Mourning Barbara: The Bush Way of Death

George W. Bush finally explained himself this morning on Fox Business News. What more perfect venue could there be for a bereaved plutocrat for whom capitalistic life must go on regardless of the fact that his mother Barbara is not yet decently buried?

The day after Mrs. Bush's death at the ripe old age of 92, a tearless, stoically jovial George told Maria Bartiromo that as Babs lay moribund she joked to the doctor, "You want to know why George is the way he is? Because I drank and smoked when I was pregnant with him!"

Calling Doctor Freud. Spoiled son blames Mom for his personality disorder, which as far as we know first manifested itself in the 1950s when he stuffed firecrackers up the rectums of frogs just to watch them blow up. Could the frat boy draft dodger who went on to send lesser mortals to their deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq be a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome?

The glowing New York Times review does not go there. It's too soon. It is especially too soon to speak ill of the war criminal sons of newly-dead ruling class matriarchs. Instead, we are regaled in article after article about Barbara Bush's iconic "saltiness" vying with her down-to-earth grandmotherly persona, and how she kept George and the rest of clan laughing their asses off right up to her final dying breath. And beyond. Because as far as Dubya is concerned, there's no such thing as tear-stained laughter. Leave that maudlin stuff to his daughters grieving over their "Gammy." In his septuagenarian world of grief, there's just the usual unseemly preppie guffawing. We saw this in action at a 2016 memorial service for the slain Dallas police officers, when George showed his sorrow by giggling and swaying back and forth in a kind of goofy dance.

Dubya couldn't go on TV soon enough to tell his heartwarming anecdote about his life in utero. To be fair, the interview had already been scheduled long before Mrs. Bush decided to forgo further treatment for her failing heart and lungs. And he will also nevertheless persist in hosting his annual "leadership forum" to be held today at his presidential shrine in Dallas (Mom will be interred on the grounds of the first President Bush's shrine on Saturday). The Times reported approvingly, 

“My mother would say, ‘Make darn sure you participate fully in the leadership forum,’” he said. “In other words, ‘Don’t sit around and feel sorry for me or yourself, more importantly, but move on with life.’ And that’s what we’re doing.”

Nothing, not even the death of a mother, will ever get in the way of End Stage Capitalism as practiced by America's great ruling class dynasties.

The honored guest at this year's confab will be Priscilla Chan, wife of embattled Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg. She'll be talking about school privatization and machine learning for plutocratic fun and profit.

 “We’re thrilled that Priscilla Chan will lend her visionary expertise to a conversation around how our children learn and the future of how we educate students in this country,” said Ken Hersh, President and CEO of the Bush Center. “Education is core to our mission at the Bush Institute, and we share The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative’s belief that every child should have the opportunity to recognize their full potential. I look forward to an important conversation around how parents, educators, organizations, and communities can contribute to learning environments that meet the needs of all children.”

If nothing else, her discourse is sure to beat the grief-addled Dubya's plaintive "the question must be asked: is our children learning?" back when he was pushing his repressive No Child Left Behind initiative for plutocratic fun and profit. Chan reportedly will also talk about "access to" affordable housing - as opposed to, say, the actual building of affordable housing for the poor financed by the tax dollars of the wealthy, or an actual increase in federally subsidized rent assistance programs.

It's so heartwarming that Bush's oil tycoon pal Hersh can also get past Barbara Bush's death and gush that every child should get just enough education to "recognize" their potential, as opposed to oil tycoons like himself getting fairly taxed to make sure that poor children can realize their full potential and avoid going to their own deathbeds saddled with onerous college and medical debt.

Also appearing at the non-cancelled Leadership Forum will be former Federal Reserve Chairman and Brookings fellow Ben Bernanke: New York Times op-ed contributor and American Enterprise Institute president Arthur C. Brooks; Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace. Closing the festivities will be America's richest oligarch, Jeff Bezos, founder of the Amazon oligopoly and owner of the Washington Post.

Sadly, both the Forum and the Funeral will be closed to the public. Because privatized plutocratic life must always go on, and George W. is absolutely convinced that Mom is fondly looking down on the whole charade from her own privileged perch in heaven. To paraphrase Babs herself, she was privileged to begin with, so this is all working out very well for her whole family and their close circle of friends. It will work out so well for them, in fact, that they'll even save themselves the expense of an extra-long trip on their private Lear jets to attend her funeral in Houston.

May they all rest in the peace and knowledge of their own exalted rectitude.