The Tournament of Roses Parade You Didn’t See
by Carol Norris
Dissident Voice
January 5, 2003
New Year’s Day
saw the 114th annual Tournament of Roses Parade, whose 2003 theme was
“Children’s Dreams, Wishes and Imagination.”
Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club originally staged the parade in 1890 to
showcase the city and the benefits of its year-round warm climate. Professor Charles F. Holder, an original
club member said: "Here our
flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let's hold a festival to tell the world
about our paradise."
Since then, the
pageant has grown from a small city effort to an unparalleled extravaganza of
bands and floats from sponsoring communities, corporations, and organizations
who parade their little slice of paradise in front of millions of viewers.
There are a few
slices, however, that you didn’t see.
Let’s tune into our commentator for a full report:
The
Bush Administration Float: The theme of this
year’s astounding float is: Because We
Can. The overall parade theme of
Dreams, Wishes and Imagination is also particularly relevant as the Bush
administration has realized every dream and wish an administration could ask
for, beyond its wildest imagination.
The drivers of this float are Karl Rove and Dick Cheney who are in
constant contact by headset with the Carlyle Group.
Unfortunately,
you won’t be able to see this year’s Bush Administration float because it has
been deleted from the original parade route - removed from public viewing like
the thousands of governmental documents and much of the goings-on in this
administration. However, yesterday
there was an unannounced private procession down the very narrow Special
Interest Alley, where a handful saw the float.
Earlier today,
one of those who saw the float agreed to speak anonymously. He reported the Bush float is covered almost
entirely with beautiful orange and brown Touch-Me-Nots, native only to
America. To provide accent, the front
of the float is covered with lovely Daisies.
Correction. I read that
wrong. My apologies - that would be
Daisy Cutters, the front of the float is covered with Daisy Cutters – one of
the weapons used to so effectively decimate Afghanistan.
The spectator
stated Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Anticipatory Self-Defense, stood at the
very head of the float, like a giant hood ornament, quietly stroking the giant
bunker buster missile he straddled between his legs. Apparently, Rumsfeld appeared particularly satisfied. Behind him was Paul Wolfowitz with his
finger poised on the Preemptive Strike Button, which, by the way, is made
entirely of Impatiens.
The underside of
the float is covered with the 8,000 pages Bush removed from the Iraqi
Declaration before it was given to the UN.
I bet UN members are wondering where those pages went.
The anonymous
bystander also reported that during the viewing, the Bush float apparently ran
over several members of the Democratic Party.
The Democrats’ own float lost direction and has completely stalled. So sadly, it had to withdraw its entry into
this year’s parade. Not wanting to be
left out of the pageantry, however, those clever Democrats have put their
prostration skills to good use: all the Congressional Democrats have taken jobs
as speed bumps all along the parade route.
This float won
the Grand Marshall’s: “Best Self-Interested Corporate Plutocracy Masquerading
as a Democratic Government Float” Award.
Past
Friends of Iraq Float (also called the We Couldn’t Have Done it
Without You Float): This magnificent
float is sponsored by the corporations who so proudly helped support Iraq’s
biological, missile and nuclear weapons programs, according to the Iraqi
Declaration. It includes such
businesses as: Dupont, Hewlett Packard,
Honeywell and Rockwell, to name but a few.
If they’d let you look, I bet you’d find these and other corporate names
in those 8,000 deleted Iraqi Declaration pages on the underside of the Bush
float.
Donald Rumsfeld
was asked (but declined) to sit atop a huge makeshift sand dune made out of
crushed figs and dates to honor the special friendship he provided Saddam
Hussein when Donald was special envoy to Iraq back in the ‘80s. Don personally met with Hussein, not only
wooing him while he knew Saddam was using biological weapons against Iranian
troops, but also giving him some of the technology to do so. What a good friend Mr. Rumsfeld can be!
