George Bush's America

[Matheus]

Apr 18, 2008 20:41:42 GMT -5 Galactus said:

I believe he's sincere. Really I do. I believe that he believes in what he's doing. I also believe much of that is because he doesn't know what else to do. The truth is they tried to cover all the bases, they said it would be long and hard but they also said it would be easy, it shouldn't take too long, we'll be greeted as liberators. They've continually tried to have their cake and eat it too. They can't possibly be wrong because while Dick Cheney says one thing - insisting a connection between 9/11 and Iraq for instance, the White House simultaneously releases a statement saying their isn't one. The continually sliding goal posts and framing all discussions as a matter of patriotism. The problem it's his job to know there's no realistic way to achieve it, it's his job to say "well, this isn't working very well. Let's try something else" instead he's insisting as long as we have positive attitudes don't ask too many questions it will work, eventually. Not sure when but eventually it has to...right?

Now let me also say that just because I think he believes in the mission doesn't mean I don't think there are other motives and justifiers. I think it's in large part an issue of legacy for him, one that he fully believes will pay off in time. They did a bad job of selling the war because it was a bad idea. They figured the best way to sell it was tell us it wouldn't be a big deal to us. We should go on about our lives, spend money and let him do the heavy lifting. This wasn't presented as "our war" until the tide started to turn and then it was too late. It was like they didn't really want to bother us with it...or more likely they just didn't want to have to explain them selves. The Bush administration doesn't like explaining itself too much. Like the quote says the war was predicated from the beginning that we had to win and we'll figure out precisely what winning looks like a later. I guarantee we'll know it when we see it. That simply isn't good enough. Success isn't defined by simply repeating the word again or substituting victory in it's place. The American people aren't tiring of the war because we weren't paying attention, it's because we were never asked to tighten our belts and now five years later more and more Americans aren't seeing any reasons of substance to keep going. By the time we realized we were really sacrificing for this it was in full swing, an attempted usurping of our civil rights and the wack job on our economy and all we have to show for it is vague platitudes of progress.

You're damn right execution sucked. People didn't turn when thing got rough, that's bullshit. They turned when they realized "eventually they'll get tired getting killed" was the core of our strategy, when they realized we didn't know that much about the differences between Sunni and Shia, when they realized Iraq really didn't have any connection to 9/11, when they realized if a South Korea or Iran really decided to get uppity we can't do much about it and that doesn't really equal "safer", in short when they realized the execution sucked. Then they found out we had no plan to fix it. We're just going to tweak the plan but it's basically the same plan. Eventually they'll get tired of getting killed. As it turns out they actually volunteer to kill themselves. If we all put on our flag pins, close our eye real tight and sing the national anthem isn't cutting it. The American people turned when they asked for results in return for our sacrifice and none was given, only then were we asked to be a country at war. The people didn't turn when the going got rough, the administration did, they finally turned to us. They realized they couldn't fight this war while we were out shopping and the occasional "everything's going quite swimmingly" wouldn't be enough. They didn't ask us to invest in this war until many were ready for it to be over and that is really the biggest failing of the war.

I can't say I completely disagree with you, and I can't say I completely agree with you. The major difference between you and I is that I think that people should have to be informed. As if somehow it's George Bush's fault that people don't take the hour a week to make sure they have the correct information. I really don't pay THAT MUCH attention to the news. I knew there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. I knew it would be a long war because the President himself said so. I knew that war sucks. I knew that we wouldn't be fighting a uniformed enemy. I knew all of this, and I don't even pay that much attention.

I'm somehow supposed to sit here and place all the blame on George Bush because people CHOOSE to put on their blinders and not pay attention and fucking think. Yeah, your neighbor's kid who is being sent over to Iraq might have their fucking head blown off. People deserve what they ask for, and the President said, point blank, we will be there for AT LEAST 10 years. They did accomplish their mission... overthrow Saddam Hussein, which is what every person who supported the war wanted. They just weren't involved enough to think about the consequences which WERE discussed on the news. It was said that it would be easy to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but an entirely different matter about what would occur afterwards.

While people were out steam-rolling Dixie Chicks albums all of this information was available. While the nation was off slamming Michael Moore (including my buddy liberals who like to support Republican/conservative stances against our MAINSTREAM champions) for sticking it to the Bush Administration people were getting their heads blown off, and hey, we'd rather be patriots than to sit down and think about what the fuck we're doing.

Later on, when it all sinks in... we'll blame it on the President. We'll blame it on Hillary Clinton (hi, my friendly liberals). We'll blame it on John Kerry, John Edwards, and Dick Cheney. How about those who have turned their backs on a path they chose when the information was out there for the getting that they chose NOT to seek out? This country needs to take a look in the goddamn mirror before they try to place blame on ANYONE besides themselves. These people represent them, and they CHOSE. Not the President. Not Congress. Not Dick Cheney. They did. They chose, and they got what they asked for... everything the ACTUAL information told them they'd get. War.

This isn't George Bush's America. This is our America.

[Galactus]

I guess I'm just not sure how or why you overlook the poor management of it all. There are those who, for various reasons, opposed the war in the beginning but the vast majority of Americans supported it far longer then they had reasons to do so. Americans re-elected Bush mostly to give him more time to get it right and he didn't. Now it's "our" fault for not paying attention? Bush may have said we'd be there for ten years but he sure as shit didn't say it very loud. I don't place all the blame on Bush, he's just the most visible representative of this cluster fuck...and the "commander and chief" on his name tag kind of puts a lot of this on him too. If people had been more informed as you think they should have, what then? Would we still support the war? Would we not have re-elected him? What exactly do you think would be different? Don't get me wrong I think everybody needs to be more involved in politics but that doesn't excuse that many politicians take advantage of the fact that they aren't.

