A Frankly Rude Post About The Crimes Of Bush Sr.

 For shame, President Obama, seen here awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom
to known war criminal President George H.W. Bush.

The recent death of former President George Bush Sr. has people gushing here in Maine. Combined with the recent death of his wife, former First Lady Barbara Bush, it is a pretext for sending thoughts and prayers to a family distinguished in its ability to produce Nazi collaborators and mass murderers. 

Also, the same gushy people are chiding the rest of us about how "rude" it is to criticize someone who has just died.

Typical comments are that they are going to ignore politics while the family grieves. Why are critics of Bush's legacy being so "divisive" they ask?

Here's why.

Critiquing the foreign and domestic policies of Bush Sr. doesn't occur in a vacuum. The celebrity worship machine that keeps our corporate masters firmly in power goes into overdrive when someone dies. I have now lived through the murderous policies and rampant racism of several prominent white men who are then glorified nearly as saints once they pass on to whatever tortures await them in the bardo. 

And white supremacy above all else requires us to be "nice" in public while turning a blind eye to the violence and suffering of non-white people, offstage as it were.

The mainstream media do a very good job of hiding what we should not see; in fact, that is the purpose of their existence.

A public thinker who maintains and writes for the blog BlackgirlinMaine had this to say yesterday:




"Niceness is...the fuel that keeps white supremacy in place." Yup.

One of the reasons that people want to love on Bush Sr. so much at this point in history is that they love to hate on the crass, rude, white supremacist demagogue who is in the White House at the moment. Bush Sr. earned their accolades when he called the candidate of his own party a "blowhard" and said he would not vote for him. 

Because the spokesperson for corporate pillage should go to Ivy League college and law school and always speak soothing words of politeness while looking dignified and well-groomed. If not, they threaten to topple the whole rotten system.

Almost every problem vexing the U.S. body politic at the moment can be traced back to the policies of Bush Sr.

• Enriching big oil (whence came his family fortune) and empowering climate change deniers.

• Asylum seekers fleeing violence and economic devastation in Central America.

• Mass incarceration of people of color, many on minor drug possession charges, and racist policing in general.

• Destruction of the civil society, infrastructure and people of Iraq.

• Torture and assassination coverups by the CIA.

• White color criminals emboldened by pardons from the highest office in the land.

But let's all be "nice" while we ignore the actual humans who have suffered and still suffer under these conditions.

We got a thousand points of light 

For the homeless man 

We got a kinder, gentler, 

Machine gun hand...

From Neil Young's Bush-era song "Rockin' in the free world"

After all, isn't our illusion that we're kinder, gentler the very foundation of our white privilege?