Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin’ dog? Now, you know you cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise.
Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of killin’ chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could. He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog’s neck, good and strong. And leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad that no other dog or person will even go near that poor beast. Thing’ll smell so bad the dog won’t be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won’t kill chickens again.
The Bush administration is going to be wired around the neck of the American people for four more years, long enough for the stench to sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans.
And at least Democrats won’t have to clean up after him until it is real clear to everyone who made the mess.
~~(the late) Molly Ivins, November 4, 2004~~
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/20413/mourning_in_america/
Anyone think the USA is sick of the stench yet? We’ll know at election time if we’ve been cured.
You are sick.
THAT’S what I’ve been smelling so long! Thanks for the explanation, Molly & RV.
Red.
Junior’s comment says it all.
The Molly Ivins link was worth the read.
Good post Red Vixen.
I miss Molly. Thanks for keeping her in our thoughts, Red.
What a visceral depiction of the many truths in our greedy world. It’s kind of hard to swallow, huh Larry and Junior?
I used to investigate child abuse in day care homes and centers. I vividly remember two situations when parents became livid with us for shutting down these homes. One day care provider’s 16-year-old son raped a 4-year-old child. Another was a home where the provider was licensed for 6 kids and we found over 20 when we did an unannounced visit. When we knocked on the door, about 10 kids were ushered out the back door (we had an investigator stationed at the back to intercept the fleeing children). Once we got inside, we found at least 5 kids sleeping in closets. Probably doesn’t sound too bad yet, but one investigator interviewed a 5-year-old kid who kept talking about the baby and pointing to a couch. It took a second to get it, because the couch abutted a wall with a cloth wall hanging behind it. When we pulled the cloth aside, we discovered a closet. When we opened the closet door, we found a crib with a baby in it.
We obviously were required to call the parents to let them know these facilities were being suspended from operation. Most parents reacted as expected, with civility and concern. Several were astoundingly belligerent. At first I was appalled because I thought they were mad at being inconvenienced in having to find alternative day care. I eventually recognized that this was a defense mechanism for trying to reconcile how they might have put their child in harm’s way.
I guess this is my long-winded way of saying I understand your reactions. But I hope some day you’ll consider that an unwillingness to entertain unpleasant truths can actually perpetuate a lot of injustice and evil in this world.
Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. In no way did I want to “abandon” this thread, but I got real busy 😉
I grew up around livestock and Molly Ivins is exactly right with her cure for chicken killing dogs. Sometimes the dog is so stupid and determined to kill chickens that it will have to be put down. But when you have a really smart and valuable dog, you’ll go the extra length to get it to break the habit. It does not always work, but hopefully voters will be smarter than the average hound.
As a long time Republican, I’ve seen that carcass rotting over the years. I voted for Bush, despite my dislike for his dad, who lied and raised our taxes, anyways. Nearly out the gate, I saw that Bush junior was tragically worse than I could have ever imagined as he undermined and trashed so many things this country stands for – softwood lumber agreements with Canada were nearly immediately breeched within weeks of his inauguration, for example. So from that early time, I have been watching, horrified, at his lack of honesty, his lack of effort, his selfish decisions and his distain for the tenents and history of what makes our country great and sets us apart from the rest of the world.
My hope is that the time is finally here where the habit of voting for the current batch of cowards and criminals is squashed. If the democrats had pulled this last stunt of choosing the most bizarre VP candidate, EVER, I would be loudly disagreeing, too. I simply don’t know how the last 20% of Bush supporters can keep suspending any kind of critical judgement and just accept what Senator McCain represents. He’s not even liked by his own party, yet that snide group gave him to us to see just how stupid we all could be in this election.
Suspending his campaign? Fibbing about the crowd numbers? Beefing up the troopergate coverup? Hiding Palin from ordinary questions that all candidates should be expected to address? Pretending like he was the pivotal player in the bail out?
Really, it’s just incredible and those are only a few things for the last couple of weeks. The real pile-up is the last 8 years under Bush/Cheney with their contempt for this country and the people who live in it.
I am not saying that Obama is the end-all-be-all. I’ve been paying attention too long to believe that. If he gets in and screws up, I’ll have no problem voting him out. But the habit of letting the Republicans run us all over with their greed, shortsightedness and criminal activities must come to an end.
Recently, I’ve heard friends saying that they will never vote republican, again, in their lifetimes. I think this is a good sign. Maybe this toxic carcass is finally making an impression.
