On being Catholic.... Sometimes, even paranoids have real enemies.
When they were first building the Washington Monument, the Vatican sent marble from Italy to help in the construction. However, good solid Americans wouldn’t take anything from some damn Papists, and tossed it in the Potomac river.
When FDR was approached by Catholic and Jewish advisors who asked that he at least have the train tracks to Auschwitz bombed, he replied that “This is a Protestant country, and you two are only here under sufferance.”
Recently, I wrote about how Pope Pius XII saved 860,000 Jewish lives during the Holocaust, since then, the French have devoted yet another movie to slandering Pius, as well as another “Historical” book on going after Catholics in general for “supporting” the Holocaust by shear timidity, despite the fact that Catholic convents and monasteries hid refugees all throughout World War II.
The KKK hated Jews, Blacks and Catholics; it’s still okay to hate the Catholics. Everyone in Washington foamed at the mouth when Trent Lott supported Strom Thurmond for President, 1948 (when 30% of Black America voted for Thurmond), but no one found problems when he merely hated Catholics.
Three years ago, a man shot a priest in the middle of the street in Baltimore; he confessed. This man was found not guilty by reason of mental defect—he had, after all, been molested in the past, so of course he had to be let free (read the sarcasm, please).
An enthymeme is a term in logic referring to an argument where either supporting evidence for an argument, or the conclusion of the argument is left out. Looking at the above, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions—hint: it has something to do with prejudice, anti-Catholicism, and “even paranoids have real enemies.”
Before I let you get back to your nice, neat, comfortable lives, let me give you a little side note, and a hint of a prediction. Given the murder case above, imagine a Muslim making a derogatory comment about the USA—any comment, from taxes to Clinton to the FBI—and receiving a bullet over it; when that murder case goes to trial, the defendant pleads “not-guilty on the grounds of mental defect stemming from 9-11 rage.” After letting a priest killer go on the “mental defect” of having been molested in the past, the grounds are there to let a murderer go because his victim resembled “a hijacker.”
Welcome to my nightmare: if you’re a victim, or if you hate the right people you can get away with murder; if you slander the correct group, have fun. We’re living in a world where someone is valued more highly because s/he’s a victim of society instead of a victim of homicide or slander; and it’s perfectly legal, and it’s quite alright, as long as you’re not the one on the slab.
******************************
Anyone who has a television set knows about the recent pedophile problems within the US Catholic Church. However, the number is a dark secret, something I managed to get only after a scouring a few hundred NY Times articles: one hundred priests, nationwide, over the course of FORTY YEARS. One hundred bad eggs in forty years—the police don’t have a record that good. In the diocese of Brooklyn alone, there are 200- 250 parishes, which gives you an idea about how small the problem is.
Maybe you’ve heard about all the possible solutions for pedophilia proposed by the vultures who leapt all over the “pedophile scandal rocking the Catholic Church,” in the hopes of pushing their own agenda, be it woman priests, a married clergy, a democratized process of electing Bishops. There was a man who proposed all of these exact same things back in the 1960s; in addition to that, he was also an advocate of the homosexual Man-Boy Love Association, whose motto is “Eight is too late.”
He was Father Gahagan of Boston; the golden boy of the Left in the twentieth century turned into one of the first and worst pedophiles caught in the twenty-first.
To take a serious look at the idea of “democratizing” the Church by parishioners electing Bishops, let’s update the idea of the Italian mob picking Pope Ambrosious in the 4th century, and instead, turn it into an election. Let’s get all of the butterfly ballots together, and make sure that they’re picked by a Democratic election board so they’re properly confusing, assemble the Democratic and Republican nominees for Bishop, and elect the person who’ll control the multimillion dollar properties scattered over hospitals, Churches, publishing houses, and colleges. And, of course, as in any election, they’ll be the million dollar donations from, say, Mr and Mrs. Gallo, and suddenly, Gallo wines become the wine at Catholic masses all over the state. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
When one of FDR’s Catholic and one of his Jewish advisors asked him that he at least have the train tracks to Auschwitz bombed, he replied that “This is a Protestant country, and you two are only here under sufferance.”
And now, in the 21st century, a man can shoot a Baltimore priest and get off, I suppose that Catholics are still here under sufferance. Maybe we should pack up and leave, starting with our hundreds of hospitals and AIDS clinics.
Maybe someone should acknowledge that Catholics are hated for not allowing abortion or contraception in an age where the birthrate is below 2.0; some hate Catholics for meaning “till death do you part,” for not being like everybody else. Maybe someone should acknowledge that Catholics have been like this for 2000 years before we were even born, and will be when we are long gone, and should get used to it.
Oh, and PS: most of the pedophiles were ordained in the 1970s, the age of “liberalism” and “sexual revolution,” and now the proposed “solutions” are more “liberalism” and “sexual revolution.”
So, should you be an Orthodox Catholic, give the Pope the benefit of the doubt, and suspect that the American media are out to get you, just remember that sometimes even paranoids have real enemies.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
I'm fairly certain that these next two articles will get me lynched, which may explain why no one would ever publish them in my school newspaper when I first wrote them in 2002.
With any luck, someone will look at these and think, and maybe not get killed, or make another terrible mistake.
Some people will look at these and think I’m making judgments about them… I’m more making judgments on the people who lied to you, because you have been lied to. Repeatedly, with no regard for your health, your life, or your happiness.
For those people who read these articles and take them as a judgment, you don’t have my judgment, you have my sympathy. Because, know it or not, you’ve been screwed in more ways than one.
Sex, Lies and Sex.
How well your brainwashing has held up?
Let us assume for the moment that you are not a good, highly religious person who believes in waiting for sex, but are instead a "normal" and "sexually liberated" person. You bring in a condom to the equation, the pill, and all modern safety equipment. You are now perfectly safe from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, right?
No. You're DEAD.
The dirty little secret about sex education is what you're NOT told. You're not told about the condom failure rates resulting in pregnancies each and every year. Now, since a virus like HIV is many thousands of times smaller than a sperm cell, how many viruses must a condom NOT prevent from getting away? So, the logical conclusion is that Planned Parenthood doesn't want to keep you safe; they'd like you to simple DIE.
Let me tell you how bad premarital sex has gotten. One in five teenagers has an STD, a total of eight thousand teenagers and 46% of girls get an STD on their very first time. Welcome to our very own politically incorrect epidemic (the Centers for
Disease Control considers the STD epidemic a "multiple" epidemic of at least 25 separate diseases -- nearly 50 if you count the various strains of virus groups). Instead of the world of sexual expression that we're constantly told is good and pure and harmless is not only wrong, but deadly wrong (see: "Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids" by Dr. Meg Meeker).
Other dirty little secrets: Our modern day, "Liberal" Catholic laity whine about the "senseless and arbitrary" condemnation of contraceptives between married couples who don't want to have too many children but still enjoy sex. First of all, if you've never heard of something called natural family planning, I recommend you learn about it quickly. Not only does it NOT mess around with your biochemistry like the pill (which makes your body overproduce blood clots and other fun stuff), but it's more effective than ether the pill or condoms for controlling family size (Ralph McInery, "The Defamation of Pius XII"). It's a little extra work, but at least it DOES work.
Would you like some more horror stories? How about 33% of 8-to-11 year olds and 49% of 12-to-15 year olds think that pressure to have sex is a big problem for them; nowadays sex isn't considered sex unless it's direct intercourse, so oral sex is "safe"-thank you Mr. Clinton ("Epidemic").
What about the mentally healthy sexual expressiveness pushed by Freud? It's a good way to put you into depression and other forms of mental problems (a college public health study referenced in Patrick Glynn's "God: The Evidence").
Some people look at me strangely when I say I'm a virgin, as though I'm an aberration. When I tell some atheists that I'm an Orthodox Catholic-I give the Pope the benefit of the doubt-they call me a Puritan, a member of the Religious Right, and other unpleasant names. Any and or all of it may be true, but at least I'll still be alive.
A Modest Proposal.
Ever since Theodore Dreiser wrote An American Tragedy 100 years ago, rich men have been paying poor women to get themselves “fixed”. In January, 1973, as far away from elections as possible, 7 Supreme Court Justices made it possible to now put it on the credit card for a lunch-hour ‘procedure.’
