Tuesday, March 4, 2014—My Time at the Re-education Center

Awakening in our lousy Airbnb, Barkley eschews complaints. Naturally, his youth permits comfortable repose on an air mattress. He feels that this trip should crush our souls, the quintessential point in touring America, n’est-ce pas? He expresses concern that even this Airbnb will fail him in his quest, but considers last night’s privations a valiant attempt.

Leaving the Airbnb after breakfast, we drive downtown to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. Barkley insists upon touring this hellhole, considering it the natural destination of all liberal nihilists and catastrophe chasers.

We park and bid Pearl farewell for a time. She curls up for a nap. We amble up to security line, greeting Barkley’s friend Geung, a Dallas resident meeting us at the museum. Geung appears to be a nice, normal young Asian-American woman. We later learn, according to Barkley, that she writes poetry about roadkill and English on masking tape. So much for normal.

Perhaps due to the gun zealotry amongst Bush followers, we face close scrutiny as we pass through airport type screening. Sven causes the usual confusion. Security, after being stumped for a bit, finally waves us through. 

The museum costs sixteen dollars each. I begin loudly contemplating suicide. Barkley treats, silencing my raucous protests. Upon payment, the ticket people give us “43” stickers to wear, commemorating Bush’s tenure as the forty-third president. Since the Bush regime produced nothing substantial or positive, the museum chose a number as his legacy, a wise alternative to recounting his endless missteps.

Most of the other patrons of the library fit into the 70- to 80-year-old demographic, comfortable with casual racism and Bob Evans’ Restaurant. The volunteer docents, uniformly white, seventy-year-old women, sport dyed blonde hair. They wear skirts, nylons and heels, their blue-eyed blonde sameness exuding a nasty, ice princess, forbidding upper-middle-classdom. Finding their hiveminds as indistinguishable as their appearance, we quickly abandon any attempt to tell them apart, simply addressing everyone as “ma’am.” This may have saved our lives. Periodically, hordes of schoolchildren careen through the exhibits, blissfully unaware of the brainwashing to come.

Following the ritual admission price fleecing, we enter the room holding the visitor archive, known here as the “Freedom Registry.” The boys and Geung sign the guest book. Already spooked, my hackles up, I just can’t sign it. Perhaps I want no record that I ever visited a place of such darkness, but, oh yeah, I’m blogging.

The museum’s first exhibit features a collection of presents given the States by various countries during Bush the Lesser’s regime, by far the Library’s best exhibit. Afghanistan gave us a priceless sapphire. Berlusconi (Italy) gave us some very nicely designed jewelry. The States received a lapis lazuli candelabra and a miniature pottery house from the Dominican Republic. Other presents include a painted gourd from Mexico, a doll-sized house from Guatemala, a jewel-encrusted bowl from Qatar, a sterling silver and gold sculpture of Jerusalem from Israel and a handmade shawl from Burma. Many countries lavished riches upon us; I find the most poignant gifts given by people who have so little to give. I appreciate them; I hope that the Bushes did. If you lived in Guatemala, what would you give to appease your nuclear-armed, gun-toting, homicidal neighbor to the north? I never do find out what we give other countries in exchange.

The Library has the best displays money can buy, all very high tech-looking. In the next room, which could easily hold a few hundred people, we lift our eyes high on the walls. Pricey projectors beam a slickly-produced video featuring numerous multiracial people exuberantly dancing as they celebrate Bush’s presidency, deliriously joyful to live under Republican rule. Although intended to be inspiring as we must raise both our eyes and hearts upward, the show fails, proffering no context whatsoever, just insipidly running in an endless loop.

The Library holds no books anywhere, adding fuel to the fire of my belief that the boy can’t read. Just like Chauncey Gardiner, eh? Why would you need to read to be president? After all, God forbid, reading may give birth to an independent thought not approved by your handlers.

Walking into the next room, my dénouement begins. We face a massive interactive display detailing precisely how Bush stole the 2000 election. I’d forgotten his strong resemblance to Howdy Doody. Once again, I see and relive that puppet becoming president, deftly pilfering the election. Greatly disturbed, my stomach churning, I recall Jeb Bush’s manipulation of the Florida electoral results. Could anything beat having your brother, the Governor of Florida, rig the vote giving you the presidency? The butterflies in my stomach grow exponentially, bouncing about the organ trying to escape.

Queasy, yet moving forward, we watch a movie where Bush promulgates his platform of faith-based initiatives, a program designed to steal the government’s money and give it to churches. Why would anyone expect separation of church and state, the idea our country was founded upon? The only break in the bullshit comes via one small sidebar where Yahweh gives George the strength to quit drinking at forty. Of note, we also see Bush up against some comedian in a Bush mask trying to say nuclear. “Nu ka ler” Bush and the comedian both say.