Country
of Turkey Float: When not on
parade, this float is parked at the door of the European Union, waiting to
cross the threshold. But, it isn’t
sitting idly. Notice the platform
covering most of it. This is the U.S.
staging area for ground attacks on Iraq.
And can you see that giant pipe running right through the float? Gosh, that looks unstable. Anyway, this pipe will allow U.S.
corporations – many directly connected to the Bush administration, including
Cheney’s Halliburton and Rice’s Chevron - to have control of the lucrative
Caspian oil reserves, circumnavigating the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC). Sounds like a huge
cash cow, doesn’t it? Well, what a
coincidence: look at the billions and
billions of U.S. dollars in military and financial aid and IMF bailout money
that covers the rest of the float. With
all that papering of those U.S. billions, you can’t even see the human rights violations
underneath! This float won the Grand
Marshall’s prize for “Most Favored U.S. Lackey Nation of the Moment.”
Bureau
of Labor Statistics Float: This is the last parade for this tried and true
float. It used to be covered with
informative, easy-to-read, readily accessible statistics about massive layoffs
happening throughout the country. These
stats were widely and consistently used to assess the health of corporate
America. But with the economy flagging
and layoffs continuing, the Bush Cartel made sure this float sunk by taking
away its funding. It’s just another in
a long line of causalities in the war on freedom of information the Bush Cartel
is waging against the American people.
Bush wants you to doubt the reality all around you as he blocks easy
access to documents that could provide a reality check when he says fictitious
things like: “the economy is strong and growing.”
The
North Korea Float: What a tenacious
float this one is, ladies and gentlemen!
Would you look at that adorable baby water deer made exclusively of
missile parts! The entire float, years
in the making, was developed with technology that might one day create missiles
that could reach as far as Hawaii and beyond.
Imagine! Notice the US statesmen
in the grandstand too busy looking at Iraqi oil fields, shaking hands with
Israel and helping support and rearm egregious human rights violator, Algeria,
to see the North Korean float go by.
Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, William Burns, gushes: “the U.S. has much to learn about the ways
to fight terrorism” from Algeria. Is
Burns talking about Algeria’s torture practice of attaching electrical wires to
penises and vaginas or the regular raping of women by police?
The North Korean
float won the Grand Marshall’s “Most Creative Use of Tall Grasses and
Plutonium” Award.
Osama
bin Laden Float: This float got a
lot of attention last year. But, it
isn’t much of a crowd pleaser anymore.
Moving right along…
Treasury
Secretary John Snow Float: This float is
almost completely covered with the 10.1 million dollars John Snow’s CSX owes
the IRS. CSX is the second largest
property-tax deadbeat in New York City.
Just another wrongdoer Bush has appointed to help run our country. While only working for CSX for 25 years,
Snow has credited himself with 44 years of service, providing him with a 2.47
million dollar yearly pension until the day he dies. And that is only the beginning of his perks.
How clever Bush
was to appoint a person so incredibly creative with money - albeit dishonestly
and inequitably - to run our country’s treasury. Snow may not be able to do his job of balancing the U.S. budget,
but he’ll fit right into the current administration because he is no stranger
to running a deficit. He is leaving CSX
with more debt than it has had in years!
This is the Grand Marshall’s winner of “The Most Barefaced Hypocrisy
Float.”
UN
Weapons Inspector’s Float: Well this one
isn’t much to speak of: there’s nothing
on it. Zilch. Nada. The Bush Cartel
promised it would be covered with Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and
biological weapons by parade day. But,
no such luck. Not to worry. As we speak, the Bushies are feverishly manufacturing
something – anything - to put on it.
Afghanistan
Float: Despite a dilapidated
infrastructure, this float somehow made it to the parade. It is completely covered with Poppies,
Poppies and more Poppies. This
impressive parade entry is skippered by Afghan warlords who, after the parade,
plan to drive it right down the opium trade route, making opium available very
soon at a den near you! This float, no
doubt, was modeled after (and aided by) the American entrepreneurial spirit!
