What Bush Chose Not to See in Montana

[Judi Lynn]

Weekend Edition
April 9 / 10, 2005

What Bush Chose Not to See in Montana
Stranger in a Strange Land
By JACKIE CORR

Butte, Montana

Now if you were a stranger in a strange land and happened to be in Great Falls, Montana to attend the Bush traveling Social Security show, and afterward, decided to spend another day or two looking around, you just might drive north toward Havre and the Canadian border.

And, as you drove north from Great Falls, driving the 116 miles up to Havre and the Hi-Line you would notice the population dwindles and the towns shrink. It is a different West, north-central Montana, a long ways from Texas.

In Montana, on average, there are 6.2 people per square mile. Down there, in the Lone Star brag-it-up, we find 79.6 Texans per square mile.Texas is 12 times more densely populated then Montana.

Of course, there are some similarities. Like Montana, there is the Texas version of the trophy ranch. And George Bush easily qualifies as a trophy rancher, just as any other east coast preppie would.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/corr04092005.html

[diddlysquat]

1. Thanks for posting this.

[Panda1]

2. Creepy facts about Texas in the article

....
So, and it requires little effort, imagine a Texas as a nation separate from all others.

It would have the world's highest incarceration rate--significantly higher. Those 1,000 and more Texas prisoners per 100,000 residents is nearly double that of the United States (682), and Russia (685). Texas alone has the world's third biggest prison system, trailing only the U.S, and Russia. And of all the world's incarceration statistics, the rate of black people locked up in Texas is both one of the most fantastic and shameful on the planet.. While there are 555 whites behind bars for every 100,000 in Texas, there are 3,862 African Americans per 100,000. Now compare 3,862 black Texans locked up for every 665 Russian's.
....
Of course, Bush served up the prison numbers in large bowls of marshmallow flavored mush, his favorite. With the servings came the sermon: "There are over two million children in America with at least one parent in prison. That is a problem that we must address, and the problem is, is that if your dad or mother is in prison, you're likely to end up there yourself without love and compassion in your life; that's a fact."
....


Conversely, if you're born with a silver trowel in your mouth you never have to worry about a thing. Your daddy will bail you out no matter how much you fuck up and then have all your records scrubbed. If "to the manor born" you are free of the laws that apply to the rest of us.

[kliljedahl]

3. Well written piece

Thanks for posting


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[rodeodance]

4. poverty would be a strange vocabulary word for Bush to think/say

......And then for frosting on the cake, in a speech to faith-based and community-based activists the other day, he thanked his private army: "I want to thank you all for being a soldier in the army of compassion, some of you privates, some of you sergeants, some of you generals, all soldiers, bound together by the great desire to love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself." Then he actually mentioned America's prison numbers, a first, as far I know.

Of course, Bush served up the prison numbers in large bowls of marshmallow flavored mush, his favorite. With the servings came the sermon: "There are over two million children in America with at least one parent in prison. That is a problem that we must address, and the problem is, is that if your dad or mother is in prison, you're likely to end up there yourself without love and compassion in your life; that's a fact."

Sad to say, but not surprising, Bush thinks all these Americans in prison belong there. He might think Social Security is screwed up and Iraq needed saving but he has no questions about America and its prisoners.

All of which gives our stranger something to think about as he drives north from Great Falls, toward Havre and the Hi-Line where most of the counties have less then two persons a square mile. With its 150,000 residents, the northcentral Montana region has its problems. And poverty within this region is the highest in the United States.

[ixion]

5. very thoughtful piece, and statistically very telling

Not that we didn't already know about the Bush family torture and death fetish, but numbers like this really drive the point home.

These are sick people, the same kind of people who tortured the family pet when they were growing up.

Everytime * uses the word 'freedom' I want to :puke:

[skip fox]

6. Not many know it, but W. was canonized secretly by Pope

during his last visit to the Vatican.

story:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=3025241#