One of the reasons yours truly didn't mind being "fired" from the local Southern Baptist Institute Of Mind Control was that more often than not, someone's demented mindset kept getting in the way of the truth.

How long are the American people going to put up with this?

It is amazing to watch what I view as "my country" disappear into a haze of propaganda, fundamentalist vitriol, and radical economic fundamentalism that equates any tax with theft and finds no government to be the best government (yet claims to eschew anarchy).

I can't help but think about when this process started.  And it did start somewhere.  We may never know for certain exactly where and when, but if we could achieve omniscience for a moment, we'd spot it.

From readings, it seems that the invisible part of this process--the seed money, the initial recruitment of articulate lunatics to play the front men, etc.)--began shortly after the 1964 election in which Goldwater went down in flames.

But the visible part, the part that really began the repositioning of this country from one in which there was at least some effort to act together as a society to one one in which government was inherently and irredeemably bad, while personal greed and blind short term self interest is viewed as the highest calling of mankind, really started with Reagan.

A confrontation this morning between an East Texas church and a New Orleans evacuee centered around a sign out in front of Woodland Hills Baptist Church on Old Jacksonville Road in Tyler, Texas:

The sign reads:
"THE BIG EASY IS THE MODERN DAY SODDOM AND GAMORRAH"

Attempts to sidestep federal accountability for needless deaths of American citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by calling it "the blame game" and pretending it's politics as usual totally miss the point.  Roughly 50 percent of Americans did not vote; however, nearly 100 percent of Americans have seen the photos and crying reporters describing the scores of dead elderly and children on the street.   They are outraged, and their outrage grows daily at an administration whose only expeditious action takes place when it's for political reasons, not to save citizens' lives.

Katrina has come and gone, but her effects will linger for years, and people will remember this disaster, our children will learn about it in history classes, and the economic effects will hurt the US more than we can even begin to fathom.

But what of our grinning commander in chief? What of lacadaisical leader of the free world? Well, he'll have an excuse for his failed presidency.

The entire debacle in New Orleans reveals exactly what is wrong with our would-be-illustrious president:

 He governs as only one who disdains government could; when your major genuine political aim is to shrink the size and role of government, you appoint people based on how well they can help you do that. Witness John Bolton and so many, many others.  Mike Brown, the head of FEMA, not only has virtually no experience for that job, but was FIRED from a prior job with a show horse organization for, as I understand it, running the group so poorly that they kept getting sued.

He favors the whole idea of "winning" more than he does governing.  Winning the election is a game, a contest, with excitement; governing is hard, often boring, and those people with microphones and pads ask so many questions!

He is a child of pampering and privilege, incapable of real understanding of what life is like for the have-nots of the world.  His professed compassion appears to be less than skin deep, a fact which becomes evident to many when he has to respond to situations where anger and defiance can't be trotted out: Cindy Sheehan, the New Orleans flood, etc.

He is a basically simplistic, superficial thinker, who understands anger and revenge far better than any other human motivations and emotions.  If only the hurricane and levee break were living creatures who could be "hunted down" (at least in rhetoric).

Will this be his undoing?  Will people finally understand that there is a crucial role for government in everyday lives, a role that this administration butchers daily?

I don't know for sure.  I think there's a chance that this is the tipping point, but that will depend largely on whether the public as a whole is angry enough to resist the extensive and well-financed propaganda blitz that is likely being planned as I write, which will throw all the far right's ammunition into deflecting the blame elsewhere.  If that fails, look for some action or policy to deflect attention.

The good news is that the media once again seems to be functioning as a watchdog.  At least for the moment.

[apologies for the blank entry before this one--never hit the ENTER button by mistake]

Seems God has little else to do but throw down modern versions of thunderbolts at the spinning earth, all with the goal of furthering the earthly work of his chosen ones.  Of course, there's a whole lot of dispute over exactly who the chosen ones are.  It seems that everybody wants the chosen ones to be them, and wants the unchosen ones to be everybody else. Odd how that works.

In any case, the earthly representatives of God have commenced issuing their messages, and providing their responses, in the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the US in some time, maybe ever.  Seems that "natural" disaster means "God-caused" disaster to a lot of folks.  And those same folks know exactly why God caused that disaster:

1. The hurricane & its aftermath have been described on al Qaeda-linked Web sites as evidence of the "wrath of God" striking America,"--New Orleans collects dead as officials dodge blame
Sun Sep 4, 2005 Rueters: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&storyID=2005-09-04T162316Z_01_H
O481242_RTRUKOC_0_US-WEATHER-KATRINA-WRAP.xml

2.  But some American fundamentalists have a remarkably similar view, that differs only as to the behavior that ticked off the lofty one:
    "Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From `Girls Gone Wild' to `Southern Decadence', New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same," he continued.
    New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Gras parties where thousands of drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts. This annual event sparked the creation of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series.
    "Let us pray for and help those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said. "May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage concluded.
http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2005/08/religious_right.html
Repent America's web site is

3.  Or maybe the whole thing was just an opportunity to get a lot of people miserable enough to be receptive to God in the form of his earthly representatives.  And Americans are not a people to let opportunity slip away:
    "God is at work, and we are called by Him to Serve His Will. There was a purpose for Katrina, let us not fail to fulfill our duties."--Posted on Free Republic, 09/02/2005, in comment announcing that the Gideons were sending 40,000 "Personal Witnessing Testaments (New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs) to be distributed at the Astrodome and other relief centers in Houston."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1475667/posts

In the Houston Chronicle (which should know our illustrious president well), CLAY ROBISON recently called Mr. Push "the photo-op champ." In storm's wake, how well will Texas honchos lead?, 9/3/05;

I wonder why.  A sampling of reports from other sources on the current activities of our illustrious leader:

German television is reported to have said that the president's appearance at a food distribution center was completely staged, with the supposed distribution point torn down as soon as Bush and the American Press were out of sight:
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html

Food intended to be airdropped to survivors in two areas of new Orleans was held back until after the president left New Orleans, because air traffic in the area was halted for security reasons while the president was there:
http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20050903214041794

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu sent out a press release claiming that repair activity at the breached 17th street levee in New Orleans during Bush's visit was merely another photo op, saying: "But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government."
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/bush-faked-levee-repair-for-photo-op.html

There are reports that the women that Bush hugged for the camera in Mississippi were not even Biloxi locals, with some speculation that they were looters who were just individuals wandering in the area that were quickly recruited as props for Bush's faux compassion photo-op.
a letter to the editor of the Chattanoogan newspaper;

Once upon a time, there was this really big nation...

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