo and byline in the News-Press from time to time, but I’d bet the record shows that more often than not he voted with the district administration.

Even with state matching funds, the amount of the Measure V bond was never going to be sufficient to fund all the needs of the high school district. Unless he was sleeping through board meetings, Bob had to grasp this essential fact. Did he expect the chronically understaffed district administration to make all the decisions about Measure V projects without consulting principals, parents, and other interested parties? If they had, Bob would now be bitching about the lack of “input” from stakeholders.

Maybe the reason Bob sees a “disconnect” between plans and reality is that many school board meetings run long into the night, into and beyond the Letterman and Leno hours, testing the endurance and attention span of men and women much younger than Bob. Perhaps old Bob was simply too pooped to pay attention when important issues came up for vote. All I know is that the man is definitely a head trip, the kind of dude who participates in a decision and then claims amnesia when the deal goes awry.

That’s the definition of a weenie in my book.

The Stench

If there was ever a doubt that George W. Bush is an incompetent completely out of his depth, it has been dispelled by his lack of leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Where’s the cowboy swagger now, W? I guess mobilizing resources to save American citizens – many of them poor and African-American – is different from duping the nation into a deadly invasion and occupation of a country that posed a limited threat to the United States. I guess it’s different from landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier and prematurely and inappropriately proclaiming, “Mission Accomplished!” I guess it’s different from crowing, “Bring ‘em on.”

W should go down as one of the lamest Presidents in American history, right up there with Hoover and Nixon. He was a peabrain when the Supreme Court placed him in office, a peabrain up until 9/11, a peabrain while he was lying about the need to invade Iraq. He has slavishly served his wealthy base and the religious sots who think he’s their Messiah. He’s cynical and corrupt, a blithering idiot clueless to the concerns of average Americans, those not born with gold-plated political connections and silver spoons sticking out of their assholes. The stench of failure and death hovers over this White House.

Katrina, Color Blind?

People of color, that's mainly what we see when we look at the images of devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Nobody in the media, as far as I know, has mentioned it yet, but sooner or later some columnist or reporter or public official is going to wonder if the slow response by the Federal government has anything to do with the fact that the majority of victims are African-American, poor and working-class.

I don't want to believe that race has anything to do with the Fed's failure to mobilize, but with the Bush regime in power, you never know. If Katrina had slammed into a largely white, Republican community in Florida or Texas, I wonder if aid would have arrived on the scene faster. It's well-known that the Bush regime values American lives more than Iraqi lives, so much so that we don't even bother to count Iraqi killed or wounded, so it stands to reason that Bush and his people might place a higher value on white Republicans than poor African-Americans.

But perhaps the real culprit here is our foolish Occupation of Iraq and the billions of dollars we've poured down that gopher hole -- money that might have been used for myriad other purposes, like homeland security, adequate funding for FEMA, public health programs and public works, like flood control. And wouldn't it be beneficial to have fully staffed and equipped National Guard units on the scene to lend assistance to our citizens, rather than deployed in Iraq? Bush's lavish tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans haven't helped either. Those cuts come at the expense of public investment, and now, at the time when Government can make the biggest difference in people's lives, we find ourselves short of resources.

Sooner or later people are going to wake up and realize how much damage Bush & Co. have done to our vital public infrastructure. The people devastated by Katrina already get it.