http://michiganimc.org/newswire/display/11628/index.php

Neocon Goldberg Mocks Victims of Katrina

William Hughes


While New Orleans was reeling from the first deadly effects of
"Hurricane Katrina," Neocon Jonah Goldberg mocked the idea of
placing some of the city's refugees in the Superdome. This is the
same warmonger who once wrote that the U.S. should "bomb Canada!"
When France refused to go along with the Bush-Cheney Gang's scheme to
invade Iraq, he smeared the French people as a nation of "liars,"
who were only interested in a "desire for oil."

Leave it to a heartless Neocon, one Jonah Goldberg, to pile it on, and
with malice, too! Reeling from the horrific effects of the devastating
storm, "Hurricane Katrina," the city of New Orleans, on Aug. 29, 2005,
came to a full stop! Thousands of its most helpless residents, many of
them the poorest of the poor, mostly African-Americans, were left to
their own meager devices in order to survive. As a temporary fix,
emergency measures were imposed. One of them was a decision by
officials to house many of its citizen/refugees in the Superdome, a
stadium, that has been the home in the past to a number of NFL
Superbowl games. Here is what the means-spirited Goldberg, a columnist,
wrote about that relief effort:


"ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS - I think it's time to face facts. That
place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies
horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself
now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents.
While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when
he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around
you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who
agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the
earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be
prepared." (1)


Goldberg's grossly insensitive crack can be found on a blog, entitled,
"The Corner." It is maintained by the "National Review Online," which
itself is connected to the William Buckley-founded magazine, "National
Review," (NR). It's a bastion for mostly Right Wing and Neocon zealots,
like Goldberg. He is the editor of "NR Online" and a contributor to its
printed version.

This is the same nasty Goldberg, who back on Jan. 25, 2003, viciously
denounced the French people "as liars," made fun of their accents and
even their skill at "cheese-making." He had gone totally ballistic over
the fact that the government of France, led by President Jacques
Chirac, had refused to go along with the Bush-Cheney Gang's scheme to
launch an unjust and immoral war against the peoples of Iraq based on a
pack of damnable lies. Goldberg also chided the French for working to
lift the genocidal UN sanctions then being imposed on the Iraqi
government. (2) He claimed that the sanctions hadn't really worked
because of the French efforts "to undermine them." He added that the
French "shame" themselves by advocating containment against Iraq, just
because it had worked "in the Cold War." Goldberg then blasted France's
"cry for peace," as being motivated by "a desire for oil." (3) And, did
you know, that Goldberg also had once suggested that the U.S. should
"bomb Canada?" (4) What a half-demented, war-mad smear artist this guy
is!

Getting back to the revolting "NR" blog above. A blogger, described as
"Professor Doc Bainbridge," did attempt to bring Goldberg to task for
his crass remarks. But, this is how the wiseguy Neocon replied to him:
"Perhaps Professor Bainbridge - of whom I am a fan - thinks
something really awful will befall the denizens of the Superdome and
therefore making a joke at their expense is wrong. My guess is that it
will simply be a really unpleasent [sic] time for the remainder of the
day, but hardly so unpleasent [sic] as to sanctify them with refugee or
some other victim status. I assumed the reference to gill-growing and
what not made it clear where I was coming from. I'm sorry if we don't
always fulfill the good professor's expectations around here. But it
can't be all brandy-snifters and Latin puns in the Corner," Goldberg
sarcastically wrote. (1)

Later on, Goldberg did offered this belated apology for his massive
exercise in boorishness: "To those who lost lives, loved ones or
property in the hurricane yesterday. After sleeping on it, I decided I
probably could have waited longer for the levity." (1) Meanwhile, on
that same blog, his boss at the "NR," editor Richard Lowry, had
actually come to Goldberg's defense. He wrote: "Personally, I thought
the Jonah Superdome riff was funny and clearly was poking fun at the
media frenzy around Katrina at a time when it seemed especially
over-blown." (1) Here are my questions: What is in the coffee that
these Right Wing blockheads drink at the NR? And, is it the same coffee
that is regularly consumed by other ultraconservative looney types,
like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and
Michael Savage?

