World's Laziest Journalist

September 12, 2005

By Bob Patterson

The staunch Bush supporters responded quickly, with high dudgeon and righteous indignation, to the charges that the slow arrival of the disaster relief efforts in the New Orleans area was racially motivated.

Ironically, for this columnist, that brought to mind an article in the Wall Street Journal that was published around the time the O. J. Simpson trial was about to begin.  The story informed readers that when an innocent person is accused such a victim usually responds with a stunned disbelief and a low-key reply, but that when a guilty person is accused of malfeasance, it is usually rebuffed with a vitriolic display of contempt for the "insult" along the lines of "I am absolutely, 100% not guilty!"

The conservative talk show hosts were quick to fall into a lockstep implementation of the standard Republican talking points about rugged self-reliant individuals are needed when disaster strikes.  [Is it ironic when they all say the same thing, in just about the same way, about rugged individualism?]  Then, they jumped onto reciting the catechism cant about drug crazed Negroes looting, raping, and shooting at emergency workers, being the reasons the evacuation process was delayed.

The underlying message (I could be wrong) seemed to be: When disaster strikes, you're on your own, buy guns, and vote Republican when order is restored.

A little while before the hurricane hit Louisiana, one of the talk show clones ("If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all.") tipped off listeners about the pivotal issue of the 2006 elections.  [Isn't it odd, how the conservatives pick the issues they want and then blithely ignore any efforts by the Democrats to insert any other topic into the various races (conservative pun alert!)?]  It was indicated that the pivotal issue would be the porous borders and that the influx of folks over the Southern border would become the focus of all the Republican efforts to swell their control of all three branches of the government. 

So, when the drug crazed Negroes came along, efforts to manipulate the voters through fear reopened an issue that has worked well for the Republicans in the past:  law'n'order.

[Why haven't any of the big league columnists asked this question: Could the Bush team have been hoping to stir up a riot at the Superdome and/or Convention Center in hopes of solidifying the grounds for making law'n'order the top priority issue for the 2006 elections?  Why haven't they asked?  Perhaps that's because big corporate donors to various election campaigns are also sponsors who run ads on the various networks?]

How could anyone accuse a member of the family that has been part of the history of Silverado, Broward Savings & Loan, and Union Banking Corporation of stooping that low?  Do we have to go into the particulars of George W. Bush's grandfather and his association with Fritz Thyssen?  (Some folks get very good at expressing righteous indignation.)  Does doing business with the man who helped finance the beginning of the career of Germany's Chancellor for life, automatically make one a racist?  Good question!  We'll have to assign the fact checker to find out if the Third Reich had segregated bathrooms and fountains.  Did the Nazis believe in separate but equal or where they for integration?  We've never heard any stories of just where the Negroes were supposed to sit on the busses in the Southern part of Germany during the Nineteen Thirties.  Was the German Army in WWII integrated or where there special segregate units for the Negroes?  How could we accuse the Third Reich of being racist if they did not have segregated units in their military?  Maybe they did? 

Let's get back to the topic of New Orleans.

[Did anyone notice that at first details on the news broadcasts about the number of fatalities and the extent of damage from Hurricane Katrina were few and far between, but the conservative talk show hosts seemed to be fully informed about all the various incidents of drug-crazed Negroes raping, looting, and killing?  Did that information come via "secret" reliable sources inside areas without any electricity, or cell phone service?  Did they get their inside information via mental telepathy, or directly from the Republican in charge of the day's talking points for talk shows?]

The conservative talk show hosts hinted that the folks who stayed in New Orleans were either too stupid or too lazy to leave.  The photos of the folks waiting for water and food at the Superdome pushed viewers toward just what conclusion they should make.  [As this paragraph is being written Bill O'Reilly just said that he wouldn't be caught on top of a roof waiting.  He would be smart enough to get out.  He informed his listeners that the Government can't protect them from looters.  Get a gun!  This is going to happen again!  (This reference is to the first hour of his radio program on September 7, 2005.)]

Immediately after the arrival of the refugees from New Orleans in various other towns, the issue of looting, carjacking, and murders came to the forefront in the various host cities.  Are there police reports to verify this?  When a pro-Democrat caller makes a broad generalization, the conservative talk show hosts immediately demand ("Sperchen Sie mir bitte!") that three specific examples be cited.  Again it seems they live by the maxim: "Don't do as I do; do as I order."

