“Too many of our youth, primarily African-American, are imitating and/or participating in a gangster type of dress, attitude, behavior and action.” — Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory
Here’s some bad news, Mr. Mayor: it’s not just African-American youths who are “participating in a gangster type of dress, attitude, behavior and action.” So are you. There are many types of destructive gangs, not all of which involve teens or hip-hop music. Sometimes it’s just a matter of which gang, and which types of violence, people choose to fear.
In fact, one of the most powerful gangs on earth — and certainly the most dangerous and damaging one in the United States — has been operating right under our noses for a long time. It’s only during the past six and a half years, however, that it’s become clear just how destructive and deceitful they can be. I’m referring, of course, to Republican politicians, sometimes referred to as the Dubya-McCrory Gang, or DubMacs.
Like members of other dangerous gangs such as the Crips, Bloods or MS-13, the DubMacs can usually be identified by their clothing. When they’re “at work” in an official capacity, DubMacs can be spotted by their “corporate robot” look, featuring Brooks Brothers suits with U.S. flag lapel pins, worn with either button-down or forward-point shirt collars, and usually accompanied by lace-up wingtip shoes. In casual situations, DubMacs favor khaki trousers and Lacoste polo shirts, with either Docksiders without socks or Cordovan tassel loafers. If you are unsure whether someone in your vicinity is a DubMac, look for the brand names listed above, along with the likes of Ralph Lauren or Oxxford. Once you’ve confirmed that you’re near a member of the DubMac Gang, calmly flee the premises as soon as possible.
Why should you run? Well, here is just a partial list of the havoc and destruction wrought by the DubMacs since 2001:
Locally, DubMacs have:
• Let developers continue to have free rein to strip the land and fill up every available space with ugly suburban housing and strip malls. Results: Growing sprawl, traffic congestion and a wrecked ecology.
• Jumped on the Homeland Security gravy train, but sat by while the federal government did next to nothing to improve security at the nuclear plants surrounding the city. Results: McGuire and Catawba nuclear plants are still vulnerable to attacks by airplanes while citizens have little idea of what to do in an emergency, and, worse, generally assume that the county’s established evacuation plans can actually work.
• Refused to pass a living wage law for city employees, to hold city-county employees accountable for their actions, or approve adequate funding for new schools. Results: Poorly paid workers delivering mediocre services; police officers getting away with killing unarmed civilians; and schools so crowded, the next step will have to be “bunk desks” for students.
On the federal level, DubMacs’ actions have been disastrous:
• They handed over the executive branch of government to the gang’s “moneybags” and cronies. Results: An energy policy that gives energy cartels and oil companies full authority to rob the public blind while polluting the air; shredded environmental regulations; suppressed scientific findings; and a completely botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina that resulted in the ruin of one of America’s greatest cities.
• Ignored warnings from U.S. intelligence sources and foreign governments that al-Qaeda was planning attacks in the United States using planes as weapons, aimed at American icon targets. Results: 9/11 attacks killed 3,000 Americans, destroyed the World Trade Center.
• Responded to 9/11 by launching a half-assed war that failed to capture the terrorists’ leaders; invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attacks; and gave scant action to security at U.S. chemical plants, ports and nuclear facilities. Results: Nearly 4,000 American soldiers dead, tens of thousands wounded, maimed or mentally damaged; tens of thousands of Iraqis dead and more than two million refugees; America’s international image is in the toilet; Islamist terrorists are stronger than ever; U.S. armed forces’ readiness has been shattered; private contractors have looted the federal treasury; the federal debt hit new, record heights; and the United States is as vulnerable to attack as it was on 9/11.
• Wiretapped phones and snooped into personal computer files of everyday Americans; encouraged torture as a national policy; kept people in jail indefinitely without charges; and removed all sorts of constitutional guarantees of due process of law. Results: An America that is now unrecognizable as “beacon of freedom.”
• DubMacs in Congress handed over the lawmaking branch of government to the highest bidders and pandered to religious fundamentalists’ archaic views. Results: Lobbyists wrote laws while having drinks in Senate Majority Leader’s office; the disgraceful Terri Schiavo saga; and endless gay bashing.
So parents, do your family and your country a favor: tell your children about this public menace — and look out for any signs that they may be attracted to the DubMacs’ type of dress, attitude, behavior and action. And kids, for heaven’s sake, have enough self-respect to steer clear of these carelessly violent, destructive thugs.