Abortion has removed more than 45million people from this country alone in only 30 years. That’s the population of ten western US states. One out of every four babies die by “choice.” Current birth rates have the population increasing by 1.2 kids per couple—you need 2.2 to replace the population (US Public Health Statisticians). With the population density of NJ, you can fit the world’s people into Texas (PJ O’Rourke).
“But it’s my body!” It’s not about you! There is another entity involved here: an unborn child—“fetus,” if you prefer the Latin, but who ever says “I can feel the fetus move / kick”?
In the 19th Century, the American Medical Association, citing discoveries in fertilization and embryology, persuaded democratic legislators to make the abortion of what had been discovered to be new life a felony for fellow medical practitioners. Now, genetics and DNA show us that the unique genotype of a baby is NOT identical with the mother or the father. I hate to break it to you, but child is an individual person.
For those who refuse to be convinced by science, theology or philosophy that a fetus is a living thing with a right to live, let’s try something else.
What about children from rape! They’re harmful to mental health! No. Statistics show that victims of rape who raise children that resulted from the rape actually recover better from the rape itself (1970’s Minnesota, when abortion was still illegal, could not find a single conception resulting from violent rape). By the way, have you ever heard about adoption? Besides, not even one in every thousand rapes results in pregnancy by the most generous definition of “rape,” so the “mental health” argument for pro-death doesn’t have much statistical support.
Utilitarian wanting the greatest good for the greatest number must do the moral math: abortion results in an increased probability of breast cancer (National symposium on abortion, at SJU 11-2-03); so giving birth increases the future workforce, lets you live longer, and—if you go for adoption—gives joy to two other people who can’t give birth.
Let’s not discuss partial birth abortion, which involves cutting the baby apart as it comes out of the womb, and, finally, while the head is still inside the mother, the brains are sucked out through a needle.
Thanks to the women have exercised their choice for death: you’ve left room for Mexican Catholics, Chinese Baptists, Korean Evangelicals, and pious Muslims from everywhere to come and take the opportunities you were too weak and tired to give to your child. The theistic hopefulness of these groups will give us the stronger culture the US had when my great grandparents came here.
Thank you for exercising your female choice to abort—it’s a great comfort to the spineless males who refuse take responsibility for you and the child you both helped to bring into existence. Do not hold him responsible—it is, of course, your choice, right?
PS: as for the Liberals I’ve offended—does it bother you that we are the only western democracy that did not get abortion by democratic means?
With any luck, someone will look at these and think, and maybe not get killed, or make another terrible mistake.
Some people will look at these and think I’m making judgments about them… I’m more making judgments on the people who lied to you, because you have been lied to. Repeatedly, with no regard for your health, your life, or your happiness.
For those people who read these articles and take them as a judgment, you don’t have my judgment, you have my sympathy. Because, know it or not, you’ve been screwed in more ways than one.
Sex, Lies and Sex.
How well your brainwashing has held up?
Let us assume for the moment that you are not a good, highly religious person who believes in waiting for sex, but are instead a "normal" and "sexually liberated" person. You bring in a condom to the equation, the pill, and all modern safety equipment. You are now perfectly safe from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, right?
No. You're DEAD.
The dirty little secret about sex education is what you're NOT told. You're not told about the condom failure rates resulting in pregnancies each and every year. Now, since a virus like HIV is many thousands of times smaller than a sperm cell, how many viruses must a condom NOT prevent from getting away? So, the logical conclusion is that Planned Parenthood doesn't want to keep you safe; they'd like you to simple DIE.
Let me tell you how bad premarital sex has gotten. One in five teenagers has an STD, a total of eight thousand teenagers and 46% of girls get an STD on their very first time. Welcome to our very own politically incorrect epidemic (the Centers for
Disease Control considers the STD epidemic a "multiple" epidemic of at least 25 separate diseases -- nearly 50 if you count the various strains of virus groups). Instead of the world of sexual expression that we're constantly told is good and pure and harmless is not only wrong, but deadly wrong (see: "Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids" by Dr. Meg Meeker).
Other dirty little secrets: Our modern day, "Liberal" Catholic laity whine about the "senseless and arbitrary" condemnation of contraceptives between married couples who don't want to have too many children but still enjoy sex. First of all, if you've never heard of something called natural family planning, I recommend you learn about it quickly. Not only does it NOT mess around with your biochemistry like the pill (which makes your body overproduce blood clots and other fun stuff), but it's more effective than ether the pill or condoms for controlling family size (Ralph McInery, "The Defamation of Pius XII"). It's a little extra work, but at least it DOES work.
Would you like some more horror stories? How about 33% of 8-to-11 year olds and 49% of 12-to-15 year olds think that pressure to have sex is a big problem for them; nowadays sex isn't considered sex unless it's direct intercourse, so oral sex is "safe"-thank you Mr. Clinton ("Epidemic").
What about the mentally healthy sexual expressiveness pushed by Freud? It's a good way to put you into depression and other forms of mental problems (a college public health study referenced in Patrick Glynn's "God: The Evidence").
Some people look at me strangely when I say I'm a virgin, as though I'm an aberration. When I tell some atheists that I'm an Orthodox Catholic-I give the Pope the benefit of the doubt-they call me a Puritan, a member of the Religious Right, and other unpleasant names. Any and or all of it may be true, but at least I'll still be alive.
A Modest Proposal.
Ever since Theodore Dreiser wrote An American Tragedy 100 years ago, rich men have been paying poor women to get themselves “fixed”. In January, 1973, as far away from elections as possible, 7 Supreme Court Justices made it possible to now put it on the credit card for a lunch-hour ‘procedure.’
Abortion has removed more than 45million people from this country alone in only 30 years. That’s the population of ten western US states. One out of every four babies die by “choice.” Current birth rates have the population increasing by 1.2 kids per couple—you need 2.2 to replace the population (US Public Health Statisticians). With the population density of NJ, you can fit the world’s people into Texas (PJ O’Rourke).
“But it’s my body!” It’s not about you! There is another entity involved here: an unborn child—“fetus,” if you prefer the Latin, but who ever says “I can feel the fetus move / kick”?
In the 19th Century, the American Medical Association, citing discoveries in fertilization and embryology, persuaded democratic legislators to make the abortion of what had been discovered to be new life a felony for fellow medical practitioners. Now, genetics and DNA show us that the unique genotype of a baby is NOT identical with the mother or the father. I hate to break it to you, but child is an individual person.
For those who refuse to be convinced by science, theology or philosophy that a fetus is a living thing with a right to live, let’s try something else.
What about children from rape! They’re harmful to mental health! No. Statistics show that victims of rape who raise children that resulted from the rape actually recover better from the rape itself (1970’s Minnesota, when abortion was still illegal, could not find a single conception resulting from violent rape). By the way, have you ever heard about adoption? Besides, not even one in every thousand rapes results in pregnancy by the most generous definition of “rape,” so the “mental health” argument for pro-death doesn’t have much statistical support.
Utilitarian wanting the greatest good for the greatest number must do the moral math: abortion results in an increased probability of breast cancer (National symposium on abortion, at SJU 11-2-03); so giving birth increases the future workforce, lets you live longer, and—if you go for adoption—gives joy to two other people who can’t give birth.
Let’s not discuss partial birth abortion, which involves cutting the baby apart as it comes out of the womb, and, finally, while the head is still inside the mother, the brains are sucked out through a needle.
Thanks to the women have exercised their choice for death: you’ve left room for Mexican Catholics, Chinese Baptists, Korean Evangelicals, and pious Muslims from everywhere to come and take the opportunities you were too weak and tired to give to your child. The theistic hopefulness of these groups will give us the stronger culture the US had when my great grandparents came here.
Thank you for exercising your female choice to abort—it’s a great comfort to the spineless males who refuse take responsibility for you and the child you both helped to bring into existence. Do not hold him responsible—it is, of course, your choice, right?
PS: as for the Liberals I’ve offended—does it bother you that we are the only western democracy that did not get abortion by democratic means?