For our next treat we visit an Oval Office replica, arrayed as an exact copy of the room during Bush the Lesser’s reign. Left of the desk we find a painting of Laura Bush, nose held high in the air as she walks two small dogs on the white house lawn. I’m sure Laura considers herself too refined and important to clean up after her dogs. Certainly, she carries no poop bag. After all, cleaning up shit remains the province of minorities and poor people, their due station in life.

Barkley mirrors Laura’s pose in front of the painting, nostrils elevated. Fortunately, no rain falls in either the painting or on Barkley; otherwise someone would drown. We gather behind the desk for a photo-op. Avoiding the strategically placed professional photographer, Barkley snaps our picture.

I breeze through the remaining museum rooms, remembering the lies and the idiocy. Was Bush the Lesser the worst president ever? I recall he began his reign with a budget surplus, which he quickly gave away to the wealthy via unsustainable tax cuts. Then he invented weapons of mass destruction as justification to start an unprovoked war in Iraq, destabilizing the Middle East while chasing after some demented vision of “finishing Daddy’s work.” Using this excuse, he gave trillions to his vice president Dick Cheney’s Halliburton. Supremely incompetent, Halliburton quickly lost the war. Icing the cake, Bush crashed the economy, leaving Obama to pick up the mess.

I can’t take any more. The place creeps me out. George W. Bush and his handlers have crushed my soul. Bear and I exit to the courtyard coffee stand which unfortunately sells Starsucks. Denied even a good cup of chai, I buy a hot tea. Bear likes Starsucks coffee and orders one. He has the gift of contentment, even under the most trying of circumstances. We sit out in the sunshine. I breathe deep healing breaths, doing my best to quell the massive unease overtaking me. We plot our escape but fail. We can’t abandon our fellow travelers in the museum from hell and I just can’t bring myself to go back in there.

Meanwhile, the boys and Geung continue the tour, greatly enjoying themselves, free and untroubled as they laugh at the displays. Barkley convinces the others that I’ve been forcibly taken to a re-education center.

They visit the much touted Decision Center video game. Situations – Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan – appear on a central screen, as the game gives each player a list of four equally stupid choices. (Example: 1. Commit suicide; 2. Destroy the economy; 3. Invade Iraq; 4. Drill for oil in Maine.) Strangely, no matter what they choose, the correct choice is always whatever Bush did. Bush himself appears on the central screen to explain this to them, defending the indefensible from Hussein’s assassination to the Invasion of New Orleans. The trio remains unconvinced.

Wandering outside, our kids find us as I lie cringing in the courtyard. They hurriedly bundle me into Pearl. Pearl snorts awake and we make good our escape.

I knew from the onset that the museum would be at best a joke and at worst an edifice to the most reprehensible aspects of our society. What I didn’t expect was that it would disturb me so much. My soul has been duly crushed by the weight of the bullshit at the Bush Museum. Barkley, that advocate of Satan, has achieved his objective in a way a horrible Airbnb never could.

Delighted by my release from the re-education center yet concerned about my mental health, Geung suggests the Cosmic Cafe for lunch, a local vegan Indian place. Driving over to the restaurant we ponder, who is worse? Huey P. Long or George W. Bush? What would Long have done, had he become president? Would he have carried out some of his populist schemes, improving the lives of so many, while enriching himself? Or just steal lots of money by giving it to random connected corporations like Bush did? We pause and think, preparing for a later discussion.

We park Pearl and enter the Cosmic Café. Taking a seat, we note that the menu features vegetables. YES! We need to remember to eat vegetarian on the road as a viable alternative to questionable meat and grease.

We discuss Geung’s just published book of poems with her, called Foreigner’s Folly. The wannabe writers in the group sigh, acknowledging their jealousy at her success. She and Barkley attended Notre Dame’s Creative Writing Master’s Degree program together. Geung, of Korean heritage, moved to the States at fourteen; she has always felt caught between the two cultures. A performance poet, she once gave a poetry reading at a café near the university (Notre Dame), wearing a ski mask with a flowered dress and talking into a voice modulator to make her sound like an evil robot. The café soon went out of business – coincidence? Impressed by her awesome power, I want to read her poems.

Leaving the restaurant, we bid Geung good luck; she gives us a signed copy of her poetry. We head over to the Sixth Floor Museum (aka the Kennedy Museum), sadly located in the book depository where Oswald shot John F. Kennedy (JFK) fifty years ago.

This museum lacks the intense security of the Bush Museum, odd in a way given the centrality of the assassination legacy. However, this museum also charges sixteen dollars a person for entry. Today we have a sale price of $12 each, no explanation given. We gratefully accept the reduced rate. We receive no presidential number stickers or any stickers actually, either because JFK’s legacy outshines a number or the more logically situated admissions counter prevents free entry.