This article appears in Jul 25-31, 2007.
ok..you’re right about the wire/computer tapping. But to tell the truth, we didn’t find anything of curiosity on your computer other than the pictures of those naked gay guys.
From the Weekly Standard: “At the end of 2007, there will be more American troops in Iraq than when Democrats took over Congress in January. Another: Democrats have momentum on no domestic issue, not even health care. A third: Senate Republicans last week defeated an amendment urging Bush not to pardon former White House aide Scooter Libby and won overwhelming passage of another that says terrorists jailed at Guantánamo shouldn’t be transferred to U.S. soil.
There’s more, much more. Of the “six for ’06” bills touted by House Democrats, only one has
become law. And that one, which raises the minimum wage, passed not on its own, but only because it was tacked onto the Iraq funding bill. Senate Democrats have fared no better. Majority Leader Harry Reid listed 10 issues on which he wanted action. His lone success so far is the minimum wage hike.
Republicans have an inadvertent ally on Iraq–Reid, as maladroit a Senate leader as we’ve seen in years. His tactic of calling an all-night Senate session stirred more guffaws than favorable press reviews. His wildly partisan and often false statements have tended to drive wavering Republicans to Bush’s side, instead of luring them to vote with Democrats. And his decision to yank the defense authorization bill off the floor after the loss of cloture votes was widely viewed as peevish and counterproductive.
Next to Iraq, congressional Republicans have had their greatest success in killing Democratic bills or stripping offensive provisions from them. Bush’s veto, sustained by the House, wiped out the effort to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The House passed legislation to eliminate the need for a secret ballot in union organizing elections and to have the federal government negotiate drug prices in the Medicare prescription drug program. Senate filibusters shelved both bills.
From the energy bill, Republican senators removed a tax increase for oil companies and a requirement that utilities use renewable fuels like wind power for 15 percent of their energy. This made the bill so innocuous it passed easily.
Democrats held out for months against Republicans on the bill implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The White House demanded they drop the provision, urged by organized labor but not by the commission, allowing Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees to unionize.
Not only did the president threaten a veto, but Senate Republicans also said they would prevent the bill from going
to a House-Senate conference. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is famous for inventing the tactic of blocking a bill by filibustering the naming of Senate conferees. Desperate to claim an achievement, Reid finally dropped the TSA veto-bait from the bill, which was then quickly approved.
Bush and Republicans have formed a kind of mutual encouragement society. On spending bills, House Republicans organized enough votes to ensure that Bush vetoes of spending bills would be sustained. And the president has promised to veto all of them except the appropriations for veterans.
Democratic hopes for a breakthrough now rest with the bills to expand the S-chip health care program and to provide a bigger subsidy for student loans. House Republicans believe they have the votes to sustain a veto of the S-chip bill, which provides for ten years of health coverage but only five years of funding. (This means a large tax hike would be required after five years.) As for student loans, Bush is mulling a veto.
A reflection of Democratic disarray occurred last week after Democratic senator Ken Salazar of Colorado proposed an amendment to the higher education bill opposing a Libby pardon. It needed 60 votes to pass, but it got only 47. Forty-nine senators voted against it.
McConnell was ready with a stinging response: an amendment attacking President Clinton for his pardons as he left office in 2001, including at least one linked to his wife, New York senator Hillary Clinton. Before the clerk could read the McConnell amendment, Senator Chuck Schumer, her New York colleague, spoke to Clinton and she hastily left the Senate floor.
After the reading, Reid halted proceedings for a quorum call, returning 15 minutes later with a deal. He’d “vitiate” the Libby vote, invoking a rare procedure to erase a roll call vote from Senate records, in exchange for McConnell’s agreement to withdraw his amendment. McConnell agreed, and the vote was expunged, but not before Reid and Democrats were embarrassed one more time.”
Until people start protesting and hitting the streets, instead of burrying their heads in the sand. The “DubMacs will continue to run this country down into the toilet, and force feed us their views.
We are always hearing about “kook fringe nuts” but I had not realized that Charlotte has achieved “world class status” by having our very own Cindy Sheehan style fruitcake nutcases. If Rosie liked boys and you liked girls, you two would be the perfect couple.