(Breslin) Insane Reality Spins the Head

[bemildred]

I am looking at a portrait of absolute national insanity yesterday morning. We are in Fort Totten in Bayside, in Queens, but it is a symbol of what is going on in this country, and what this country is causing in the world.

The president is a dumb guy who gets people killed. He and his people forget he lost the last election and had it stolen for him. If you could see through his endless rapid blinking on Friday night, he seemed to show that he is not completely sane. He has a religious belief in his lies. In the Friday night debate, George Bush, who lied America into war, did say one truthful thing: "This is going to be a long, long war."

There are five buses parked yesterday at the curb in front of a two-story brick building of the 'th Quartermasters Company, an Army Reserves unit. They are going to Iraq.

Standing at the buses are families all crying openly. A grandmother cries. Next to her, a daughter cries. Clinging to them are little children, bewildered and weeping. A man with a wet face has a sleeping baby on his shoulder. On these buses, a parent - the old rules shattered, 55 of them being women - shipping out of here for Iraq. A woman with centuries of Central America on her face says the only man in her house is the young man on the bus.

Common Dreams

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. That is so sad and so terrible.

Our soldiers are dying for nothing; our president is a war criminal, and we have become a rogue nation. I thought I'd seen the worst of it in the '60s. I never thought it could ever come to anything like this.

[acmavm]

2. The truth is too ugly for bush* supporters to face. Their leader is insane

<snip>

The president is a dumb guy who gets people killed. He and his people forget he lost the last election and had it stolen for him. If you could see through his endless rapid blinking on Friday night, he seemed to show that he is not completely sane. He has a religious belief in his lies. In the Friday night debate, George Bush, who lied America into war, did say one truthful thing: "This is going to be a long, long war."

<snip>

[Miss Authoritiva]

3. Breslin is in his (second) prime.

Bush's true religion: "He has a religious belief in his lies."

[Minstrel Boy]

4. "Blood remains on the hands"

Breslin has such an aggrieved sanity, and he has these fuckers' number.

On the eave of the invasion he wrote a piece called "Blood Remains on the Hands," which I've often thought of since. If there's a history written a hundred years from now, I hope it's remembered, and read every year on the war's anniversary.

...

Blood from a bombed baby in Baghdad goes over the wide choking sands and it crosses mountains and then great land masses and then suddenly, over a channel, it is in Westminster, in London, and people look at the sidewalk and wonder where these large blood spots came from, and the officer on duty in front of 10 Downing Street looks at the door handle and worries, how did this get here without me seeing this and having it cleaned? He has a servant rush to the door with cloth and polish and he wipes the blood and polishes the door handles and then walks off and the guard happens to glance at the door handle and the blood is back, smeared bright new red over the polished handle.

The baby's blood is off to rush over the ocean, a strange red cloud poised to rain and it floats over the green of the Washington parks and goes down a sloping street to the State Department, where as a man opens a car door for Colin Powell he suddenly notices blood on the door handle and he quickly unfurls a handkerchief and wipes the handle and Powell gets in and the car goes off and the man who held the door is left in the driveway and he sees the red that is still on Powell's door handle.

When he leaves the car, Powell does not notice the door handle as he touches it himself. The blood red cloud goes over the river to the Pentagon and it suddenly pours on the car that takes Rumsfeld to an appearance, and this time the blood is left on the door handles of both sides. A sergeant wipes. The blood is there when Rumsfeld gets home.

...

At Camp David, Bush notices blood on his right hand and he goes to the bathroom to wash it off and he holds his hands under the water and rubs them with a bar of soap and then puts them under the water and he takes them out and holds them out to dry with a towel. He glances at his hands and sees the blood of the dead baby is bright on his fingers. He mutters and washes the hands again.

He will do it again. Again this year and then next year and through all the years because the blood remains forever on the hands.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0331-11.htm

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Sort of like Lady Macbeth, except she saw blood because she felt guilty.

Bush won't ever see the blood on his hands because he's a megalomaniacal religious nutjob with no conscience.

[Malva Zebrina]

6. this is so good

this entire war has been so cleansed of any human connection that it seems to be, as it is reported, or better yet not reported, is so manufactured with sound bites and PR, that it is easy to overlook the real people , the human beings, their families, their love,their sadness, their grief and bewilderment.

This article brings that all into focus.


These are not merely statistics. These are human beings put into a place by a maniac who is thier proud war president. A coward himself, who was a deserter during wartime. A prick of a little boy who fancies himself in charge.

[Peanut Gallery]

7. That column has stayed with me too

It's as relevant now as it was a year ago.