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I NEVER THOUGHT …
BY PETER KURTH (published 04.11.05)
I never thought anything
could get me yearning for the good old days of Terri Schiavo-mania, but if
anything did, it was the death of the Pope.
“Major news media
around the world devoted 10 times as many stories to Pope John Paul II's
death as they did to the re-election of President Bush,” according to
an AP wire report last week.
“The Global Language
Monitor, which scans the Internet for the use of specific words or phrases
using Roman characters, found 35,000 new stories on the pope in the 24
hours after his death. That compares
with about 3,500 new stories on Bush within a day of his re-election and
1,000 new stories on former President Reagan within a day of his death last
year.”
Pressed to account for this
unprecedented glut of Pope-o-philia, Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global
Language, “said the jump reflected the Roman Catholic pontiff's
influence.”
Come again? More influential than Reagan? More “influential” than
Bush? Somehow, I doubt it.
"He was tied in
history,” Payack stammered, “probably more than any pope in
contemporary time." John Paul
II being the only pope “in
contemporary time” -- and “history” meaning nothing to
anyone outside the academy and a few stragglers who might recall it -- this
isn’t surprising. We
don’t know what some other pope “in contemporary time”
might have been like.
Sheesh! I’d say that’s the extent of
my Pope-bashing, but it isn’t, quite.
I regard the late pontiff as neither wonderful nor more appalling
than any other provincial prelate elevated to supreme power in a secretive
and reactionary institution. Like
many, John Paul II outlived his century, which was the 19th. Ask any woman who’s been told to
lie down and take it, any boy “interfered with” by a priest, or
anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the middle of an AIDS epidemic
– which is to say, an awful lot of people.
OK, enough! If “the media” can divert
their attention so quickly, without pause, so can I. I never thought, either, that I’d
feel sorry for Prince Charles, not to mention Camilla, the
“Rottweiler,” but I do right now. I can’t believe the knives that are
out for this man (and I was a great fan of his first wife). If I were Charles, which I’m not,
I’d have told my mother to attend the Pope’s funeral herself
and gone right ahead with my wedding plans.
But, of course, as Her Majesty once winked to Diana, “Charles
is hopeless.”
How’s that for family
values? People should stop thinking
about “the royals” as if they were “the same as
us.” They’re not. If they are, there’s no point in
having them – as witness Laura Bush, the “First Lady,”
who traveled to Afghanistan
recently for a whole six hours, backed by the full might of the U.S.
military and the Secret Service, and afterward declared, "I knew we'd
be safe. Afghanistan
is safe. There are certainly parts
of it that aren't right now. But, in
general, I think it is a very safe place to travel."
Uh-huh. I never thought I’d end up hating
Laura Bush, because I never thought I’d have to think about someone
like Laura Bush, much less her grinning, back-slapping, mentally challenged
fraud of a husband.
“Left-wing” columnist Sheila Samples, in a recent
editorial, quotes Dubya verbatim at one of his stage-managed stumps for
Social Security “reform” in Tampa,
Florida. A woman in the (pre-selected) audience
asked Ding-Dong to explain what this revolting Republican scam was really
about, “in words that she could understand,” and this was the
reply:
"Because the -- all
which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated,
for example, is on the table.
Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price
increases. There's a series of parts
of the formula that are being considered.
And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting
those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has
been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been
promised. Does that make any sense to you?
It's kind of muddled.”
Kind of. Reading it, you can actually feel the
Leader of the Free World groping to remember whatever it was they told him
before they let him off the ranch.
The full extent of the (second) Bush disaster, if we’re lucky
enough to survive it, won’t be known for many years. But the responsibility for it lies
squarely with a “media” so craven, so besotted with money,
power and “access,” so rife with phony pundits, talking heads,
vicious blondes, gloating voices and drooling “experts” that it
will not – it cannot – confess its own complicity in the
destruction of the American state.
And, oh, yes –
here’s the first Mrs. Bush, Barbara, “America’s
Favorite Grandmother” and one of the wealthiest women on the planet,
helping Junior sock it to the poor at another Florida
rally for Social Security “reform.”
“I’m here because
your father and I have 17 grandchildren,” this pearl-encrusted
monster explained, fawning to a man so rude and graceless she
couldn’t allow him anywhere near the Queen of England when H.M. dined
at the White House in 1989.
“And we want to know, is someone going to do something about
it?”
Too late, Granny – way
too late. Dubya, as always, got his
own way, accosting Her Majesty despite all efforts to stop it.
“I’m the black
sheep of my family,” he grinned. “Who’s yours?”
“None of your
business,” the Queen replied.
And those, my friends, really were the days.
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