Recently, I came to President Bush's defense on hurricane Katrina. However, It has come to my attention that if you're going to defend Bush on one subject, you might just have to defend him on other topics. This also gives me a good excuse to show you exactly how I think.
The following articles are lessons in "historiography"-- basically, seeing the history of history being written, examining the text as well as the subtext. Basically, welcome to my mind... be sure to bring a flashlight.
The following articles were written two years ago before the Iraq war. Keep in mind, I have not changed my mind on most of these subjects, and Weapons of Mass Destruction are a topic for another day [however, I'm fairly certain they're in Syria, and they've been used in Iraq on our troops over the course of this "insurgency"]
Never Start a Fight, but Always Finish It.
(or simply: Always Finish it)
War is never necessary, inevitable, or anything of the sort. Attacking Iraq would be a preventative measure; it worked for Elizabeth I in 1578 against the Spanish Armada, in 1758 for Prussia, and Israel’s Six Day War of 1967 and in 1981 (when they took out the French supplied nuclear facility in Iraq).
When it comes to Saddam Hussein, he can avoid any conflict with amazing ease. Saddam could decide that life would be easier if he gave up his bioweapons and chemical weapons, then let the UN inspectors come in free and clear and have a look at EVERYTHING. Then he could stop killing his own subjects, stuff the rebellious ones into a corner of the country, give them their own state and tell them to do something obscene with it. War avoided, case closed.
Who knows? Maybe the threat of an all-out US attack will even make roll over and play dead, stop pulling a Milosevic on his own people, and stop gathering enough gasses to make new epidemics of plague, etc. But the odds of that happening are…?
There is no one on the planet who wants to blow away Saddam just for the fun of it. But honestly, who thinks that—after ten years and God knows how much cash Saddam has blown on his weapons programs—he’s just going to let it all go? That after so much effort wiping out Kurds that he’s just going to take the easy way out? One major problem I find with the current attitude is it’s too much of the Hollywood Wild West ethic of “the good guys don’t draw first.” Since when did American foreign policy involve a shootout at high noon, mixed with a little touch of poker-style bluffing?
This isn’t the nineteenth century anymore. When the Congress of Vienna tried to carve up a post-Napoleonic world, the world fell apart in about fifty-to-sixty years. After World War I, Europe created Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. Nineteenth century rules barely worked in the 19th century, and when we applied them to the Middle East, we got burned; OPEC in the 70s, Iran in the 80s, then Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe played 19th century politics waiting for Hitler to strike first; the US waited for Bin Laden to give us an “actual” attack (as though blowing up US barracks wasn’t enough).
Welcome to the 21st century. We’re in a war now; it’s just that the rules have changed. We didn’t start it, but we should definitely finish it.
No one wants a war simply for the sake of having one. No one wants our soldiers to die. There were ninety-eight civilians on board Flight 93 didn’t want a fight either, and they didn’t want to die. But a war came to them, and they didn’t wait for a suicide dive. Their response was “Let’s roll.”
Let’s hope that, when the time comes, our response won’t be any less.
Let's Roll.
Why bomb Saddam?
Why not?
Slobodan Milosevic killed how many people before the US (UN Peacekeepers came in later) wiped the floor with him? It was enough to describe Milosevic as a Hitler prototype. But Saddam Hussein's killed tens of thousands of his own people, and we let him get away with it…why? September of 2001, the Torch “school” opinion had seven of eight students saying we shouldn't wipe out the Taliban, because we would kill so many innocent people and have so many soldiers die. With limited causalities and a few weeks later, say goodbye to the Taliban. In the first Persian Gulf War, it was argued that we'd lose thousands of soldiers. Aside from car accidents, helicopter mishaps and the like, we barely broke double digits (12 people).
The U.S. gave Saddam bioweapons to fight Iran. Don't we have the responsibility to clean up our messes? What's that I hear you say? The UN inspectors? After ten years and nothing done, how many people think that anything will get done NOW? What has the UN done to Saddam but put sanctions on Iraq, sanctions that do nothing but hurt the Iraqi people and leave Hussein unhurt? We went to war in the Gulf to wipe out his weapons of mass destruction (see: Caleb Carr, "The Lessons of Terror."), why not now? Besides, when SJU went to a Nike factory in Mexico, everyone tore them to shreds because Nike directed what they saw; Saddam Hussein isn't crafty enough to imitate Nike?
What about our allies, like the French? The French gave Saddam parts for nuclear weapons in the early eighties, and they've been helping Iraq despite the sanctions. Who wants to place money on what the French have given to Iraq lately?
I hear cries of "wait for the UN and our allies!" And if Saddam's six months away from getting nukes, it takes six months to assemble the UN, and what then? We pray that he won't wake up in a fit of peak and nuke Iran or Israel, perhaps?
"But the Middle East isn't worried!" Why should they be? We came running to their aid last time, so why should they help us get rid of what is only a potential problem?
Why don't we go after Iran or North Korea instead? They already have nuclear weapons. Next question?
Why don't we deal with terrorism? According to Bill Safire of the New York Times, the head of Iraqi intelligence met with someone in Al Qaeda's chain of command before 9-11-02. Must I draw you a flow chart?
This is our next step on the war on terror, please make no mistake about it. The Taliban crumbled, odds are that Bin Laden is buried in the sands of Tora Bora, and we haven't had a terrorist attack in one year; that was step one. Step three might be wiping out the French…or at least having a very long talk with Mr. Chirac; maybe we can even talk with the House of Faud in Saudi Arabia about fifteen hijackers.
CNN logic is nice, but never assume that a gut reaction is wrong because it's merely a gut reaction. Logic's good, but logic is a tool, and like all human tools, it can be faulty.
Last point: Once upon a time was a place called Ethiopia. It was invaded by a man named Mussolini. The League of Nations told him to back off. He didn't. The League of Nations did nothing and it died.
Once upon a time was a man named Saddam, and he wanted weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations imposed restrictions. He didn't follow them. The UN… well, let's wait and see….
And a fun time was had by all.
All vacation long, I listened to Democrats whine about North Korea; we should wipe them out for breaking a 1994 agreement that it stop its nuclear program for aid. I hear we’re not going after N. Korea with the same pressure on Iraq.
“Bush mislead us so he could go into Iraq!” the cry echoed, despite two and a half pages of intelligence briefings offered to Congress on the subject (Colin Powell, This Week, 10/20/02). We’ve been in peaceful diplomatic negotiations with N. Korea and their nuclear supplier (Pakistan, not Clinton or Jimmy Carter), and we’re even continuing UN deals on Iraq.
What’s the problem? Why do I hear Democrats demand to invade N. Korea, but do little or nothing to Saddam? Even Amnesty International suggests that Bush and Blair are “too selective,” when talking about the human rights abuses in Iraq, even though AI has reported Iraqi horrors for years.
All I can think is “Why not have an Amnesty International hit list? Let’s deal with every tribal war in Africa; why not the shifta murder gangs of the Sudan who’ve enslaved whites and Christians of all ethnic groups for decades (no, can’t do that; Sudan’s on the UN human rights commission…you see something wrong here?).
“Why don’t we go after China, which persecutes, beats and jails Christians for fun, and drops baby girls down wells? Clinton’s state department let US businesses perfect China’s ICBM program like we gave weapons to Iraq, so why not clean up the mess?
“Why don’t we go after North Korea, free Tibet, and provide peacekeepers in Northern Ireland, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Palestine?”
For those of you who missed the sarcasm, you can’t complain about NOT declaring war on North Korea while at the same time treating Saddam with diplomacy. The US is trying to talk with North Korea like we’re STILL talking with Saddam.
But still, each time Iraq is mentioned…
“Bush is a warmonger.” Who have we bombed since the Taliban?
“Bush is ignoring terrorism.” After all, look at the bombed American buildings, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and…oh, yeah, that’s been it for sixteen months and counting. It took fifteen months for Al-Qaeda to get back in shape again, thousands of prisoners at Guantanamo and we’ve had no progress with the war on terror?
While I personally wouldn’t mind regime change in China, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and Northern Ireland, I’m not holding my breath, since China and England are on the UN Security Council (China holds sway over the area once known as Tibet. England set up Saudi Arabia’s House of Faud, and holds the leash on the British Army in Northern Ireland).
