"and free abortions for all..."

Loopy and I were really scratching our heads over Bush's speech. Did you hear it?

A choice quote: "the government will also provide accounts of up to $5000 which these evacuess can draw upon for job training and education to help them get a good job..." here I paused the playback in amazement..."and for childcare expenses during their job search." Here my head exploded.

They're also going to provide federal land for building low-income housing. And he said the words "overtime" (with the verb "pay" rather than "cut") and "labor union locals" (with the verb "help" rather than "destroy").

Here's a transcript of our commentary.

Me: "It's like Cuba secretly took over but they don't want anyone to know."

Loopy: "No, he's done something really horrible that he doesn't want us to know about. He's shot Putin or something."

Me: "That would be a good thing."

Loopy: "Maybe he's clubbed baby...seals...no...baby French people."

(we listen; further marvels unfold)

Me: "This is like... I don't know... the twilight zone or something."

Loopy: "He's nuked Russia and we're all going to be vaporized in about four hours."

(we listen some more)

Loopy: "He's sold Laura into slavery."

Me: "Naw, I think Castro has pictures of him fucking the White House dog."

Loopy: "I can't wait to see what The Onion does with this."

(we listen. at the phrase 'labor union locals,' I pause the playback again).

Me: "WHO IS THAT MAN????"
Loopy: "Where are we???? Who am I????? What's going on????"

(pause. we listen. finally he says something about the federal government taking firmer control)

Loopy: "Oh, that's it—more control!"

Me: "That's it, it's fascism. A nice populist plank is essential in any fascist platform."

Loopy: "Whew, I'm so relieved."

But here's how I knew that "invasion of the body snatchers" had really occurred:

As soon as Bush was done speaking, Wolf Blitzer came on & pointed out that he hadn't called for an independent investigation of the mistakes around Katrina. And I thought, "Jeez, can't they ever give the guy a break?"

Seriously though, the speech almost made me cry because I was imagining what it would be like to wake up one morning and actually have a government that cared about people, that provided for human needs.

I'm sure this will turn out to be more of the same... for example, all that talk of "making a favorable investment climate for businesses" translates, I'm sure, into lower wages and fewer benefits & protection for workers, fewer taxes to actually do any of the things he's talking about.

But just imagine, if one day some president went on TV and announced universal, free, high-quality healthcare. Can you imagine how many people would feel this giant dark cloud lift?

How many people would think, "Finally, Ma can go get that lump checked out," or call their Dad and say, "Hey, good news, you can get that rotten tooth pulled now!"

How many people would change jobs because—finally—they weren't chained to some shitty job because they couldn't afford to lose healthcare for the kids.

Really, try to imagine it. It's just stunning to really imagine what that would be like.