Who Hates America Exactly?

Over at Sadly, No! the Bradster discusses one of those obvious points that the Village misses on purpose that Melissa McEwan nails perfectly.

One can't cast one's eyes toward Iraq, or read of the still-struggling Gulf Coast, or greet another infuriating 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court, or hear about a family who lost their home because of the catastrophic combination of a healthcare crisis and no health insurance, or a crumbling infrastructure, or American students falling behind their global peers, or American scientists falling behind theirs, or any one of dozens of issues that have Rove's grubby fingerprints and Bush's crummy signature all over them, and fail to think about the scheming that has changed our country and our lives, not for the better by almost any estimation.

And the pot of shit behind it all has the temerity to suggest that Michelle Obama doesn't love her country—the proof of her insufficient affection being, evidently, that she hasn't endeavored for the past four decades to destroy it.

Fuck you, Rove. Fuck. You.

Yeah, that's something that needed to be said. Brad continues.

What’s been generally amazing to me about this convention is how much the talking heads focused on personality-based elements: “Have Barack and Hillary made up yet? Is Michelle Obama a scary, angry black woman, or is she a phony pretending not to be a scary, angry black woman? What do the Democrats have to do to prove that they don’t hate America?”

Absolutely nothing about policy, absolutely nothing about the disaster that the past eight years of right-wing rule have wrought upon the country and the world. It’s all one big soap opera for these assholes, and as long as they’re entertained, Rome can burn.

The real enemy is the GOP, folks. It's the Rovian mindset that everything is political, everyone is exploitable, every single operation of political calculus is based on how to win by making the other guy lose long term.

With Katrina's third anniversary coming up, it's important to realize that there is no greater example of the Rovian mindset then what was allowed to happen to New Orleans. It was done to turn Louisiana into a red state permanently by destroying a major urban center of Democratic voters. Nothing more. Nothing less. It was a long-term plan to completely rework the state into the core of the GOP Southern regional party, as well as allowing for unprecedented graft and patronage in a state already famous for it.

Neo New Orleans is 2/3rds the size of before, and a lot of the missing third are affluent African-Americans who could leave, and poor ones who were forced out when rents doubled and tripled. These are the folks still in FEMA trailers, thousands of them. The gaming industry has taken over the state. In three years the state has gone from blue to red, with Sen. Mary Landrieu the last holdout. Gov. Bobby Jindal is the poster boy for the new plastic Neo New Orleans, a "safe, non-threatening minority" with a charming smile and all the compassion of a bayou gator, one of the Chamber of Commerce boys that is proud of making money on the backs of those who can least afford it. Displace the poor in every way, make way for the top 1% who should have the ability to run the country by divine right, with the President's right to ultimate power the most divine of all.

Given four more years of Bush as McSame, other American cities will end up just like Neo New Orleans. When you ask yourself who hates America, ask yourself who has damaged this country in every concievable way. Yes, at times the Democrats have assisted the GOP out of fear and self-interest. But look at pictures of the Lower Ninth Ward today, three years later, and tell me which side hates America.

Baghdad was rebuilt faster. Fuck Karl Rove.