The CEO President
Mark Morford makes an interesting point: Don't criticize Bush for doing what he was hired to do
Not being a Major Corporation or the CEO thereof, I think I can be pardoned for wondering when I get a president for me. When do the people in Louisiana get their president? And how is the US going to get by while we're waiting him out and (please God) finding someone who's interested in The Rest of Us to put in his place? Look, I know that politicians have to have an ear out for the needs of big business and the money people. But from where I sit, Bush is ideologically programmed to believe that big business is all that matters--he doesn't have an ear out, he's theirs, body and soul. And the bodies and souls and property of the individuals in the Louisiana Gulf* just don't seem to count.
*I've had a *ping* go off in my head for the last two weeks every time a newscaster says something about "flooding in the Gulf." For the last dozen years "Gulf War" has meant the Middle East. Now we've got our own, more local "Gulf War." If you wrote this in a book, it would be considered heavy-handed.
But it's so unfair, isn't it, to attack poor Dubya like this? After all, Bush has always been the rich white man's president. He is the CEO president, the megacorporate businessman's friend, the thug of the religious right, a big reservoir-tipped condom for all energy magnates.
Not being a Major Corporation or the CEO thereof, I think I can be pardoned for wondering when I get a president for me. When do the people in Louisiana get their president? And how is the US going to get by while we're waiting him out and (please God) finding someone who's interested in The Rest of Us to put in his place? Look, I know that politicians have to have an ear out for the needs of big business and the money people. But from where I sit, Bush is ideologically programmed to believe that big business is all that matters--he doesn't have an ear out, he's theirs, body and soul. And the bodies and souls and property of the individuals in the Louisiana Gulf* just don't seem to count.
*I've had a *ping* go off in my head for the last two weeks every time a newscaster says something about "flooding in the Gulf." For the last dozen years "Gulf War" has meant the Middle East. Now we've got our own, more local "Gulf War." If you wrote this in a book, it would be considered heavy-handed.
posted by Madeleine Robins at 8:34 AM
4 Comments:
The novel version of this country parted ways with plausibility around the time we got a stolen election and the destruction of the World Trade Center. I could just see myself telling someone in my critique group that they had to choose, on or the other, because no one's going to believe both and isn't that a bit heavy handed anyway?
You know how most classic SF novels dealing with a dystopic or apocalyptic future, generally start way after the decline of modern civilization into barbarism, etc.? There are times I feel like I'm living in the SF novel that takes place in the period where the slide begins. I find myself going over the survival skills I have--not for an immediate emergency, but for the long haul. I can sew, knit and weave, I can cook, I can lay an oak floor. Not sure any of those skills would buy my way into the Walled City that is the last bastion of civilization, though.
I can write.
I'm not afraid of heavy lifting.
I fear that's about it.
Oh, and I can make rope and maybe if I'm lucky start a fire without matches.
Not sure any of that is quite enough.
Hey, you've been a Scout leader. I'll bet you have skills you're not counting. Anyway, if I run the Walled City, you're in. Whee! Patronage is fun!
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