BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE. WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you. VETERAN? Need to know how to access more of your benefits? Need help buying a home for your family? These folks can help: VA LOAN INFORMATION and VETERANS' MORTGAGES

by H. Scott Prosterman

G21 Contributing Writer

To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Chinese and Russian, copy and paste the complete URL("http://www.g21.net/amdream92.html") and enter it in the box after you click through.

canaries of the coal mine

G21 #423: LIGHT SABER AMERICAN DREAMS G21 AFRICA JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. It contains more jokes than not. G21 E-MAIL NEWSLETTER G21 MIDEAST G21 POLL IRISH EYES MY GLASS HOUSE RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT VOX POPULI RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ARCHIVES. LAST WEEK's EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUES BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE. WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you. We know you're lazy. Here's a button for a quick translation of this page. Just click on the flag for your country. You're welcome! OR TRY THIS GOOGLE TRANSLATION SERVICE.

Berkeley, CA, USA - First ladies and first mothers reveal a lot about our leaders. Laura B, managed to get to Lafayette, LA, five days after Katrina hit to give aid and comfort. She kept calling the town "laugh-a-yet," and the Hurricane, Corina. Through it all she couldn't get that stupid grin off of her face. This was s'posed to be serious, ya'll.

Barbara B., the Queen Mother of All Americas, graced the world's largest homeless shelter, formerly known as the Houston Astrodome. She actually said, and I swear I'm not making this up, "most of them are better off."

Oh, her Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Boy King and Wife of King Emeritus, has encapsulated the family values she imparted to her Prince-son before he became Boy King. If she's any kind of historian, I'm sure she read up on Mrs. Machiavelli and Marie Antoinette's mom before granting that interview.

Let me say this and make it perfectly clear: Barbara B. is no Marie Antoinette. Anyone who says that isn't being fair to Queen Marie.

Let me just say that Queen Marie was misunderstood and history wasn't kind to her. She got a bad rap, was a victim of ugly rumors and never actually said, "Let them eat cake." She hung with the wrong crowd and got mixed up in a bad mess. Then she paid with her head but not before being treated very badly. (Southerners love euphemisms; Tennessee Williams knew all about it.)

One of the ugliest rumors put it this way: the peasants were starving and a courtier pointed out that they had no bread. She was alleged to have said, "Let them eat cake." Turns out, she either: a.) never said it at all; b.) was actually referring to "brioche", which in that day was not a pastry but a rustic from of bread residue left in baker's ovens. To her, it was an option. Enough about her.

And don't go calling Bush Jr. a modern day Machiavelli; that would be a terrible slight to all the fine Machiavellis in this world.

He got a bad rap too. All that stuff about The Prince? Well, he wrote it, but he didn't really mean it. He wrote it to try to curry favor with those mean Medici's in 16th Century Italy but it kind of backfired. Medici didn't like The Prince, so Mach iavelli was out of a job. Still he got all the credit for writing the mean-spirited missive about how to use raw, unchecked power to keep one's pesky subjects in check.

In the 16th and 17th Centuries, note-taking and accurate record keeping weren't as reliable as what we have now. I know I show my age when I say they had no cable or Internet in those days. So we don't have any actual footage or recording of Queen Marie saying "Let them eat cake." Machiavelli didn't have a chance to go on "Meet the Press" or "Larry King Live" and say, "Well, I wrote it but I didn't mean it. You see I was trying to play a little political game to win my job back, but it kind of backfired."

But there's no denying that Barbara B., Queen Mother of All Americas, actually said, "most of them are better off."

She first said it in an NPR interview and then it was all over the cable and Internet.

All right, I misquoted her. What she actually said was, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

I'm sure they're laughing all the way to Laugh-a-yet.?

---

And while Machivelli also got mixed up with the wrong people, he fell victim to some wrongful attributions. However, there's denying that Bush Jr. said:

• "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." 9/1/05
  
  
• "More and more of our imports come from overseas."
  
  
• "After all, Europe is America's closest ally." 2/22/05
  
  
• "Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all over the country." 9/6/04."
  
  
• "That's why I went to Congress last September and proposed fundamental supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts." 9/4/04.
  