Goldberg, an unrepentant Iraqi War hawk, wasn't finished with his spiel
about Katrina and its effects. He chirped in with his sick thoughts,
too, on how the city and state authorities were responding to the
crisis. Incidentally, the city and state officials got little or no
help, especially early on in the emergency, from the federal
government, headed by the outrageously incompetent George W. Bush and
***** Cheney. (5) The pompous Goldberg wrote, "I saw the Louisiana
Governor try to sound angry last night. She declared that what really
makes her angry is that normally disasters bring out the best in people
but this is bringing out the worst in some people. I can't be the only
one who thought she sounded like a second grade teacher telling the
kids how disappointed she was that they were misbehaving on a class
trip. This woman isn't fit to carry Rudy Giuliani's (or Margaret
Thatcher's) clipboard." (1)

In the best of times, there are always going to be spiteful characters
like Jonah Goldberg, lurking around in the back alleys of any society.
Generally, they are restrained from exposing their darkest thoughts by
the public's high regard for tradition, reason, civility, truth and
justice. Unfortunately, today, in the U,.S., we are living under the
corrupting influence of "The Age of Bush-Cheney," where those standards
have been seriously eroded. This means that a repulsive Jonah Goldberg,
a merchant of junk, can not only mock the thousands of the innocent
victims of Katrina (6); urge the U.S. to bomb our great neighbor to the
north, Canada; and gratuitously insult our oldest ally, France (7), but
that he can, most regretfully, do all of the above with absolute
impunity!

Notes:

1. corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_28_corner-archive.asp
2. www.commondreams.org/views/070700-103.htm
3. "France's Latent Motivation" by Jonah Goldberg, Washington Times,
01/25/03.
4. www.nationalreview.com/preview/preview112502.asp
5.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090102428
6. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
7. See, "The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown," by
Burke Davis; and "Lafayette," by Harlow Giles Unger.




William Hughes is the author of "Saying ''No' to the War
Party" (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes (at)
comcast.net.

http://michiganimc.org/newswire/display/11628/index.php

Neocon Goldberg Mocks Victims of Katrina

William Hughes


While New Orleans was reeling from the first deadly effects of
"Hurricane Katrina," Neocon Jonah Goldberg mocked the idea of
placing some of the city's refugees in the Superdome. This is the
same warmonger who once wrote that the U.S. should "bomb Canada!"
When France refused to go along with the Bush-Cheney Gang's scheme to
invade Iraq, he smeared the French people as a nation of "liars,"
who were only interested in a "desire for oil."

Leave it to a heartless Neocon, one Jonah Goldberg, to pile it on, and
with malice, too! Reeling from the horrific effects of the devastating
storm, "Hurricane Katrina," the city of New Orleans, on Aug. 29, 2005,
came to a full stop! Thousands of its most helpless residents, many of
them the poorest of the poor, mostly African-Americans, were left to
their own meager devices in order to survive. As a temporary fix,
emergency measures were imposed. One of them was a decision by
officials to house many of its citizen/refugees in the Superdome, a
stadium, that has been the home in the past to a number of NFL
Superbowl games. Here is what the means-spirited Goldberg, a columnist,
wrote about that relief effort:


"ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS - I think it's time to face facts. That
place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies
horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself
now. Hoard weapons, grow gills

and learn to communicate with serpents.

While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when
he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around
you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who
agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the
earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be
prepared." (1)


Goldberg's grossly insensitive crack can be found on a blog, entitled,
"The Corner." It is maintained by the "National Review Online," which
itself is connected to the William Buckley-founded magazine, "National
Review," (NR). It's a bastion for mostly Right Wing and Neocon zealots,
like Goldberg. He is the editor of "NR Online" and a contributor to its
printed version.