Like the George W. Bush Museum (though to a much lesser extent), this museum doesn’t dwell on Kennedy’s mistakes. We see displays about the Bay of Pigs, but not about the escalation of the Vietnam War. Triumphantly we hear about Khrushchev moving the Cuban missiles, but silence over our moving missiles out of Turkey in response. Of course, JFK didn’t do the incredibly stupid corrupt things that Bush did. The Sixth Floor Museum ends with Obama’s inauguration as a shout-out to Kennedy’s Civil Rights policies, although Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) carried them out.

Using much less expensive displays than the Bush Library, the Kennedy Museum captures the heady ebullience of the early sixties, a time when our young president and country could do no wrong. We step back into a shining moment in our collective history just before drugs and the disaster of Vietnam rubbed our public noses in our arrogance and incompetence. We watch Bob McNamara join the Kennedy administration to serve his country, leaving Ford Motor Company and taking a huge pay cut.

Kennedy founds the Peace Corps. I reflect upon his 1961 Inaugural Address’ admonition: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” We still believed in America the new, a shining beacon of freedom and democracy to replace tired old Europe. I feel inspired once again, if only briefly.

Unfortunately, the museum focuses too much on the sensationalism of Kennedy’s assassination. Too many exhibits discuss the assassination in minute detail. I scan them, hoping to avoid dwelling upon this unsavory moment in our country’s past. I desperately attempt to avoid crying and fail.

One exhibit commands my attention. In the “corner of shame,” books pile around set up exactly as they were fifty years ago. The museum invites you to step into the gunman’s shoes, standing exactly where Oswald did all those years ago. Anybody could have shot JFK from this vantage point.

The final exhibit shows opinion polls over the past fifty years. Who is the best president ever? JFK? Lincoln? FDR? Kennedy’s numbers rise through time.

One new idea occurs to me. LBJ carried out JFK’s ideas, including Vietnam. Controversy exists as to whether or not Kennedy would have escalated Vietnam into the morass it became. But what about the good things? Without JFK’s untimely death, would we have civil rights? Would we have gone to the moon? Or would these initiatives have been shot down or stalled by Congress? Did our citizens allow massive societal changes to respect the death of the president?

Leaving the museum, we take Barkley out to the airport. Along the traffic-stalled highway, we deliberate the legacies of two men of evil: George W. Bush vs. Huey P. Long. We recall our Huey Long audiobook we heard while still in Louisiana. Long began as a populist, promising free textbooks to schoolchildren and roads for Louisiana. Surprisingly elected governor after successfully challenging the planter aristocracy, he delivered on both these promises. The week he fulfilled his campaign commitments, the Louisiana House impeached him. His entire focus then shifted to massive theft and the annihilation of anyone who opposed him.

Brilliant, unscrupulous, and amazingly energetic, he completely controlled Louisiana during his seven-year reign of terror (1928 to 1935). He hounded enemies, destroyed their businesses, tricked them with rigged voting machines, and once tied a few up in a swamp until they saw the light. Elected to the US Senate in 1932, he vigorously, comically, fought all New Deal programs out of jealousy. (Long didn’t invent the New Deal, so he despised it.)

In Baton Rouge, in 1935, an assassin shoots him. Long’s bodyguards take out the assassin with thirty rounds fired from automatic weapons. The bodyguards hurriedly carry Long, shot in the abdomen, to the hospital. Two surgeons, the best in the state, rush to save him, crashing their car in transit. An incompetent doctor, appointed by Huey for political reasons, botches the operation. Huey dies, though the Long machine controls Louisiana politics for a few more years, eventually falling to infighting and federal indictments.

Now who is more evil? George W. Bush or Huey P. Long? We debate.

Although strikingly unintelligent, Bush managed to bankrupt the country, wasting our patrimony on ludicrous tax cuts and giving trillions to Halliburton; start two wars no one can win; and blow up the economy. Derailed easily by groupthink, Bush lacked Long’s narcissism and utter ruthlessness. Could you imagine Huey P. Long with nuclear weapons? The States would be a desolation. And with that realization, we crown Huey P. Long far more evil than George W. Bush.

Dropping Barkley at the airport, we bid him a fond farewell. He’s been a wonderful co-traveler and worthy fellow road scholar as we courageously explore America.

Before returning to our crummy Airbnb, we stop at the conveniently located Whole Foods to procure something for dinner. The cashier tells us, in deference to his personal sanity, that he has never visited the GW Bush Museum. GW Bush, we learn, shops at the other Dallas Whole Foods, surrounded by a bevy of Secret Service people. As an American, I’m so proud that I get to pay for this.

Back at the ranch, we make a wonderful dinner of chicken, potatoes, and green beans. This Airbnb, the worst we have ever leased, lacks all cooking equipment. Fortunately, we carry our own. Yeah! Real food! We contemplate another night on the horrid air mattresses, realizing that things could be worse. We could be Bush or his children.