  
• "And so during these holiday seasons, we thank our blessings." 12/10/04
  
  
• "Our enemies ... never stop thinking about new says to harm our country and people, and neither do we." 8/5/04
  
  
• "We are in no way, shape or form should a human being play G-d." 1/14/05

Before 9/11, the media didn't miss a chance to skewer Bush Jr. for his sins of that syntax and usage thing.

He didn't stop doing that after 9/11, they just stopped reporting them because they decided to anoint him as a Great Leader and didn't want to embarrass him. He got a free pass for a lot of mistakes, some of which were funny, others tragic. He also had the support and sympathy of the entire world for a few short weeks until he loused it all up.

Bush Jr. happened to be president when our country experienced its worst un-natural disaster in history. The media bought into this "unity" thing and stopped criticizing him, even when it was clearly warranted.

If there is any thin silver lining to come out of this shameful episode in American history, it is that the free pass is over for Bush and he's now being held accountable on EVERYTHING for which he was given a pass between 9/11/01 and 9/1/05. Hopefully, it also means that the Republican trend of accomplishing its Draconian mean-spirited agenda is over.

We can't blame everything on Bush Jr. He was only following the lead of Ronald Reagan and Poppy Bush. Thanks to Reagan, it became fashionable and popular to end many important government services. President Sunny Disposich/Morning In America accomplished the following:

1.) Cutting off free lunches to poor school children and pre-natal support programs for low-income mothers. It sounded good to say "There are no free lunches" but infants, young children and young mothers died because of it. Ending disability benefits for many people who had an obvious need. As a result, needless, slow deaths occurred.

2.) Declared ketchup to be a vegetable in order to argue that his new school lunch program did, indeed, include vegetables. Result: children died of malnutrition.

3.) Empowering the ayaltollahs. Not just the ones in Iran but also the ones named Falwell, Robertson and Swaggert. Result: the Age of Enlightenment is over and good science now takes a back seat to political sensationalism.

4.) This occurred after Reagan empowered Ayatollah Khomeini. Reagan and Ollie North cut a deal to KEEP AMERICAN HOSTAGES IN CAPTIVITY until the day he was sworn in as a means of rubbing Jimmy Carter's nose in it.

5.) Ignored the AIDS epidemic until it became a global crisis.

6.) Initiated the trend of destroying government by underfunding it. Republican enmity toward public education was never veiled or coded. They always hated the fact that the black and underprivileged got anything free, including an education.

7.) Initiated the trend of placing stewards in charge of agencies whose expressed intention was to destroy the functions of that agency: William French Smith (Civil Rights), Ann Gorsuch and James Watt (EPA). Result; we don't even blink now when Bush Jr. does it.

8.) The Legal Aide Corporation was eviscerated, as were federal job training and employment programs.

9.) Under Reagan, the US military became a tool of political jingoism not seen since Theodore Roosevelt. Superfluous incursions occurred in Grenada and Panama, among other countries. This did a lot to boost ratings, but not much for national security. Bush Jr. always knew he wanted to be a War President, not just any president.

10.) Under Reagan, the federal budget suddenly became a tool to eliminate the many programs that Roosevelt and LBJ initiated to help people get food, find housing and jobs and get medical care. "Eat the poor," was an expression I often heard in the late 1980's and 90's among Young Republicans.

What began under Reagan blossomed under both Bushs; the aftermath of Katrina is the ultimate result. They got what they wanted in many ways. Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) actually said, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Obviously, Congressman Baker didn't read much Tennessee Williams and learn the southern skill of euphemisms. But his candor is refreshing.

Reagan's charm and wit actually sold these draconian nightmares as being good for the country. People bought it because it saved them money and he sounded so clever. For the past 25 years, the American Media has tacitly defended this mean-spirited agenda by way of short-term amnesia. A day of expressed outrage means nothing if there is no follow up. The Reagan Revolution was carried on by Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.

May it be written that the Reagan Revolution ended with thousands of deaths along the Gulf Coast. The tragedy of the aftermath of Katrina illustrated the success of the Reagan Revolution, the federal government is no longer capable of rescuing thousands of people from a natural disaster or caring for them. As a result, many poor, underprivileged people died slow, agonizing and preventable deaths. (This is reality, not gratuitous sensationalism for partisan gain.)

I think Marie Antoinette and Niccolo Machiavelli would have handled the situation better. History gave them a bad rap. The media has been all too forgiving and kind to Bush Jr. But now, history is quickly catching up with him and his free pass is over.