The Empire of Vulgarity

[Matilda]

A good article from Sydney's Mike Carlton, which appeared in the
Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday:

"George Bush's second inaugural extravaganza was every bit as
repugnant as I had expected, a vulgar orgy of triumphalism probably
unmatched since Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in
Notre Dame in 1904."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0121-28.htm

He's one of a handful of Australian journos who's not afraid to
speak the truth about the Bush regime, and when he's in good form,
he really fires.

Read and enjoy!

[glitch]

1. I read this yesterday - I love how this guy writes! Thanks for posting.

Especially this sentence:
"Not so this strutting Texan mountebank, with his chimpanzee smirk and his born-again banalities delivered in that constipated syntax that sounds the way cold cheeseburgers look, and his grinning plastic wife, and his scheming junta of neo-con spivs, shamans, flatterers and armchair warmongers, and his sinuous evasions and his brazen lies, and his sleight of hand theft from the American poor, and his rape of the environment, and his lethal conviction that the world must submit to his Pax Americana or be bombed into charcoal."

[atommom]

2. Beautiful!

[Sugarbleus]

3. Holy smokes! Talk about a word smith...

Well done Australia......... *booking this one* Thanks for posting, I'm a little behind on the news.

[drdtroit]

4. Just a tiny correction

Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in 1804

[Matilda]

5. That was my typo, not Mike Carlton's error.

Sorry I didn't see it in time to change it.

[Slyder]

6. Another apt Napoleonic era reference

The Bushies for a long time have reminded me of Talleyrand's comment on the restored Bourbons after 1815: "they have forgotten nothing, and they have learned nothing".

A US invasion of Iran after Iraq, when and if it comes, will likely call to mind the delicious bon mot from Hegel that Karl Marx quotes on the first page of The 18 Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: "history always happens twice, first as tragedy, then as farce."

Both quotes are from memory so forgive me if I don't have them quite right.