CounterPunch
February 14, 2003
He'll Be Remembered as an Asshole
Peaceniks Win War!
By BEN TRIPP
http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp02142003.html
Hey,
gang! We won, if you don't mind Pyrrhic victories. I feel like the guy at
Hiroshima who was in a fart-lighting contest just as the A-bomb went off. His
last words were "beat that". In a topsy-turvy way that would baffle
the Cheshire Cat, we who desire peace will triumph in the event of war. You see,
if there's a clear loser in the pending savagery, it's George W. Bush and his
administration of barking scrotum monsters.
Right now it doesn't look like they've lost.
They'll have their war on Iraq; they will rain bombs down on that godforsaken
patch of petroleum-soaked dirt and before you know it instead of the Iraqi
population being 50% children, it will be 20% children, because kids can't run
as fast as adults. After a few days of hand-to-hand combat through the streets
of once-legendary Baghdad it will all be over. But George never read the Arabian
Nights- too long and too dirty. So he doesn't know that Baghdad is infested with
genies, and we're not talking about the cute blue ones with ADD who talk like
Robin Williams. The ones in Baghdad are the djinn, ancient magical
spirits that inevitably trick their masters into self-destruction. Voila! Or if
you're Mozart, viola. But the effect is the same. George W. Bush has already
lost the most important battle of all: the battle for the future.
Setting aside money and power for a moment (sometimes I
do), what really matters to a guy like George is that he should someday join the
pantheon of Great Americans whose marble busts inhabit the halls of our nation's
capitol. He's got all the power and money he could ever misuse in a thousand
lifetimes. What he needs now is to be honored by posterity. This is where he
loses and we win. One could argue that George is a marble-headed bust already:
that's as close as he'll come to being pals with posterity. Posteriority, yes.
Posterity, no. He will not be remembered as a brave warrior, a noble patriot, a
statesman, a father to his country, a son of God, or even a well-meaning
delusional psychotic. He will be remembered as an asshole- and that's exactly
how it will read in the history textbooks, although they'll spell it a**hole so
as to avoid mantling the kiddies' cheeks with blushes.
In the future, assuming we can still hope for one,
George XLIII's reign will be derided, scorned, mocked, and other words to that
effect. jeered and disparaged at the very least, maybe even subject to
opprobrium. We-- the unlikely alliance acting against his lunatic regime, we
Liberals and Conservatives, Libertarians and Progressives and Pentagon generals
and disenfranchised veterans, mothers, fathers, mimes, entomologists,
podiatrists and transsexuals, all sons and daughters of a government that has
turned its back on the principles upon which we were nurtured from cradle to
shallow grave-- we will bask in the hallowed light of kind remembrance, not
George. A fat lot of good it will do us, but there we are. I didn't say victory
would be sweet. Those kids who took a bullet at Kent State? Martin Luther King?
The Kennedy brothers? King Kong? They had to die at the hands of The Man to get
immortal- it's a mug's game. George W. Bush, how will we loathe thee? Let me
count the ways.
Foremost among his epic buggerations, history will
record that Bush precipitated modern America's first utterly unprovoked war and
rekindled the arms race. Saddam's not even a communist. A war of opportunity,
possibly World War III: this is what Bush will be remembered for, not the
inevitable victory over some whiskery homunculus in Baghdad. And that's not all.
Another first: George will be remembered for reversing
the outcome of both the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. He will be
remembered for mixing Church and State: his invisible cloud superhero and your
tax dollars, together at last. He will be remembered for nose-diving the economy
from a great height. For record deficits and massive bureaucratic expansion-
he'll knock Reagan off the charts. For 50 bankrupt states. He will be remembered
for turning his back on treaties. For insulting great nations. For calling the
leader of Russia 'Pooty Poot'. For oppressing the weak and unleashing the mighty
upon them. For eviscerating the Bill of Rights, and for secret detentions. For
ignoring the desperate environmental crisis which grips the globe like a gut-spasming
case of Montezuma's Revenge. For slipping the government's unclean fingers back
into the womb of every woman in America. For stealing the election of 2000. For
rigging the election of 2002, and probably for canceling the election of 2004.
Need more? You can't spin the history of the future, which will read something
like this:
Bush, G.W. 43d American President (locum tenens)
In private life an unsuccessful oil executive,
George W. Bush was installed as president of the United States by the Supreme
Court in the year 2000. At first an ineffectual president both at home and
abroad, he was invested following the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001
(see sidebar) with enormous political authority. Seizing opportunity in the
name of fighting terrorism, Bush advanced an aggressive agenda to secure the
world's natural resources for private interests, especially the petroleum
industry. After initiating a disastrous program of economic, military and
diplomatic actions coupled with severe domestic security measures, Bush's
administration collapsed under a wave of scandals. The impact of his
presidency on America's international standing is still felt today. According
to an obscure satirist of the period, "George W. Bush was the a**hole
that ate the world."
See also Stalin, J. and Hitler, A.
Just you wait and see. The genie is out of the bottle,
and this is one bottle George won't put down. Us real patriots, the
dissidents, have already won- and we'll get our country back someday. What's
left of it. Hell, in ten years we'll be able to travel overseas again. History
will smile on us. Meanwhile, buckle up your poniards, because we may have won
the war, but the battle has only just begun.