Welcome Midge – I miss Molly Ivins, too. I wish she were here now.
Longboobs,
That was a great illustration. I know many people who hold views like Larry and junior and they are decent people and they are still my friends. However, blind loyalty to what the party USED to represent is not helpful going forward. It is patriotic to rail against wrong doers and demand justice be brought against criminal behavior and dedicate effort to oust the bums. Locally or nationally.
Oh and a big, SHOUT OUT! to Vern!
(folksy enough for you, brother?) 😉
Longboobs and Red Vixen, that was incredible writing. Such powerful imagery really speaks to the feeling of powerlessness this financial crisis has given me. I can identify with the range of potentialities that confront working parents who must choose between food, gas, and child care to spend too limited an income on from part-time jobs stacked to fill the 18 hours available each day.
We’ve created a system that treats our poor like criminals for making choices we force on them. Something needs to change and it needs to come from the centralized we as citizens choose to act. Our most effective way to ensure clean, safe child care is to institute public child care. However that, like hiring inspectors and regulators, makes government grow and taxes go up. Examples of this go on and on in healthcare, national security, food safety, etc., etc.
The current small government, anti-tax majority has to take some responsibility for the years of deregulation theory that promised that the market would solve the problems of the market. Over the past eight years I think we have witnessed the largest transfer of public resources/assets to the private sector that we will have ever seen in the history of the world and with this final coup we have now witnessed the largest transfer of private debt into public balance sheets in the world’s history (and that’s just California, yuk yuk).
Read my lips indeed! They meant don’t watch my actions. Thank you, Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, Bush, and McCain but I don’t think we need your kind of help anymore.
😉 You BETcha, Vix!
“blind loyalty to what the party USED to represent is not helpful going forward.”
Yes Red … and the ghosts of Harry Truman and JFK are rolling over in their graves about now over what the democrat party USED to represent.
“… we have now witnessed the largest transfer of private debt into public balance sheets in the world’s history …”
Anonyms,
You seem to be placing the blame for the passage of the bailout on the Republicans.
The vote count in favor of the bailout was 92 R’s aye and 172 D’s aye.
That vote count indicates to me that dems carried the day on the “transfer of private debt into public balance sheets” monkey business.
Yeah, certain Republicans are planning to run against their Dem opponents on this, try to wrap this whole problem around Dem necks. That’s why Nancy tried so hard to not do this without a lot of bipartisan cover. Even though everyone I know who knows much about finance and economy says it was necessary.
Even though angry populists on the left like me and Michael Moore, and on the right like Junior and Dana Rohrabacher, don’t want to help out the financial crooks with such a huge amount of taxpayer dollars, it appears that businesses all over the country were going to fail if something weren’t done about the credit crisis. And that this was the best solution we could get in a timely manner.
How did we get to this sorry pass is the real question. And I can see that the right is getting together their story on that too – it was all Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, and those damn minorities who shouldn’ta bought houses. Many Dems are not blameless in fact. But it’s really the whole culture of deregulation over the last decades which was mainly a Reagan-Gingrich-Bush thing.
And now whoever voted for the package, in either party, is going to get excoritated by their challenger. Hey Ron and Anna, and Junior! Mad enough at Campbell to vote for the anti-bailout Steve Young yet? Lots of other good reasons to look at Steve – he also wants to end the war and support the troops, while Campbell got the worst grade from vets groups in all of Congress – an F – and has said that “veterans commit fraud.”
http://www.steveyoungforcongress.com
“Mad enough at Campbell to vote for the anti-bailout Steve Young yet?”
No Vern, but I am mad enough to vote for the anti-bailout Libertarian Don Patterson against John Campbell.
http://libertarianpartycandidates.us/candidates/don-patterson-2008-united-states-house-representat/
Anonyms,
I was happy that Chris Cox admitted that he was very much for deregulation and now has changed his stance. I am sure part of the conversion is the fact that as the head of the SEC it helps job security if the markets have sets of rules for the players to abide by.
There are so many things that need repair because of neglect or deliberate destruction. It will be no easy task for the next president and administration. We need to select someone who has the energy and the drive it takes to turn things around. the last thing we need is a napper who cannot even be bothered to vet his VP running mate properly.
Our governmental leaders sure have been a lazy bunch and they’re counting on all of us to stay uninformed and placid.