Let's take a look at the charge about babies being raped in the restrooms at the Superdome.  Did the babies go off by themselves and come back and say: "You're never gonna believe what happened to me in the bathroom!" - or were they wrestled from their mothers arms and then returned when the drug-crazed fiends had finished fornicating with them?  Was baby raping all that common or is it just something to feed the fuel of race baiting allegations to manipulate potential voters?  Could these talk show hosts please show us three different copies of police reports detailing such baby raping incidents?  Turnabout is fair play.

Katrina sure took the focus away from Cindy Sheehan.  Law'n'order is the word of the day, now.  It worked for Nixon when it was time for him to be re-elected for a second term of implementing his secret plan to end the Vietnam War, so it can take Dubya off the hook, now.  Hey, if the peaceniks get out of line, we'll have more ammunition (conservative debating pun!) for the allegations that law'n'order should be the one and only issue for the 2006 elections!   Wouldn't it be convenient for the law'n'order candidates if it became necessary to beat up some peace demonstrators?

Heck, if the average white guy gets enough news coverage about drug-crazed Negroes looting, raping, and murdering, then it might not be too late to convince him that it's time to end presidential term limits and put the fighter pilot into a third term in 2009.  Who doesn't understand "Lock up your women, buy a Smith & Wesson, and give Bush a Third Term!"?

[Isn't the protocol of rioters that they rape your kids first, then your wife … then you?  Then, don't they start to slit throats in the same order?  How long before the conservative talk show hosts make "It could happen to you in your town if you don't take precautions" a recurring talking point?]

Oddly enough, after a week of touting "rugged individuals" who coped alone, it was time to switch tunes and evict the folks who declined mandatory evacuation.  Law'n'order is a tricky concept.  Sometimes it can help sell guns and ammunition, sometimes it can be an excuse to coerce compliance with the group-think.  Only the conservative talk show hosts know for sure, what the operable principle really is. 

[Speaking of conservative talk shows, have you noticed how many of them have advertisers that maintain you need to own gold coins?  If anarchy arrives, isn't gold rather heavy to carry if you are trudging though the mountains fleeing to Banff, or Puerto Vallarta?  Somewhere in some classic old movie (in glorious black and white), someone (Barry Fitzgerald?) suggested that only a pocketful of diamonds will suffice when it's time to leave everything and get the hell out.]

The Bush Junta was losing the War in Iraq as a convenient tool to manipulate the population through fear.  The drug-crazed Negroes of New Orleans came along (cue the cavalry to the rescue cliché) at just the right time.  (Perish the thought that there might have been some subtle efforts to exacerbate the mood of despair and precipitate such a mass manifestation of the need for law'n'order and candidates, for 2006, who are strong on that issue.)

Somewhere after Nixon resigned he gave a very candid and blunt assessment of the American voters.  He said that Americans were just like little children.  They had to (he informed the interviewer) be told simple easy to understand stories to be manipulated.  Is there anything easier for a white guy with a wife and two kids to understand than the image of drug-crazed Negroes coming toward his house to rape them all and then burn the place down?  "Burn, baby, burn" was a riot slogan from the Sixties.

Have you noticed that when it comes to the topic of competition, the conservative talk show hosts ridicule the hippie mode of not encouraging a winner/loser dichotomy?  They usually use a very mocking and derisive tone about promoting "low self-esteem," but when it came to Bush's response to the hurricane disaster, then, suddenly, they were very much in favor of "not playing the blame game."  Is anybody better at hypocrisy and the "don't do as I say, do as I command" methodology than the conservatives? 

Ernesto "Che" Guevara once said: "The man who leads motivates others to catch up with him and encourages those behind up to his level much more than he who pushes from behind with just a word."

Did Che mean that an F-102 pilot living the good life wasn't as good at leadership as a guy collecting purple hearts in Vietnam?

Now, we'll have the disk jockey play the Horst Wessel song and we will goose-step our way out of here.  Meanwhile, buy a gun and standby for our endorsements of law'n'order candidates for next year's elections.  Have a riotously good week.

Copyright © 2005 – Robert Patterson

Email the author at worldslaziestjournalist@yahoo.com