So the next time you hear talk about “conflict resolution,” think a little bit about the new Global order in which we live. Remember that everything is connected to almost everything else. Then stop, think, do a Lexus Nexus search, and ask, “what’s their connection?”
Remember that governments deal in compromises and convenience, and it’s up to the rest of us to make up the difference.
The following articles are lessons in "historiography"-- basically, seeing the history of history being written, examining the text as well as the subtext. Basically, welcome to my mind... be sure to bring a flashlight.
The following articles were written two years ago before the Iraq war. Keep in mind, I have not changed my mind on most of these subjects, and Weapons of Mass Destruction are a topic for another day [however, I'm fairly certain they're in Syria, and they've been used in Iraq on our troops over the course of this "insurgency"]
Never Start a Fight, but Always Finish It.
(or simply: Always Finish it)
War is never necessary, inevitable, or anything of the sort. Attacking Iraq would be a preventative measure; it worked for Elizabeth I in 1578 against the Spanish Armada, in 1758 for Prussia, and Israel’s Six Day War of 1967 and in 1981 (when they took out the French supplied nuclear facility in Iraq).
When it comes to Saddam Hussein, he can avoid any conflict with amazing ease. Saddam could decide that life would be easier if he gave up his bioweapons and chemical weapons, then let the UN inspectors come in free and clear and have a look at EVERYTHING. Then he could stop killing his own subjects, stuff the rebellious ones into a corner of the country, give them their own state and tell them to do something obscene with it. War avoided, case closed.
Who knows? Maybe the threat of an all-out US attack will even make roll over and play dead, stop pulling a Milosevic on his own people, and stop gathering enough gasses to make new epidemics of plague, etc. But the odds of that happening are…?
There is no one on the planet who wants to blow away Saddam just for the fun of it. But honestly, who thinks that—after ten years and God knows how much cash Saddam has blown on his weapons programs—he’s just going to let it all go? That after so much effort wiping out Kurds that he’s just going to take the easy way out? One major problem I find with the current attitude is it’s too much of the Hollywood Wild West ethic of “the good guys don’t draw first.” Since when did American foreign policy involve a shootout at high noon, mixed with a little touch of poker-style bluffing?
This isn’t the nineteenth century anymore. When the Congress of Vienna tried to carve up a post-Napoleonic world, the world fell apart in about fifty-to-sixty years. After World War I, Europe created Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. Nineteenth century rules barely worked in the 19th century, and when we applied them to the Middle East, we got burned; OPEC in the 70s, Iran in the 80s, then Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe played 19th century politics waiting for Hitler to strike first; the US waited for Bin Laden to give us an “actual” attack (as though blowing up US barracks wasn’t enough).
Welcome to the 21st century. We’re in a war now; it’s just that the rules have changed. We didn’t start it, but we should definitely finish it.
No one wants a war simply for the sake of having one. No one wants our soldiers to die. There were ninety-eight civilians on board Flight 93 didn’t want a fight either, and they didn’t want to die. But a war came to them, and they didn’t wait for a suicide dive. Their response was “Let’s roll.”
Let’s hope that, when the time comes, our response won’t be any less.
Let's Roll.
Why bomb Saddam?
Why not?
Slobodan Milosevic killed how many people before the US (UN Peacekeepers came in later) wiped the floor with him? It was enough to describe Milosevic as a Hitler prototype. But Saddam Hussein's killed tens of thousands of his own people, and we let him get away with it…why? September of 2001, the Torch “school” opinion had seven of eight students saying we shouldn't wipe out the Taliban, because we would kill so many innocent people and have so many soldiers die. With limited causalities and a few weeks later, say goodbye to the Taliban. In the first Persian Gulf War, it was argued that we'd lose thousands of soldiers. Aside from car accidents, helicopter mishaps and the like, we barely broke double digits (12 people).
The U.S. gave Saddam bioweapons to fight Iran. Don't we have the responsibility to clean up our messes? What's that I hear you say? The UN inspectors? After ten years and nothing done, how many people think that anything will get done NOW? What has the UN done to Saddam but put sanctions on Iraq, sanctions that do nothing but hurt the Iraqi people and leave Hussein unhurt? We went to war in the Gulf to wipe out his weapons of mass destruction (see: Caleb Carr, "The Lessons of Terror."), why not now? Besides, when SJU went to a Nike factory in Mexico, everyone tore them to shreds because Nike directed what they saw; Saddam Hussein isn't crafty enough to imitate Nike?
What about our allies, like the French? The French gave Saddam parts for nuclear weapons in the early eighties, and they've been helping Iraq despite the sanctions. Who wants to place money on what the French have given to Iraq lately?
I hear cries of "wait for the UN and our allies!" And if Saddam's six months away from getting nukes, it takes six months to assemble the UN, and what then? We pray that he won't wake up in a fit of peak and nuke Iran or Israel, perhaps?
"But the Middle East isn't worried!" Why should they be? We came running to their aid last time, so why should they help us get rid of what is only a potential problem?
Why don't we go after Iran or North Korea instead? They already have nuclear weapons. Next question?
Why don't we deal with terrorism? According to Bill Safire of the New York Times, the head of Iraqi intelligence met with someone in Al Qaeda's chain of command before 9-11-02. Must I draw you a flow chart?
This is our next step on the war on terror, please make no mistake about it. The Taliban crumbled, odds are that Bin Laden is buried in the sands of Tora Bora, and we haven't had a terrorist attack in one year; that was step one. Step three might be wiping out the French…or at least having a very long talk with Mr. Chirac; maybe we can even talk with the House of Faud in Saudi Arabia about fifteen hijackers.
CNN logic is nice, but never assume that a gut reaction is wrong because it's merely a gut reaction. Logic's good, but logic is a tool, and like all human tools, it can be faulty.
Last point: Once upon a time was a place called Ethiopia. It was invaded by a man named Mussolini. The League of Nations told him to back off. He didn't. The League of Nations did nothing and it died.
Once upon a time was a man named Saddam, and he wanted weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations imposed restrictions. He didn't follow them. The UN… well, let's wait and see….
And a fun time was had by all.
All vacation long, I listened to Democrats whine about North Korea; we should wipe them out for breaking a 1994 agreement that it stop its nuclear program for aid. I hear we’re not going after N. Korea with the same pressure on Iraq.
“Bush mislead us so he could go into Iraq!” the cry echoed, despite two and a half pages of intelligence briefings offered to Congress on the subject (Colin Powell, This Week, 10/20/02). We’ve been in peaceful diplomatic negotiations with N. Korea and their nuclear supplier (Pakistan, not Clinton or Jimmy Carter), and we’re even continuing UN deals on Iraq.
What’s the problem? Why do I hear Democrats demand to invade N. Korea, but do little or nothing to Saddam? Even Amnesty International suggests that Bush and Blair are “too selective,” when talking about the human rights abuses in Iraq, even though AI has reported Iraqi horrors for years.
All I can think is “Why not have an Amnesty International hit list? Let’s deal with every tribal war in Africa; why not the shifta murder gangs of the Sudan who’ve enslaved whites and Christians of all ethnic groups for decades (no, can’t do that; Sudan’s on the UN human rights commission…you see something wrong here?).
“Why don’t we go after China, which persecutes, beats and jails Christians for fun, and drops baby girls down wells? Clinton’s state department let US businesses perfect China’s ICBM program like we gave weapons to Iraq, so why not clean up the mess?
“Why don’t we go after North Korea, free Tibet, and provide peacekeepers in Northern Ireland, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Palestine?”
For those of you who missed the sarcasm, you can’t complain about NOT declaring war on North Korea while at the same time treating Saddam with diplomacy. The US is trying to talk with North Korea like we’re STILL talking with Saddam.
But still, each time Iraq is mentioned…
“Bush is a warmonger.” Who have we bombed since the Taliban?
“Bush is ignoring terrorism.” After all, look at the bombed American buildings, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and…oh, yeah, that’s been it for sixteen months and counting. It took fifteen months for Al-Qaeda to get back in shape again, thousands of prisoners at Guantanamo and we’ve had no progress with the war on terror?
