"Just like the '30s, it might take financial disasters and major policy victories that address them"

from In These Times:



Features > August 15, 2008
The Mess is the Message
By Adam Doster



Since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005, the president’s approval rating has hovered around a paltry 30 percent.

Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in mid-July, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed the sentiments of many Americans when she called President Bush’s reign “a total failure.”

Historians agree. In a survey conducted in April by the History News Network, 61 percent said Bush would go down as the nation’s worst president.

But is everyone using the wrong metric for success? That’s what cultural critic and best-selling author Thomas Frank argues in his new book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule (Metropolitan, August 2008). It’s misguided, Frank writes, to view the remarkable misgovernment of the past eight years — skyrocketing inequality and insecurity, the outsourcing of primary government functions, the demolition of the regulatory state, unprecedented corruption — as the practical failure of well-intentioned conservative policy prescriptions or the work of a few greedy public servants.

This period, rather, was a triumph, the apotheosis of a movement that fetishizes the free market, treats the business class as its primary constituent and views the liberal state as its bête noire.

“They have not done these awful things because they are bad conservatives,” writes Frank. “They have done them because they are good conservatives.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3851/the_mess_is_the_message/

they didn't fail to help nola because they tried and simply couldn't pull it off.
they failed to help nola because THEY MEANT to not help nola.

they wanted to fuck over a bunch of democrats and get them to move to places like texas, which could absorb the without going blue, leaving lousiana red.

these putzes in power are not incompetent, they're evil.

My heart goes out to the Crescent City, but there's been far more done purposefully.

-Hoot

if it were all purely incompetent, you would think that they would have done things that tactically hurt republican communities or interests from time to time, but they've been entirely consistent in serving their narrow interests at the expense of even the pretense of decency or fairness.

the only thing that they've done that's genuinely hurt the republicans is to be SO single-minded in pursuit of republican interest as to undermine the "brand". they made it too obvious that those in control of the republican party are merely USING their rank-and-file to help pretend that the oligarchy/plutocracy/tyrrany they love somehow has near 50% support.

We New Orleanians do NOT call it the "Big Easy!!!"

I loves me some mud bugs too!

-Hoot

On Edit: I went on down to de audobon zoo, an they all axe fer you!

Es la bas
Crawfish Etoufee

Day all axt fuh you

I wennon down to dee Audubon Zoo
An day all axt fuh you
day all axt fuh you, (fuh who?)
Well day even inquired about chuh'

I wennon down to dee Audubon Zoo
And day all axt fuh you
Duh mounkeys ast, duh tiguhs ast
And duh elephant axt me too

Andouille

Red beans. Rice.

Bomp Bomp Bomp
BOMP! BOMP!
Buh Deeba Doomp Beemp Bomp
BOMP! BOMP!
Buh Deeba Doomp Beemp Bomp

Es la bas (Es la bas) (Es la bas)
Red beans n' rice
Creole gumbo

I wennon up to duh Big Ol' Sky
And day all axt fuh you (fuh who?)
day all axt fuh you,
Well day even inquired about chuh

I wennon up to duh Big Ol' Sky
And day all axt fuh you
duh ducks ast , duh eagles ast
And duh buzzard axt me too

Do it to it
Es la bas (Es la bas)

Laissez bon temps rouler

Bomp Bomp Bomp
BOMP! BOMP!
Buh Deeba Doomp Beemp Bomp
BOMP! BOMP!
Buh Deeba Doomp Beemp Bomp

Hey la bas (hey la bas)
Grits n' fish drippins
Un e crawfish bischien l'etouffee,
boil willin' n' tomato pase

do it!
puh-chall hans tuh-gethuh.

I wennon down to duh deep blue sea
And day all axd fuh you (fuh who?)
day all axt fuh you, (fuh me?)
Well day even enquired about chuh.

I wennon down to duh deep blue sea
And day all axd fuh you (fuh me?)
duh shark ast , duh whale ast
And duh barracuda axt me too

day all axt fuh you (in nuh mornin)
all axt fuh you (early inuh mornin)
Evybody der
wanna know where
day all axt fuh you

day all axt fuh you (early inuh mornin)
day all axt fuh you (early inuh eevnan)
Evybody der
wanna know where
day all axt fuh you

yeah.

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