 Republican Romper
Room
.......................July 17,
2003
By
Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com
Remember,
way back in December 2000, after the U.S. Supreme Court
finally stole, er, ruled that George W. Bush would become
the next President of the United States?
One of
the primary themes to emerge – from the ornate hotel
lobbies of Washington, from the mouths of AM talk radio
hosts, from the new regime's sneering acolytes in cowboy
hats and fur-trimmed coats – was that at last,
finally, grown-ups would be running Washington, D.C. No
more semen-stained dresses. No more fags in uniform and
half-assed missile attacks. No more her. No more children
running the world.
Wrong!
At least
with Clinton  you knew that the most powerful man in the
world had reached adolescence, if not much beyond it. But
all current evidence suggests that the world is now being
run by 7-year-olds.
Oh, to be
sure, petulant little children are announcing themselves
all around the world these days, from surly little
bullies like Ahmad Chalabi (who, after spending years on
various playgrounds stealing other kids' lunch money,
have come home to be handed a shiny new bicycle called
Iraq), to the angry little brat in North Korea trying to
get his parent's attention ("I've got uranium
now!" "Now I've got a missile!" "Now
I'm arming it! Watch me! I really am!" "I said
I really am! I mean it this time!!"). Kim Jong II
needs time out and a nap; Chalabi needs reform school.
But the
most alarming spectacle is in Washington itself, where
Peter Pan went and recruited his whole grade school
class.
The
result is calamity almost beyond words to describe: an
appetite for cool comic-book foreign policy, emphasis on
blowing stuff up, combined with a Never-Never Land
insistence on how the world works and economics learned
from watching older siblings play Monopoly.
Little kids, you'll
recall, can be incredibly cruel. And so it is in D.C.
these days, a dramatic step down from the last depressing
administration, where the Clinton crew (including, no
doubt, Janet Reno) had at least discovered girls. This
collection hasn't even matured enough yet to learn right
from wrong, or that actions have consequences, or even to
experience the essential step in human development of
understanding that the world doesn't start and stop with
them, that other people think and act and feel just like
they do. Empathy. Instead, this bunch stays at home,
watches TV, and plays army all day. It's a nice day; they
should at least go outside and play. Clinton needed to be
grounded. Junior needs to havehis toys taken away.
You want
proof? What was Junior's sole major
"accomplishment" before daddy's friends got him
elected governor of Texas? He used daddy's allowance
money and bought a baseball team. These are rich
children. Too much attention is being paid to
"rich," and not enough to "children."
But more
and more, the emperor's outgrown clothes are showing,
especially in recent days as the little tyke has finally
been confronted in public with truths that contradict his
carefully constructed play world. First, he really did go
outside and play, to Africa, just to get away from it.
But reality dogged him there, too, so mostly he's been
pouting and insisting that the tooth fairy really does
exist, there is a Santa Claus, Saddam really did buy
uranium from Niger. ("And all that other stuff I
made up last week is true, too!")
Frankly,
the pile of toys Junior's no longer interested in is
starting to clutter the living room floor, and Junior
also keeps tripping over his now-discarded Disney videos,
too. (He's not much for reading.) It's not like he's ever
learned, or been made, to clean up his own messes. And he
still believes all the stories in those old videos, too
– Iraq's mystery weapons in trailers, made out of
propane tanks, and the cool spy-movie ties to Al-Qaeda
and stuff. He still can't tell fact from fiction.
But
confronted with it, he's reacting the way many small,
spoiled kids do – by blaming his friends, starting
with the one he doesn't know very well, the guy who
already lived in his new neighborhood when he got here,
little Georgie Tenet. ("Hey, I only made him fall on
a play sword! It didn't really hurt.") Every time
Junior does this, he squeezes his eyes real tight and
hopes it'll all just go away so he can go play army
s'more. (He's also supposed to be doing homework –
he hates math! – but video games are more fun.)
The other
little kids in Junior's clubhouse are acting about the
same way – except for little Rummy, who likes to
torture the neighbor's cats when nobody's looking.
Rummy's gonna be trouble when he gets older.
For
years, the adults around Junior and his little pals have
been making excuses for their behavior. All kids are
above average. It was a misunderstanding. He didn't mean
to break it. He's really not that dumb. He just learns
differently. Isn't he cute? The parents are rich, so
teachers are circumspect, even when the extra lessons
they give don't stick or he makes Family Circus-style
mispronouncements.
But the
behavior coming out of Washington these days has become
too destructive, too aberrant to ignore, as it sometimes
does when spoiled kids are never reigned in from their
excesses. These kids are very spoiled, and their excesses
are scaring all the adults in the neighborhood, if not
the world. Frankly, it would be a huge improvement if
this batch got old enough to discover girls.
But
that's a long way away, and meantime they're really,
really wed to their fantasies and their cruelty and their
denials. And their moms and dads don't seem to care.
Many, many people could die before Junior and his friends
get old enough that they start to learn right from wrong.
At this
point, the best hope is that they move to another
neighborhood.
Geov Parrish Biography:
Geov Parrish is a long-time peace and social justice
activist and punk/folk musician living for the last
decade in Seattle, having previously alarmed local
authorities in Washington D.C., Houston, Japan, and while
gaining a masters degree in Political Science and East
Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver. He first became politically active through
domestic violence work and as a public Selective Service
non-registrant when that system was reintroduced in 1980.
While convalescing in the mid-90`s from a series of
health problems, including two organ transplants and a
stroke, he founded the local nonprofit community
newspaper Eat the State!. Geov continues to help edit
ETS!, and has also gone on to become a weekly political
columnist and journalist at Seattle Weekly, and a regular
contributor to In These Times, Workingforchange.com,
AlterNet, ZNet, assorted other web sites, and, though
syndication, at weekly and daily newspapers around the
country. He also appears each Saturday morning on the
Mind Over Matters program on KEXP Seattle, and is a
frequent public and classroom speaker and co-facilitator
for direct action nonviolence, war tax resistance, and
other activism trainings. He lives in central Seattle
with his three kidneys, two pancreases, and an attitude.
~~~~~~
Man, if The Thug
Cabal thinks they had their hands full with the Niger
Lie, wait until you see them scrambling to de-fuse this
little gem. From Newsday:
Neocons dance a Strauss waltz,
By Jim Lobe
HELP SAVE
"HEADSTART"
Literal Politics.Com BushWeek
The Mostly Rummy Rama!
Some Pictures From:
More Funny Pictures
A Slew Of Fun Pics
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