While I personally wouldn’t mind regime change in China, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and Northern Ireland, I’m not holding my breath, since China and England are on the UN Security Council (China holds sway over the area once known as Tibet. England set up Saudi Arabia’s House of Faud, and holds the leash on the British Army in Northern Ireland).
So the next time you hear talk about “conflict resolution,” think a little bit about the new Global order in which we live. Remember that everything is connected to almost everything else. Then stop, think, do a Lexus Nexus search, and ask, “what’s their connection?”
Remember that governments deal in compromises and convenience, and it’s up to the rest of us to make up the difference.
The House of the Rising Sun is Closed.
I initially did not do this because, well, it's not nice to speak ill of the dead. However, that has changed for me, why.... because I believe that, while error has no right, PEOPLE have rights.
So what does St. Augustine have to do with anything? Simple, people have rights, error doesn't.
Which means the mayor and the governor of New Orleans and Louisiana, respectively, are lucky that they never lived in the Soviet Union, because they would have been taken out and shot-- there, people who err had no rights. At least here they do [and you don't joke about assassinating politicians in New Orleans, they're touchy ever since Huey Long].
"But what about Bush? The federal government did nothing until it was too late." If you honestly believe that… well, wait.
But what triggered this? Why did I decide to go off on the Left wing nuts blaming Bush for the weather? Well, someone asked me about it, to start with, and I like to answer in a detailed, somewhat thoughtful manner. However, I have a headcold, so forgive me if some of this is incoherent.
But this blog post was triggered by 9/11. Yes, 9/11. I wanted to do an in memorianum, but I thought it would be too sappy.
But now I’m pissed. Governor Blanco, I’m certain, deliberately exaggerated the 10,000 dead in order to claim that Bush is responsible for more dead than on 9/11, but now we won’t even break one thousand, never mind three.
And I was reminiscing about the day. I had heard about the first crash the minute it happened… someone asked if I had heard about a plane hitting the World Trade Center [WTC], and I laughed, saying that the towers are too damn big for someone to accidentally run into them. I got out of class an hour and a half later, to my next class, and we were all told that class was cancelled… okay, but why? And why didn’t Fr. Caserta leave a note? Or have the theology department post one. I called my father on one of the inter-college phones, and he said “Come to my office.” That’s it, nothing more…but okay. Whatever.
I walk out of the building, across the great lawn, and for some reason, the chatter is oddly isolated instead of University wide. And everyone on God’s green earth has a cell phone out. I felt like I was in Hitchcock’s The Birds [or The Boids for Warner Bros. fans]. “Wow this is odd.”
I walk into my father’s office, and he says that “Planes have crashed into the World Trade Center, they’ve fallen and the Pentagon is burning.”
“Didn’t Tom Clancy already do this novel?”
And everyone and his brother knew Bin Laden had done it. My father said “Of COURSE bin Laden did it!” Then again, when even my campus joke magazine advocated killing bin Laden, I might want to note that we’re biased. My second reaction was “bin Laden is a dead man” [and he might be—his press statements are few and far between, and the language is off, but that’s something else.].
Twelve hours later, Kabul was burning. I heard later that they weren’t our bombs. To quote Ann Coulter, “I wanted them to be our bombs. They should’ve been our bombs.”
I remember… the NY Times calling Rudy Giuliani Churchill in a baseball cap.
I remember NYPD and FDNY going into the fire, knowing they were going to die, but there were still people up there, and they were going to get them out… and they died trying. They had trained for this every Saturday for every week of Giuliani’s administration, and they were ready, and they gave everything.
I remember them staying there for a month cleaning out the rubble.
I remember it all.
And now I remember something different.
I remember how Amtrak offered to send trains to evacuate New Orleans before the hurricane even hit—and the Mayor REFUSED THEIR HELP
I remember the Governor having 65 THOUSAND National Guard troops outside of New Orleans, sitting there, doing NOTHING. Buses, sitting in their docks, not being used for evacuation .
I remember the governor evacuating the rich white tourists from the hotels and letting them cut the lines out of town.
I remember that the levies couldn’t take a level 3 hurricane and that Katrina was a 5, but no one called for a mandatory evacuation.
I remember Louisiana getting TEN TIMES more federal money than California. That New Orleans diverted the funds from rebuilding the levies this past year because “they’ll be fine,” and shifting them to pork barrel projects.
I remember Bush calling for an evacuation of New Orleans before the hurricane hit, and the Mayor only made it voluntary.
I remember that New Orleans had a contingency plan to deal with disasters/hurricanes. Only Mayor Nagin didn't follow it, nor did Governor Blanco. And these are the people complaining about what Bush didn’t do? [PS: In Long Island, they tell you to leave, or you drown. And they’re NOT below sea level.]
I remember that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter New Orleans by decree of local officials.
And I remember the New Orleans Police Department. I remember them well. The stinking cowards ran like river rats, almost a third of the police department abandoned the city before the hurricane even hit. Now half the department has resigned, most in disgrace. The NOPD has dishonored their badges. One committed suicide, as did one PR representative.
The NYPD didn’t run, they didn’t hide, they went to their deaths in the hope that others may live. The NOPD live to die some other day.
And should I start on the looters?
Why bother?
On 9/11, Guiliani was there, on site, and in fact was thrown into a building to escape the debris from the collapse of the South Tower.
Nagin? He bellowed for federal help, complaining that it was the federal government's fault. He did NOTHING. He deserves nothing in return. New Orleans has been known as the big easy, but also as the Big Sleazy. And no wonder, it got taken out by several of the Seven Deadly Sins—greed, pride, envy and anger [hence the looters of the Trinitrons and the rapists].
And then what did he do? He announced plans to give NOPD officers vacations to Las Vegas (all on the tab of FEMA). And he's now bought a house in Dallas. At the very least, send your cops to Houston—they’ve got strip clubs, and they did save YOUR voters.
See, that’s the one problem with being a Republican—the Republican federal government generally assumes that the local government knows enough to take care of itself, and it’ll call when it needs the big guns sent in.
That’s a problem when the Governor’s an ass who doesn’t know that her cell phone won’t WORK in a hurricane, and will need a satellite phone. That’s a problem with the mayor supported the Governor’s opposition in the previous election and the Governor’s still holding a grudge. That’s a problem when the Governor seems more intent on letting New Orleans down the gutter than doing her job.
A message to Governor Blanco—you are the duly represented official of your state, not an impotent weakling. You remember those National Guard troops you had? You can USE them. If you are too gutless to use the national guard in evacuating a city, and sending in those 65,000 troops when the riots break out, then you should’ve called President Bush the day Katrina was declared a category 5 hurricane, and said, “Mr. President, I am a corrupt, incompetent fool. I squandered all of our federal money on anything but the levies, and we’ve known for over a year that they can’t take what’s coming. I need to be relieved of duty because I don’t have a clue.”
Now, in this case, Bush messed up. Oh yes, W. went wrong….. BUSH SHOULD’VE COMMANDEERED THE STATE FROM THE GOVERNOR AND DECLARED MARTIAL LAW THE DAY KATRINA WAS SPOTTED.
However, that’s a problem. In saying the above, it’s basically saying that Bush couldn't do anything about Louisiana without doing something that hasn't been done since the Civil War— use the insurrection acts to usurp the power of the state government.
And now that two incompetents killed over four hundred people—so far—they blame Bush for causing the storm [I didn’t know he was God]. The blame Bush for not personally coming down immediately into the war zone that is New Orleans with a hundred thousand federal employees on his back, bringing in the troops that were in Iraq….
I’m sorry, wait a moment? The democrats wanted Bush, a republican, to declare martial law? With the military? Had that happened, he would’ve been impeached—well, they would try, anyway. And how exactly would Bush say that, hmm? “I, the white Republican male, am going to usurp the authority of the black, democratic, female governor, and declare martial law”?
Then again, Bush would’ve at least had someone competent running the place—I don’t mean the FEMA director, I mean the man the Mayor praised as “John Wayne,” the army General Honore.
