Powerful stuff from the Sunday Herald

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Powerful stuff from the Sunday Herald

Postby antiaristo » Sun Sep 04, 2005 4:40 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>So what are those lessons to be learned from a destroyed city with thousands dead, little or no relief for survivors, and lawlessness taking over from wind and water as the greatest threat to life? Not very nice lessons unfortunately. As the bodies of the poor, black, disenfranchised southerners bob to the surface of the rat-infested and sewage-infused waters, we’re reminded that America’s position as a big, safe, morally decent democracy with opportunity for all is one of the world’s biggest lies. The American dream that is being held up as the cause worth dying for in the Middle East is as rotten to the core as its demonic administration. <br><br>When Bush is temporarily propped up on two legs by his people, out of his natural position on all fours with knuckles resting gently on the White House carpet, to tell the world that his country’s values and people are worth fighting for, he omits to mention that he doesn’t mean poor people or black people. Not only is this huge slice of the American public kept largely invisible, in case it ruins the image of the culture which Bush’s administration demands countries in “the axis of terrorr” adopt, but even when such poverty is exposed to the world the US elite has little shame in publicly holding these stricken citizens in contempt.<br><br>Take the comments made to the press by Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When quizzed on the probable death toll, which is now running into the thousands, Brown said: “Unfortunately that’s going to be attributable to a lot of people who did not heed the warnings. I don’t make judgements about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.”<br><br>So when those with cars left the city, leaving behind those with no transport, did that mean that every available coach, truck and helicopter was made available to get them out? Apparently not. Some of those who didn’t “heed the warnings” because they had no means of exit, included charity care homes for the elderly, hospitals, whole housing schemes of poor black residents, a children’s care home, and countless thousands of dispersed penniless people living on state benefits who were trapped and killed, not because they were wilful irresponsible risk takers, but because they were poor, powerless and vulnerable.<br><br>In a breathtaking display of racism, some white British students who were trapped in the hell of the city’s Superdome stadium, being used for refugees, were removed to a safer place in a basketball arena by a white policeman who one student described as having “broken all the rules” to help them. The students were young, healthy and in no immediate distress except for experiencing mildly aggressive taunts about their colour, and yet the stadium was full of dangerously ill people, highly distressed old people, young children at great risk of dehydration, but for whom nobody “broke all the rules” on account of the fact that they were black. Meanwhile the gangs of black youths stalking the city on orgies of raping, violence and looting are not the bogeymen Islamic “enemies of freedom” but products of their own “democratic” country’s polices of exclusion and division.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The lessons we’re learning from this horror are not about disaster management or speed of response, but about exposing the terrifying falsehoods at the heart of America’s relentless and belligerent quest for world domination. With Bush turning his gimlet eye to Iran, and linking his arm through that of our own dear Tony Blair as he does so, it’s never been more timely to be reminded so dramatically that the US is a deeply dysfunctional, decadent, declining society, imploding with its own prejudices, corruptions and hypocrisies.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>John F Kennedy said: “I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”<br><br>Yes that would be nice John, wouldn’t it? I’m sure that as soon as the honourable, honest, decent people who run the country work out who it was who really shot you, they’ll get right on with the job of bringing your vision about.[/b]</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sundayherald.com/51627">www.sundayherald.com/51627</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antiaristo>antiaristo</A> at: 9/4/05 2:45 pm<br></i>
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Re: Powerful stuff from the Sunday Herald

Postby Qutb » Sun Sep 04, 2005 4:57 pm

That said it all didn't it. "It’s never been more timely to be reminded so dramatically that the US is a deeply dysfunctional, decadent, declining society, imploding with its own prejudices, corruptions and hypocrisies." <br>I'm going to post it at DU if you don't mind, anti. Thanks for posting it. <p><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:black;font-family:century gothic;font-size:x-small;"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Qutb means "axis," "pole," "the center," which contains the periphery or is present in it. The qutb is a spiritual being, or function, which can reside in a human being or several human beings or a moment. It is the elusive mystery of how the divine gets delegated into the manifest world and obviously cannot be defined.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--><br><br></p><i></i>
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Great post

