Lightning Joe - a piece of work
Cast Out The Buccaneer Prophet
posted Sunday, 7 October 2007
President Bush's summary veto of the SCHIP expansion, in league with his miriad other equally short-sighted vetos, urges an interpretation of His Majesty that is less than flattering. Less than statesmanly. Less than Presidential. Even less than (shall we say it?) Kingly.
A statesman, a president, even a King, are beholden first and foremost to the people of the Kingdom. Wars are fought (supposedly) for the benefit of the people. Commerce is promoted in the people's interest. Social initiatives are instituted or retired as benefits the citizenry. None of these patterns are followed by George II, though all of them, machiavellianly enough, have been promoted thus.
His wars, the Iraqi phase of them at least, were planned even before taking office with the promise that America would be "a humble country in the world." How do such cynical wars of aggression benefit the citizens of America? His idea of commerce promotion seems to be removing the constraints that force the essentially amoral market to follow the greater good. How is enabling the rich to drive the rest of us into poverty in our interest? And Bush's social initiatives- let me count the ways...
One of His Majesty's first priorities, that died a well-deserved though strangely prolonged death, was to kill off Social Security, and sink all those "wasted" retirement nest-eggs into the open stocks market. While furthering the Chicago School goal of annihilating the New Deal, and the Market Jihadists' goal of getting rich(er), this plan was emphatically not in the people's interests. It's as if the very idea of "the people's interest" is somehow a sinfully socialist concept, to the Free Market Fundamentalists. They need to form their own country; one where democracy won't be allowed to slow "progress."
(It's no accident that I keep "the rich" well separated from "the people." This is how the rich like it, and as far as I'm concerned they can have it that way. Note also that the extended propaganda campaign - some called it a "national debate" - for the Market Welfare plan to replace SS was tolerated because citizens assumed that there was some merit (though admittedly well-hidden) to the idea. Otherwise they never would have brought it up, would they? ...Well?)
Some let themselves be convinced that it was in their own best (market) interest to throw out the baby first, to avoid having to heat the bath water. Others tolerated the debate about giving our retirements to the rich simply because we are a democratic nation, used to debating even misguided and immoral topics - with the implicit faith that the right choice will come clear from the process. As indeed it did in that case; painful though it was even to discuss the concept of letting people die off if they had bad luck or no "market savvy" to begin with.
Since then, of course, we've seen Congress and the President rally from their recesses and vacations for the sake of forcing a vegetative woman to continue living in spite of her own transmitted wishes. We've seen a "No Child Left Behind" act that is leaving countless children behind because no money comes with its edicts. We've seen massive cutbacks in social, public information, environment and infrastructure programs. We've seen a devastated city left to die because it was in the market's interest to do so. When was Bush going to start with the "people's interest" part of His job?
I don't think I need to drum on His Majesty's foreign policy, unless some in the class think He has one. He doesn't have a policy. He has an appetite - an appetite not easily sated.
Simply put, the policies employed by our (not quite) elected President are not those of any legitimate leader, but those of a buccaneer; a pirate; a robber-baron. The man arose from privilege, and has endured no privations that could refocus His sense of who His constituents really are.
The "smirk" tells all. He is nobless, without the oblige. He feels no obligation to serve the public, to respect the law, to account for His actions, or even to tell the truth; much less apologise for His crimes. The man is anathema to all that makes ("made," if He has His way) our country a beacon of freedom to the world.
Here is a clear case for reviving the Biblical tradition of spittle-spraying prophecies. Let's take our place, shall we, in "The Life of Brian's" prophet queue, and denounce our own home-grown Caesar:
Bush is the Beast. He must be rejected, and all he has planted must be torn from the soil and burnt; the roots as the branches. The seed of them must not be planted, nor the fruits of them eaten. His minions must be cast out from the city into the wastes, and no righteous person shall give them to eat. They shall be as dust under the feet of the righteous.
"So sayeth the Lord."
A statesman, a president, even a King, are beholden first and foremost to the people of the Kingdom. Wars are fought (supposedly) for the benefit of the people. Commerce is promoted in the people's interest. Social initiatives are instituted or retired as benefits the citizenry. None of these patterns are followed by George II, though all of them, machiavellianly enough, have been promoted thus.
His wars, the Iraqi phase of them at least, were planned even before taking office with the promise that America would be "a humble country in the world." How do such cynical wars of aggression benefit the citizens of America? His idea of commerce promotion seems to be removing the constraints that force the essentially amoral market to follow the greater good. How is enabling the rich to drive the rest of us into poverty in our interest? And Bush's social initiatives- let me count the ways...
One of His Majesty's first priorities, that died a well-deserved though strangely prolonged death, was to kill off Social Security, and sink all those "wasted" retirement nest-eggs into the open stocks market. While furthering the Chicago School goal of annihilating the New Deal, and the Market Jihadists' goal of getting rich(er), this plan was emphatically not in the people's interests. It's as if the very idea of "the people's interest" is somehow a sinfully socialist concept, to the Free Market Fundamentalists. They need to form their own country; one where democracy won't be allowed to slow "progress."
(It's no accident that I keep "the rich" well separated from "the people." This is how the rich like it, and as far as I'm concerned they can have it that way. Note also that the extended propaganda campaign - some called it a "national debate" - for the Market Welfare plan to replace SS was tolerated because citizens assumed that there was some merit (though admittedly well-hidden) to the idea. Otherwise they never would have brought it up, would they? ...Well?)
Some let themselves be convinced that it was in their own best (market) interest to throw out the baby first, to avoid having to heat the bath water. Others tolerated the debate about giving our retirements to the rich simply because we are a democratic nation, used to debating even misguided and immoral topics - with the implicit faith that the right choice will come clear from the process. As indeed it did in that case; painful though it was even to discuss the concept of letting people die off if they had bad luck or no "market savvy" to begin with.
Since then, of course, we've seen Congress and the President rally from their recesses and vacations for the sake of forcing a vegetative woman to continue living in spite of her own transmitted wishes. We've seen a "No Child Left Behind" act that is leaving countless children behind because no money comes with its edicts. We've seen massive cutbacks in social, public information, environment and infrastructure programs. We've seen a devastated city left to die because it was in the market's interest to do so. When was Bush going to start with the "people's interest" part of His job?
I don't think I need to drum on His Majesty's foreign policy, unless some in the class think He has one. He doesn't have a policy. He has an appetite - an appetite not easily sated.
Simply put, the policies employed by our (not quite) elected President are not those of any legitimate leader, but those of a buccaneer; a pirate; a robber-baron. The man arose from privilege, and has endured no privations that could refocus His sense of who His constituents really are.
The "smirk" tells all. He is nobless, without the oblige. He feels no obligation to serve the public, to respect the law, to account for His actions, or even to tell the truth; much less apologise for His crimes. The man is anathema to all that makes ("made," if He has His way) our country a beacon of freedom to the world.
Here is a clear case for reviving the Biblical tradition of spittle-spraying prophecies. Let's take our place, shall we, in "The Life of Brian's" prophet queue, and denounce our own home-grown Caesar:
Bush is the Beast. He must be rejected, and all he has planted must be torn from the soil and burnt; the roots as the branches. The seed of them must not be planted, nor the fruits of them eaten. His minions must be cast out from the city into the wastes, and no righteous person shall give them to eat. They shall be as dust under the feet of the righteous.
"So sayeth the Lord."
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