Rudy and Pataki didn’t have the President on 9/11. The president was being hidden by the Secret Service in an undisclosed location. Probably several. In any other city, there would’ve been riots and blood in the streets. New York didn’t need it. Had New Orleans been prepared for the worst, the citizens would’ve been moved out of town on buses and Amtrak trains. We may not have needed body bags [although there are always idiots who would’ve stayed—people are STILL staying, until the military comes to their door, M16 assault rifle and all].
And now Barak Obama is calling Bush a racist? Forget the rappers, but this was the guy who spent half his talk at the democratic convention pretending to be a Republican [even the black Lt. Governor of Maryland at the RNC said “I was going to give the RNC platform here tonight, but Barak Obama already did it up in Boston six weeks ago.”]. Now it’s “W.’s a racist,” only said articulately…. Mr. Senator, if W. was a racist, he’d mention that all of the blacks of New Orleans are being saved by white rescuers. I’m told that you haven't figured out yet how the evil "neocons" cooked up a hurricane that targeted only black people. Let me know how that turns out, would you?
These people are vile. Mistakes were made all around, but for God’s sake, Blanco and Nagin, you are the duly elected local authorities. If you can’t have the moral courage to admit you made a mistake, if you can’t have the courage that George W. Bush has already exhibited by saying that he screwed up, then how DARE you try to put this all on him? You failed to protect your citizens. Admit it and move on.
On a related note:
Someone asked me recently if W. was still a hero of mine. Maybe I should tell you why he was in the first place—decisive action. Once he was given proof who was responsible for 9/11, they were gone before the next month was over. Clinton would’ve gotten even MORE indictments ready for bin Laden, as if we didn’t have enough. Al Gore… who knows?
Is he still a hero to me, now that he’s admitted that he screwed up in New Orleans? Even more so. Any other man would’ve been screaming about the faults of others. But he hasn’t. It was his fault that the FEMA director wasn’t qualified. It was his fault for not taking control of New Orleans when the train wreck was coming.
On 9/11, he was a man. He was a man who showed kindness to those who were made victims. A man of stability and reassurance. “I hear you. The American People Hear you. And the people who knocked down these buildings will be hearing from us real soon.”
And now, he says that the buck stops at his desk.
Pay attention, gentlemen. This is the mark of a true man.
“There is
A House
In New Orleans
They call
The Rising Sun.
And it’s been.
The Ruin
Of Many
A poor boy
And God
I know
I’m one.”
I initially did not do this because, well, it's not nice to speak ill of the dead. However, that has changed for me, why.... because I believe that, while error has no right, PEOPLE have rights.
So what does St. Augustine have to do with anything? Simple, people have rights, error doesn't.
Which means the mayor and the governor of New Orleans and Louisiana, respectively, are lucky that they never lived in the Soviet Union, because they would have been taken out and shot-- there, people who err had no rights. At least here they do [and you don't joke about assassinating politicians in New Orleans, they're touchy ever since Huey Long].
"But what about Bush? The federal government did nothing until it was too late." If you honestly believe that… well, wait.
But what triggered this? Why did I decide to go off on the Left wing nuts blaming Bush for the weather? Well, someone asked me about it, to start with, and I like to answer in a detailed, somewhat thoughtful manner. However, I have a headcold, so forgive me if some of this is incoherent.
But this blog post was triggered by 9/11. Yes, 9/11. I wanted to do an in memorianum, but I thought it would be too sappy.
But now I’m pissed. Governor Blanco, I’m certain, deliberately exaggerated the 10,000 dead in order to claim that Bush is responsible for more dead than on 9/11, but now we won’t even break one thousand, never mind three.
And I was reminiscing about the day. I had heard about the first crash the minute it happened… someone asked if I had heard about a plane hitting the World Trade Center [WTC], and I laughed, saying that the towers are too damn big for someone to accidentally run into them. I got out of class an hour and a half later, to my next class, and we were all told that class was cancelled… okay, but why? And why didn’t Fr. Caserta leave a note? Or have the theology department post one. I called my father on one of the inter-college phones, and he said “Come to my office.” That’s it, nothing more…but okay. Whatever.
I walk out of the building, across the great lawn, and for some reason, the chatter is oddly isolated instead of University wide. And everyone on God’s green earth has a cell phone out. I felt like I was in Hitchcock’s The Birds [or The Boids for Warner Bros. fans]. “Wow this is odd.”
I walk into my father’s office, and he says that “Planes have crashed into the World Trade Center, they’ve fallen and the Pentagon is burning.”
“Didn’t Tom Clancy already do this novel?”
And everyone and his brother knew Bin Laden had done it. My father said “Of COURSE bin Laden did it!” Then again, when even my campus joke magazine advocated killing bin Laden, I might want to note that we’re biased. My second reaction was “bin Laden is a dead man” [and he might be—his press statements are few and far between, and the language is off, but that’s something else.].
Twelve hours later, Kabul was burning. I heard later that they weren’t our bombs. To quote Ann Coulter, “I wanted them to be our bombs. They should’ve been our bombs.”
I remember… the NY Times calling Rudy Giuliani Churchill in a baseball cap.
I remember NYPD and FDNY going into the fire, knowing they were going to die, but there were still people up there, and they were going to get them out… and they died trying. They had trained for this every Saturday for every week of Giuliani’s administration, and they were ready, and they gave everything.
I remember them staying there for a month cleaning out the rubble.
I remember it all.
And now I remember something different.
I remember how Amtrak offered to send trains to evacuate New Orleans before the hurricane even hit—and the Mayor REFUSED THEIR HELP
I remember the Governor having 65 THOUSAND National Guard troops outside of New Orleans, sitting there, doing NOTHING. Buses, sitting in their docks, not being used for evacuation .
I remember the governor evacuating the rich white tourists from the hotels and letting them cut the lines out of town.
I remember that the levies couldn’t take a level 3 hurricane and that Katrina was a 5, but no one called for a mandatory evacuation.
I remember Louisiana getting TEN TIMES more federal money than California. That New Orleans diverted the funds from rebuilding the levies this past year because “they’ll be fine,” and shifting them to pork barrel projects.
I remember Bush calling for an evacuation of New Orleans before the hurricane hit, and the Mayor only made it voluntary.
I remember that New Orleans had a contingency plan to deal with disasters/hurricanes. Only Mayor Nagin didn't follow it, nor did Governor Blanco. And these are the people complaining about what Bush didn’t do? [PS: In Long Island, they tell you to leave, or you drown. And they’re NOT below sea level.]
I remember that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter New Orleans by decree of local officials.
And I remember the New Orleans Police Department. I remember them well. The stinking cowards ran like river rats, almost a third of the police department abandoned the city before the hurricane even hit. Now half the department has resigned, most in disgrace. The NOPD has dishonored their badges. One committed suicide, as did one PR representative.
The NYPD didn’t run, they didn’t hide, they went to their deaths in the hope that others may live. The NOPD live to die some other day.
And should I start on the looters?
Why bother?
On 9/11, Guiliani was there, on site, and in fact was thrown into a building to escape the debris from the collapse of the South Tower.
Nagin? He bellowed for federal help, complaining that it was the federal government's fault. He did NOTHING. He deserves nothing in return. New Orleans has been known as the big easy, but also as the Big Sleazy. And no wonder, it got taken out by several of the Seven Deadly Sins—greed, pride, envy and anger [hence the looters of the Trinitrons and the rapists].
And then what did he do? He announced plans to give NOPD officers vacations to Las Vegas (all on the tab of FEMA). And he's now bought a house in Dallas. At the very least, send your cops to Houston—they’ve got strip clubs, and they did save YOUR voters.
See, that’s the one problem with being a Republican—the Republican federal government generally assumes that the local government knows enough to take care of itself, and it’ll call when it needs the big guns sent in.
That’s a problem when the Governor’s an ass who doesn’t know that her cell phone won’t WORK in a hurricane, and will need a satellite phone. That’s a problem with the mayor supported the Governor’s opposition in the previous election and the Governor’s still holding a grudge. That’s a problem when the Governor seems more intent on letting New Orleans down the gutter than doing her job.