Corporate
Media Conglomeration Float: Well, this has to
be the biggest float ever seen in all of the 114 years of the parade. Would you look at the girth on that
thing? By God, I do believe it has
eaten every newspaper, radio, television, and cable station in its path. Before you know it, due to the extraordinary
deregulation about to take place (that will eviscerate the old regulations
designed to limit acquisitions to help maintain a fair, diverse and impartial
media) it will be so bloated with new media assets that this baby won’t even be
able to make it down the parade route.
It’s just going to have to sit, enormous and happy, controlling all the
information we Americans get, ensuring there is no diversity in presentation,
no dissent and that it only speaks for corporate and governmental
concerns. Just think: we may not get
any real, impartial news at all! What
power! Guess we better be nice to the
guys driving this one, because no doubt we’ll be broadcasting from its haunches
next year.
The
Bottom Forty Float (also known as the Income Disparity Float): This float pays homage to the average
worker. Somehow, it’s always one of the
last floats on the parade route. It’s
covered by the less than one quarter of one percent of the nation’s wealth held
by the bottom 40% of the country. (The
upper 10% of the population holds over 70.9% of the wealth.) I know this float might be hard to look at,
as it’s bleak and barren. But try to
focus on that tiny speck of assets by the wheel that just fell off. Can you see it? No? Well, I suppose
that’s because it’s getting smaller as we speak.
In recent years,
the net worth of our country’s richest has continued to grow, as the net worth
of the bottom forty has declined by 76%.
As you can see, workers are scrambling double-time on the float, some
falling off, some scrambling to get on, trying to keep it together with
whatever they can: pink slips and the
quarterly reports of hugely depreciated 401Ks.
The workers
thought they’d be able to cover the float with their pension funds. But the Treasury Department has proposed new
pension rules, protecting employers from age discrimination suits if they
convert traditional pension programs into a new type of pension fund that
reduces benefits for many older workers.
Many of these workers have labored loyally for their company for much of
their lives, expecting the old benefits.
Oh well. Another perk for the
corporations. Maybe Treasury Secretary
Snow had to cut other people’s pension to fund his.
We’re sorry to
say, floats that traditionally have been the backbone of this parade can’t
participate this year because they’re simply too dilapidated due to funding
cuts, privatization or the special interest-driven relaxation or change in many
laws. A few of them are: the U.S.
Education Float, the U.S. Health Care Float and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Float. Well, here’s hoping we’ll be
able to find U.S. children educated and healthy enough once they grow up to
make new floats to take the old floats’ place.
Speaking of
children, here is the Iraqi Children Float: In keeping with the theme of this year’s parade, this float represents
the Iraqi children’s dreams, wishes and imagination. On this float is a simple, solitary letter written by a
10-year-old Iraqi girl named Sima, addressed to the American people. It reads:
My wish for the New Year is for the sanctions that have killed over a
half a million of my brothers and sisters over the last decade by robbing us of
clean water, food, medical supplies and basic necessities to be lifted. You may not be fully aware of these
sanctions, but they and the promise of war have made my life indescribably hard
and they have left me so afraid, I have lost my imagination.
But I ask you,
the American people, as you sit in your homes watching the beautiful floats go
by on your TV screen, to realize what is really going on; to use your
imaginations and put yourselves in my shoes for just a moment; to envision how
very frightened I am – we all are- knowing my home, my neighborhood, my mother
and father and brothers and sisters are about to be ripped apart and killed
because of a war that is about nothing but greed and power; a war that has
nothing whatsoever to do with me or my family, or my friends and
neighbors. Many of us don’t like Saddam
Hussein. Killing me to control him will
not make you safer. In fact, it will
probably make you much less safe. I ask
each and every one of you to do what you can to stop this war and give me a
chance at a future. That is my dream
and my wish. Thank you. Happy New Year, Sima.
Carol Norris is a freelance writer and psychotherapist. She can be contacted at writing4justice@planet-save.com.