Postby Peachtree Pam » Sun Sep 04, 2005 5:18 pm

Thanks Antiaristo. <p></p><i></i>
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Postby Starman » Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:31 am

Indeed, good catch, Antiaristo -- powerful words that sure get to the essence of America's anguished, bitter, tragically too-long-deferred grappling with the consequences of its self-deceit, now having the undeniable evidence of its reeking black festering lies hidden in its heart thrown in its face and before the world to see, and as we stand condemned by the inhumanity of our own deeds, confronting the bleeding contradiction between what we say and do --our moral pretensions revealed for the incredible hypocrisy that they are.<br><br>"As the bodies of the poor, black, disenfranchised southerners bob to the surface of the rat-infested and sewage-infused waters, we’re reminded that America’s position as a big, safe, morally decent democracy with opportunity for all is one of the world’s biggest lies. The American dream that is being held up as the cause worth dying for in the Middle East is as rotten to the core as its demonic administration. <br>. . .<br>"Meanwhile the gangs of black youths stalking the city on orgies of raping, violence and looting are not the bogeymen Islamic “enemies of freedom” but products of their own “democratic” country’s polices of exclusion and division."<br><br>Jeez -- those words sure rip right through all the conceit, excuses and bullshit that props up our dysfunctional political institutions, in which the state under the failed 'leadership' of the Bush-fronted plutocracy has abrogated its core primary duty to keep its citizens safe and secure; Instead, the Federal (and many state and even local governments) have, to an unprecedented extent, have increasingly partnered with strategically-positioned public and private-sector business interests in the most egregious and incestuous forms of cronyism and limited-partnerships, granting franchises to corporate-robber-barons and parasitically linked to global neocolonial and criminal-syndicate networks and ruthlessly exploiting the military-drug-oil complex's death-and-debt-indenture gravy-train industry.<br><br>Now, the bitter harvest of our heavy investments, of our grossly-squandered resources and wasted national treasures and stolen billions, of our stifled imagination and undentured aspirations, the blood of our most precious future generations' fathers and mothers that has been spilled on futile high-flown adventures in foreign lands for the benefit of a priveleged and well-connected defacto ruling-class, these fruits have come home to us in the form of chronic injustice and the indictment of our misplaced priorities and tendency for blase indifference to critical issues of life and death and suffering -- That is the legacy of our inheritance that today must shame us.<br><br>And too, it must clearly reveal for all whose eyes and heart and mind haven't been totally perverted by the poisons and temptations and vanities of mammon, that our 'leadership' has so greviously, terribly, unquestionably betrayed us --sacrificed for the sake of their insidious, insider secret agenda.<br><br>There is no set of perfect, appropriate words for such an outraged disgrace as we've recently witnessed -- but the Sunday Herald's editorial sure comes damn close.<br><br>-- And now we see yet another horrid consequence of FEMA's criminal misfeasance, as fires burn in New Orleans out-of-control -- How could this NOT have been foreseen and planned for? This boggles the mihd, that such incredible negligence and mismanagement has been allowed to continue --<br><br>Re:<br>US Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., said that FEMA has inexplicably failed to take advantage of offers of help.<br>"I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims - far more efficiently than buses - FEMA again dragged its feet," Landrieu said. "Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency."<br><br>Fire Chertoff and Mike Brown and their Boss, the wannabe Commander-in-Thief President Bush, NOW!!!!<br><br><br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
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that pretty much says it all

Postby maggrwaggr » Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:36 am

George Bush has revealed the ugly truth of America to the world. And to America's own citizens, like myself. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Powerful stuff from the Sunday Herald

Postby Al Gomas » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:15 am

I love the beautiful way she calls him a chimp:<br><br>"When Bush is temporarily propped up on two legs by his people, out of his natural position on all fours with knuckles resting gently on the White House carpet.." <p></p><i></i>
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