A message to Governor Blanco—you are the duly represented official of your state, not an impotent weakling. You remember those National Guard troops you had? You can USE them. If you are too gutless to use the national guard in evacuating a city, and sending in those 65,000 troops when the riots break out, then you should’ve called President Bush the day Katrina was declared a category 5 hurricane, and said, “Mr. President, I am a corrupt, incompetent fool. I squandered all of our federal money on anything but the levies, and we’ve known for over a year that they can’t take what’s coming. I need to be relieved of duty because I don’t have a clue.”
Now, in this case, Bush messed up. Oh yes, W. went wrong….. BUSH SHOULD’VE COMMANDEERED THE STATE FROM THE GOVERNOR AND DECLARED MARTIAL LAW THE DAY KATRINA WAS SPOTTED.
However, that’s a problem. In saying the above, it’s basically saying that Bush couldn't do anything about Louisiana without doing something that hasn't been done since the Civil War— use the insurrection acts to usurp the power of the state government.
And now that two incompetents killed over four hundred people—so far—they blame Bush for causing the storm [I didn’t know he was God]. The blame Bush for not personally coming down immediately into the war zone that is New Orleans with a hundred thousand federal employees on his back, bringing in the troops that were in Iraq….
I’m sorry, wait a moment? The democrats wanted Bush, a republican, to declare martial law? With the military? Had that happened, he would’ve been impeached—well, they would try, anyway. And how exactly would Bush say that, hmm? “I, the white Republican male, am going to usurp the authority of the black, democratic, female governor, and declare martial law”?
Then again, Bush would’ve at least had someone competent running the place—I don’t mean the FEMA director, I mean the man the Mayor praised as “John Wayne,” the army General Honore.
Rudy and Pataki didn’t have the President on 9/11. The president was being hidden by the Secret Service in an undisclosed location. Probably several. In any other city, there would’ve been riots and blood in the streets. New York didn’t need it. Had New Orleans been prepared for the worst, the citizens would’ve been moved out of town on buses and Amtrak trains. We may not have needed body bags [although there are always idiots who would’ve stayed—people are STILL staying, until the military comes to their door, M16 assault rifle and all].
And now Barak Obama is calling Bush a racist? Forget the rappers, but this was the guy who spent half his talk at the democratic convention pretending to be a Republican [even the black Lt. Governor of Maryland at the RNC said “I was going to give the RNC platform here tonight, but Barak Obama already did it up in Boston six weeks ago.”]. Now it’s “W.’s a racist,” only said articulately…. Mr. Senator, if W. was a racist, he’d mention that all of the blacks of New Orleans are being saved by white rescuers. I’m told that you haven't figured out yet how the evil "neocons" cooked up a hurricane that targeted only black people. Let me know how that turns out, would you?
These people are vile. Mistakes were made all around, but for God’s sake, Blanco and Nagin, you are the duly elected local authorities. If you can’t have the moral courage to admit you made a mistake, if you can’t have the courage that George W. Bush has already exhibited by saying that he screwed up, then how DARE you try to put this all on him? You failed to protect your citizens. Admit it and move on.
On a related note:
Someone asked me recently if W. was still a hero of mine. Maybe I should tell you why he was in the first place—decisive action. Once he was given proof who was responsible for 9/11, they were gone before the next month was over. Clinton would’ve gotten even MORE indictments ready for bin Laden, as if we didn’t have enough. Al Gore… who knows?
Is he still a hero to me, now that he’s admitted that he screwed up in New Orleans? Even more so. Any other man would’ve been screaming about the faults of others. But he hasn’t. It was his fault that the FEMA director wasn’t qualified. It was his fault for not taking control of New Orleans when the train wreck was coming.
On 9/11, he was a man. He was a man who showed kindness to those who were made victims. A man of stability and reassurance. “I hear you. The American People Hear you. And the people who knocked down these buildings will be hearing from us real soon.”
And now, he says that the buck stops at his desk.
Pay attention, gentlemen. This is the mark of a true man.
“There is
A House
In New Orleans
They call
The Rising Sun.
And it’s been.
The Ruin
Of Many
A poor boy
And God
I know
I’m one.”
Monday, September 05, 2005
A Requiem for a City, New Orleans, RIP.
Even if New Orleans is not demolished with the option of moving further uphill, it will take three years for it to make a comeback structurally, and ten years economically. When people think about Katrina, they see bodies floating in the water, they see people dramatically rescued from their roofs via helicopter, they see whiners about Bush, and MPs in the streets.
Let me tell you what I see.
I see New Orleans as it was. The Cities of the Dead, six- and seven-foot-high mausoleums the homes of this ‘parish’ of New Orleans, keeping the dead buried aboveground, since six feet under the city was water. The stone tombs were also designed to be ‘natural’ crematories. At one point, the Catholic Church had banned cremations, and since New Orleans was very Catholic—or at least very French—they obeyed. They came up with a way around it by making the mausoleums act as natural ovens operating on heat from the sun. The inside of the coffins would reach over three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. By the time another body had to be buried, the coffin would be slid in, sweeping the remains of the previous body to the back, to fall down a vent to the bottom of the sepulcher.
When you first get out of the plane, you feel like you've fallen into a pool of warm water, except you're was on solid, semi-dry ground. Then again, you are about thirty feet below sea level, the only think from making Lake Ponchatrain from becoming Lake Orleans is a dam, and luck during the hurricane season, for a good hurricane will just shove the lake into the city, and the Levies can't withstand more than a Category 3 hurricane.
Bourbon Street, New Orleans in the Sunday predawn hours was not exactly pleasant, since the time was in-between: after the party the previous night and before the cleanup the morning after, when all the shops took hoses to their sidewalks and sprayed off the three types of beer: spilt, vomited and excreted.
Bourbon Street is where you think of when you think New Orleans, and Marte Gras, and it's also New Orleans’ red light district. A row of strip clubs, bars, restaurants, and tourist traps. In one window there was a video-loop of woman stripping her clothes off in a translucent window backlit by a yellow light. The neon lights flashed along the street, and scattered groups of people from all ages danced to jazz still pouring out from the nightclubs.
A tiny ambulette slowly rolls down the street to collect drunks for the drunk tanks and dries them out.
On the same street is the Royal Sonesta Hotel, and you wonder if you’re in the same place. It opens into a the expansive hotel lobby behind crystal class doors. The floor laid with marble and chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The hotel bar on the right and a hallway filled with gift shops on the left.
It is also the home of Brennan’s—where, on Sunday mornings, you can go and have a late breakfast that IS dinner. A breakfast where they serve absinth and huge pink iced drinks with an umbrella in them; fillet mignon that melts in your mouth, topped with poached eggs with hollandaise sauce as an entrée.
It is a land of “Live and Let Die”, of Anne Rice’s vampires, James Lee Burke’s policemen, Sherylon Kenyon’s dark hunters, the home of voodoo in America, of jambalaya and zydico. It is the last place in the world where the Napoleonic Code still exists at THE law.
It is the home of the con: “Give me a dollar and I’ll tell you where you got your shoes.” The inevitable answer being ‘You got your shoes, on your feet on Bourbon Street.” You’re usually so busy laughing you didn’t notice that you just got scammed and he’s making off with you money. A city where the fast and loose play faster and looser.
At the moment, New Orleans is a city of the dead, and only the dead. But, God Willing, it will once again be a home of the living and the lively.
Raquel and Jason have good articles on the hurricane proper, with great analysis of what went wrong, and links to charity organizations. I just felt like someone needed to say a eulogy.
Be well, and God bless.
Even if New Orleans is not demolished with the option of moving further uphill, it will take three years for it to make a comeback structurally, and ten years economically. When people think about Katrina, they see bodies floating in the water, they see people dramatically rescued from their roofs via helicopter, they see whiners about Bush, and MPs in the streets.
Let me tell you what I see.
I see New Orleans as it was. The Cities of the Dead, six- and seven-foot-high mausoleums the homes of this ‘parish’ of New Orleans, keeping the dead buried aboveground, since six feet under the city was water. The stone tombs were also designed to be ‘natural’ crematories. At one point, the Catholic Church had banned cremations, and since New Orleans was very Catholic—or at least very French—they obeyed. They came up with a way around it by making the mausoleums act as natural ovens operating on heat from the sun. The inside of the coffins would reach over three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. By the time another body had to be buried, the coffin would be slid in, sweeping the remains of the previous body to the back, to fall down a vent to the bottom of the sepulcher.
