The Bastard Giuliani, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #390 | @MDWorld

February 23, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 2 Comments

There are so many reasons to dislike Rudy Giuliani. When he became mayor of New York City, he cracked down on petty crimes instead of focusing on offenses such as murder, rape and arson. If you wonder why New York City’s crime stats look so good, it’s because an arrest for breaking windows counts the same as an arrest for murder.

He turned NYC’s greatest tourist attraction, the vaunted Time Square district, into a sleazy outdoor theme park that provides the same “entertainment” options you get anywhere else in America. Many New Yorkers preferred the sleazy sex shops, bars and movie theaters to the sleazy Disney stuff; at least they had local character. Disneyfing midtown Manhattan certainly didn’t chase away the hookers, the pickpockets, the drug dealers or the panhandlers. Admittedly, the panhandlers started dressing up as Muppets and superheroes (I’m not kidding), but that goes into the “lipstick on a pig” file.

Manhattan has a major problem with pedestrians being hit by taxis, delivery trucks, bike messengers (who, the next time we’re at war, we should draft), et al. Giuliani “resolved” the problem by ticketing and arresting the pedestrians. It is so much easier to take credit for fixing a problem by blaming the victim.

The opportunist bastard achieved national exposure during 9/11 by doing what every other dickhead politician would do: he jumped in front of the story and made empty, meaningless and unproductive speeches. He was so inspirational that the members of the New York Fire Department (FDNY; go figure) not only came out against his running for president, they bought teevee time to advertise their position and they actively campaigned against him.

One of the many things that upset New Yorkers was how Rudy was handling his own mistakes. 9/11 wasn’t the first time the World Trade Center was bombed. It happened in 1993; the 1,336 pounds urea nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced bomb was intended to bring the North Tower crashing into the South Tower. Whereas the bombers’ goal was not achieved, the blast was sufficient to kill six people, injure another 1,042, cause major infrastructural problems, knock out power to almost all the radio and television stations, and disarm most of the high-security operations in the buildings.

Giuliani was not mayor in 1993. But when he got into power, he established a state-of-the-art anti-terrorist emergency services department. He built it in… wait for it… the World Trade Center! Not quite the tactical brilliance of an Eisenhower, but, hey, I guess lightning does strike twice! Go know!

He limped off the public stage briefly when it became clear that he couldn’t win the Republican nomination for president if he couldn’t even deliver New York City. Sadly, megalomaniacs can’t stay out of the spotlight, so he made deals with the Texas energy industries and Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin. He also saw to it that the People’s Mujahedin of Iran was removed from our terrorist watch list, despite they’re having killed six Americans in Iran during the 1970s and their attack on the Iranian mission to the United Nations in 1992. He started campaigning for right-wing candidates, which is rather peculiar for a man who rose to elected office by running on the Liberal Party ticket.

1. So Rudy’s an asshole. Got that.

So where does this fool get off by declaring “I do not believe that the president loves America… He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” (Emphasis mine.)

After getting some blowback, he went to the media to provide clarification. Well, actually, he went to the Fox & Friends variety show, where he said “In his (Obama’s) rhetoric I very rarely hear the things that I used to hear Ronald Reagan say, the things that I used to hear Bill Clinton say about how much he loves America … I do hear him criticize America much more often than other American presidents. And when it’s not in the context of an overwhelming number of statements about the exceptionalism of America, it sounds like he’s more of a critic than he is a supporter.”

Let me assert that American Exceptionalism is the 21st Century version of “Deutschland Über Alles.”

Later that day, Rudy showed the New York Times why his statement was not racist: “Some people thought it was racist – I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people… This isn’t racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism.”

Anti-colonialism? Really? I, for one, am proud to be anti-colonialist. I might put it on my business cards. Somebody should tell Rudy that America was founded by anti-colonialists.

Here’s how New Yorkers determine if somebody is black or brown or white or Asian. Let’s say Rudy Giuliani is standing next to Barack Obama in the middle of the Times Square theater district. Both are well dressed; in fact, expensively dressed. Barack is carrying a leather briefcase, a bowler hat and an umbrella; Rudy is not. Both try to hail a cab. Rudy is picked up immediately. Barack gets passed up by so many cabs that you’d think he was a Muslim terrorist.

Or, to paraphrase one of Rudy’s fellow travelers, “You just might be black if you can’t hail a taxi in Times Square.”

Barack Obama is black enough to incur the hatred of this nation’s right wing well before he was elected president, but he isn’t black enough for Rudy Giuliani. Therefore, Rudy thinks he’s not racist.

Where the hell does this racist get off questioning anybody’s love for America? Is everybody who disagrees with a man who couldn’t even get his hometown’s vote for president guilty of not loving America? Maybe black people only love America three-fifths as much as white Republicans.

Well, here’s a surprise. I love America. Deeply. And I think Rudy Giuliani is a pig.

Deeply.