This is the same nasty Goldberg, who back on Jan. 25, 2003, viciously
denounced the French people "as liars," made fun of their accents and
even their skill at "cheese-making." He had gone totally ballistic over
the fact that the government of France, led by President Jacques
Chirac, had refused to go along with the Bush-Cheney Gang's scheme to
launch an unjust and immoral war against the peoples of Iraq based on a
pack of damnable lies. Goldberg also chided the French for working to
lift the genocidal UN sanctions then being imposed on the Iraqi
government. (2) He claimed that the sanctions hadn't really worked
because of the French efforts "to undermine them." He added that the
French "shame" themselves by advocating containment against Iraq, just
because it had worked "in the Cold War." Goldberg then blasted France's
"cry for peace," as being motivated by "a desire for oil." (3) And, did
you know, that Goldberg also had once suggested that the U.S. should
"bomb Canada?" (4) What a half-demented, war-mad smear artist this guy
is!

Getting back to the revolting "NR" blog above. A blogger, described as
"Professor Doc Bainbridge," did attempt to bring Goldberg to task for
his crass remarks. But, this is how the wiseguy Neocon replied to him:
"Perhaps Professor Bainbridge - of whom I am a fan - thinks
something really awful will befall the denizens of the Superdome and
therefore making a joke at their expense is wrong. My guess is that it
will simply be a really unpleasent [sic] time for the remainder of the
day, but hardly so unpleasent [sic] as to sanctify them with refugee or
some other victim status. I assumed the reference to gill-growing and
what not made it clear where I was coming from. I'm sorry if we don't
always fulfill the good professor's expectations around here. But it
can't be all brandy-snifters and Latin puns in the Corner," Goldberg
sarcastically wrote. (1)

Later on, Goldberg did offered this belated apology for his massive
exercise in boorishness: "To those who lost lives, loved ones or
property in the hurricane yesterday. After sleeping on it, I decided I
probably could have waited longer for the levity." (1) Meanwhile, on
that same blog, his boss at the "NR," editor Richard Lowry, had
actually come to Goldberg's defense. He wrote: "Personally, I thought
the Jonah Superdome riff was funny and clearly was poking fun at the
media frenzy around Katrina at a time when it seemed especially
over-blown." (1) Here are my questions: What is in the coffee that
these Right Wing blockheads drink at the NR? And, is it the same coffee
that is regularly consumed by other ultraconservative looney types,
like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and
Michael Savage?

Goldberg, an unrepentant Iraqi War hawk, wasn't finished with his spiel
about Katrina and its effects. He chirped in with his sick thoughts,
too, on how the city and state authorities were responding to the
crisis. Incidentally, the city and state officials got little or no
help, especially early on in the emergency, from the federal
government, headed by the outrageously incompetent George W. Bush and
***** Cheney. (5) The pompous Goldberg wrote, "I saw the Louisiana
Governor try to sound angry last night. She declared that what really
makes her angry is that normally disasters bring out the best in people
but this is bringing out the worst in some people. I can't be the only
one who thought she sounded like a second grade teacher telling the
kids how disappointed she was that they were misbehaving on a class
trip. This woman isn't fit to carry Rudy Giuliani's (or Margaret
Thatcher's) clipboard." (1)

In the best of times, there are always going to be spiteful characters
like Jonah Goldberg, lurking around in the back alleys of any society.
Generally, they are restrained from exposing their darkest thoughts by
the public's high regard for tradition, reason, civility, truth and
justice. Unfortunately, today, in the U,.S., we are living under the
corrupting influence of "The Age of Bush-Cheney," where those standards
have been seriously eroded. This means that a repulsive Jonah Goldberg,
a merchant of junk, can not only mock the thousands of the innocent
victims of Katrina (6); urge the U.S. to bomb our great neighbor to the
north, Canada; and gratuitously insult our oldest ally, France (7), but
that he can, most regretfully, do all of the above with absolute
impunity!


Notes:

1. corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_28_corner-archive.asp
2. www.commondreams.org/views/070700-103.htm
3. "France's Latent Motivation" by Jonah Goldberg, Washington Times,
01/25/03.
4. www.nationalreview.com/preview/preview112502.asp
5.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090102428
6. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
7. See, "The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown," by
Burke Davis; and "Lafayette," by Harlow Giles Unger.




William Hughes is the author of "Saying ''No' to the War
Party" (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes (at)
comcast.net.