When you first get out of the plane, you feel like you've fallen into a pool of warm water, except you're was on solid, semi-dry ground. Then again, you are about thirty feet below sea level, the only think from making Lake Ponchatrain from becoming Lake Orleans is a dam, and luck during the hurricane season, for a good hurricane will just shove the lake into the city, and the Levies can't withstand more than a Category 3 hurricane.
Bourbon Street, New Orleans in the Sunday predawn hours was not exactly pleasant, since the time was in-between: after the party the previous night and before the cleanup the morning after, when all the shops took hoses to their sidewalks and sprayed off the three types of beer: spilt, vomited and excreted.
Bourbon Street is where you think of when you think New Orleans, and Marte Gras, and it's also New Orleans’ red light district. A row of strip clubs, bars, restaurants, and tourist traps. In one window there was a video-loop of woman stripping her clothes off in a translucent window backlit by a yellow light. The neon lights flashed along the street, and scattered groups of people from all ages danced to jazz still pouring out from the nightclubs.
A tiny ambulette slowly rolls down the street to collect drunks for the drunk tanks and dries them out.
On the same street is the Royal Sonesta Hotel, and you wonder if you’re in the same place. It opens into a the expansive hotel lobby behind crystal class doors. The floor laid with marble and chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The hotel bar on the right and a hallway filled with gift shops on the left.
It is also the home of Brennan’s—where, on Sunday mornings, you can go and have a late breakfast that IS dinner. A breakfast where they serve absinth and huge pink iced drinks with an umbrella in them; fillet mignon that melts in your mouth, topped with poached eggs with hollandaise sauce as an entrée.
It is a land of “Live and Let Die”, of Anne Rice’s vampires, James Lee Burke’s policemen, Sherylon Kenyon’s dark hunters, the home of voodoo in America, of jambalaya and zydico. It is the last place in the world where the Napoleonic Code still exists at THE law.
It is the home of the con: “Give me a dollar and I’ll tell you where you got your shoes.” The inevitable answer being ‘You got your shoes, on your feet on Bourbon Street.” You’re usually so busy laughing you didn’t notice that you just got scammed and he’s making off with you money. A city where the fast and loose play faster and looser.
At the moment, New Orleans is a city of the dead, and only the dead. But, God Willing, it will once again be a home of the living and the lively.
Raquel and Jason have good articles on the hurricane proper, with great analysis of what went wrong, and links to charity organizations. I just felt like someone needed to say a eulogy.
Be well, and God bless.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Unless the quotes are otherwise attributed, they're most likely from Ms. Coulter.
I like this woman just for the headline, if nothing else.
"I'd rather be doing my hair than doing you." Headline for Carleigh
COULTER: TOO HOT FOR "CHRISTIAN" COLLEGE
September 1, 2005, 11:57 AM
"Christian College Succumbs to Pressure, Cancels Coulter” Alumni complain, citing facts gleaned from "Ann Coulter Is A C—-.com." The Rev. Barry Lynn will give the lecture instead. Coulter announces she is joining a Black Church.
Laurence Simon, of http://www.imao.us/
September 1, 2005, 12:48 AM
Apparently, the fire marshal and the people who plan disaster relief don't communicate, because Houston offered up 24,000 folks a cot and three hots at the Astrodome but the gates have been shut at 12,000 or so.
We here in Houston are used to this kind of screw up. Although what we're really waiting for is when the refugees threaten to relocate to Tennessee because there aren't adequate luxury box accommodations and the astroturf isn't fit for play.
THE NATION UNITES AFTER A DISASTER!
September 1, 2005, 6:51 PM
"George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, . . ." New York Times editorial, Thursday September 1, 2005.
http://imperialrequiem.blogspot.com/
"The media's got it's work cut out for itself. I'll just revel in their pain."
GERMAN PAPERS: Katrina Should be Lesson To USA on 'Global Warming'...
August 31, 2005, 12:04 PM
And getting your butt kicked in two world wars should be a lesson too.
CINDY AND THE GERMANS TOGETHER AGAIN
August 31, 2005, 12:07 PM
"Cindy Sez Katrina Bush’s Fault”
What if you had a war protest and nobody came?
August 27, 2005, 1:32 AM
"Sweetness and light: Has there ever been a phonier news story”
CINDY: "He just wanted to go over to fight for his country . . . "
August 26, 2005, 3:15 AM
"Sweetness and light: Two days after Casey's death, Cindy said . . . ”
AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T CHANGE IT TO "THE GOD OF EVOLUTION"
August 26, 2005, 8:13 PM
"The Parent, the Offspring, and the Holy Ghost”
PAT ROBERTSON JOINS STEPHANOPOULOS IN CALLING FOR ASSASINATIONS
August 25, 2005, 7:15 PM
"Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination”
SHEEHAN CALLS TERRORISTS KILLING AMERICAN TROOPS "FREEDOM FIGHTERS"
August 23, 2005, 4:13 PM
"Sweetness and Light: Cindy Calls Insurgents “Freedom Fighters”
ANOTHER GREAT FIND ON THE SWEETNESS AND LIGHT BLOG
August 22, 2005, 11:13 PM
"THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY"
And now, the most vicious hit I've seen in quite some time. Courtesy of WWW.sacredcowburgers.com
I like this woman just for the headline, if nothing else.
"I'd rather be doing my hair than doing you." Headline for Carleigh
COULTER: TOO HOT FOR "CHRISTIAN" COLLEGE
September 1, 2005, 11:57 AM
"Christian College Succumbs to Pressure, Cancels Coulter” Alumni complain, citing facts gleaned from "Ann Coulter Is A C—-.com." The Rev. Barry Lynn will give the lecture instead. Coulter announces she is joining a Black Church.
Laurence Simon, of http://www.imao.us/
September 1, 2005, 12:48 AM
Apparently, the fire marshal and the people who plan disaster relief don't communicate, because Houston offered up 24,000 folks a cot and three hots at the Astrodome but the gates have been shut at 12,000 or so.
We here in Houston are used to this kind of screw up. Although what we're really waiting for is when the refugees threaten to relocate to Tennessee because there aren't adequate luxury box accommodations and the astroturf isn't fit for play.
THE NATION UNITES AFTER A DISASTER!
September 1, 2005, 6:51 PM
"George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, . . ." New York Times editorial, Thursday September 1, 2005.
http://imperialrequiem.blogspot.com/
"The media's got it's work cut out for itself. I'll just revel in their pain."
GERMAN PAPERS: Katrina Should be Lesson To USA on 'Global Warming'...
August 31, 2005, 12:04 PM
And getting your butt kicked in two world wars should be a lesson too.
CINDY AND THE GERMANS TOGETHER AGAIN
August 31, 2005, 12:07 PM
"Cindy Sez Katrina Bush’s Fault”
What if you had a war protest and nobody came?
August 27, 2005, 1:32 AM
"Sweetness and light: Has there ever been a phonier news story”
CINDY: "He just wanted to go over to fight for his country . . . "
August 26, 2005, 3:15 AM
"Sweetness and light: Two days after Casey's death, Cindy said . . . ”
AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T CHANGE IT TO "THE GOD OF EVOLUTION"
August 26, 2005, 8:13 PM
"The Parent, the Offspring, and the Holy Ghost”
PAT ROBERTSON JOINS STEPHANOPOULOS IN CALLING FOR ASSASINATIONS
August 25, 2005, 7:15 PM
"Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination”
SHEEHAN CALLS TERRORISTS KILLING AMERICAN TROOPS "FREEDOM FIGHTERS"
August 23, 2005, 4:13 PM
"Sweetness and Light: Cindy Calls Insurgents “Freedom Fighters”
ANOTHER GREAT FIND ON THE SWEETNESS AND LIGHT BLOG
August 22, 2005, 11:13 PM
"THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY"
And now, the most vicious hit I've seen in quite some time. Courtesy of WWW.sacredcowburgers.com
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