[Mary]

If people are so lazy, ill-informed, and jingoistic that they reflexively support totally unjustifiable wars without bothering to consider the consequences, then I'd prefer for them to abandon their support when it becomes clear even to them what a catastrophe they've enabled, than to cling to their support just for the sake of standing firm.

[chrisfan]

"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson

[Galactus]

I don't think people were uninformed on the war. I do think the administration was putting out a mixed at best, completely false at worst, message.

[Galactus]

...let me change that "the administration" to include congress and senate. Our entire government jumped into this with alarmingly little foresight.

[ken]

But it was important that we kill some Arabs. You guys forget why we went to war in the first place.

[Matheus]

Apr 21, 2008 7:22:32 GMT -5 Galactus said:

I guess I'm just not sure how or why you overlook the poor management of it all. There are those who, for various reasons, opposed the war in the beginning but the vast majority of Americans supported it far longer then they had reasons to do so. Americans re-elected Bush mostly to give him more time to get it right and he didn't. Now it's "our" fault for not paying attention? Bush may have said we'd be there for ten years but he sure as shit didn't say it very loud. I don't place all the blame on Bush, he's just the most visible representative of this cluster fuck...and the "commander and chief" on his name tag kind of puts a lot of this on him too. If people had been more informed as you think they should have, what then? Would we still support the war? Would we not have re-elected him? What exactly do you think would be different? Don't get me wrong I think everybody needs to be more involved in politics but that doesn't excuse that many politicians take advantage of the fact that they aren't.

I don't think I have to defend my view, and I'm not overlooking "poor management" because alternative voices were available to the Americans at the time. On one hand, we're going to be more forgiving about people believing things the President never said, and on the other hand we're going to discredit the fact that there were people out there saying we need to go in with more troops. It did exist. They chose what voices to listen to. The information was available for people to have a serious thought-session with themselves about what they should be supporting. Many chose not to, which is apparent once the bodies continually hit the floor and they started to sway the other way. Those are the people I have a problem with. If they didn't have the foresight to see how this war would go after 4 planes were hijacked and crashed into 3 buildings and a field IN THE UNITED STATES then I don't feel sorry for them one bit.

"It's war, stupid."

[Matheus]

Apr 21, 2008 9:11:11 GMT -5 Mary said:

If people are so lazy, ill-informed, and jingoistic that they reflexively support totally unjustifiable wars without bothering to consider the consequences, then I'd prefer for them to abandon their support when it becomes clear even to them what a catastrophe they've enabled, than to cling to their support just for the sake of standing firm.

I don't disagree. They need not to blame anyone but their own selves for not being informed though, which is my point. The President isn't to blame for their laziness and lack of engagement in what is going to affect them. They sure know how to bitch once it does...

[luke]

Yeah, it's like that time that girl's whole family died, and she was really distraught. So I told her I'd look after her and take care of her, and everything would be all right. She believed me, so then I fucked her brains out, sneaked out of her apartment in the middle of the night, and never called her again.

What a dumb whore. She could've just asked around and found out that I was really a jerk, but she was too wrapped up in her dead family to take the time to be level-headed. The whole thing was completely her fault. Lazy cunt.

[Galactus]

I'm sorry matheus, I guess I'm dense because I just don't see where you're going. People weren't as informed as they should've been and then what? Yeah, I guess some people turned against the war because maybe they didn't realize people die in wars but I think more people turned against when it became obvious that we'd completely fucked it up. That's just what makes sense to me though.

[Matheus]

Apr 21, 2008 18:51:00 GMT -5 Galactus said:

I'm sorry matheus, I guess I'm dense because I just don't see where you're going. People weren't as informed as they should've been and then what? Yeah, I guess some people turned against the war because maybe they didn't realize people die in wars but I think more people turned against when it became obvious that we'd completely fucked it up. That's just what makes sense to me though.

Fucked it up? The war was stupid and ill advised from the beginning. It's perfectly PC nowadays to talk about how things were mucked up over there by bad planning, but the fact of the matter is that the people of this country supported that war because they were a bunch of sheep following their shepherd. They chose not to look in the woods and see what could possibly come. Yeah, there was a strong chance things could get ugly over there, and now that it has happened we'll blame it on someone's mishandling. Said mishandling was apparent from the information presented from the very beginning. If people paid attention they would have noticed conflicting views on the subject and could have had some foresight into what COULD happen. Whether or not it was fucked up is irrelevant, the consequences were always there for the viewing.

But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere with this, because I'm wrong.

[Matheus]

Apr 21, 2008 11:34:22 GMT -5 luke said:

Yeah, it's like that time that girl's whole family died, and she was really distraught. So I told her I'd look after her and take care of her, and everything would be all right. She believed me, so then I fucked her brains out, sneaked out of her apartment in the middle of the night, and never called her again.

What a dumb whore. She could've just asked around and found out that I was really a jerk, but she was too wrapped up in her dead family to take the time to be level-headed. The whole thing was completely her fault. Lazy cunt.

Great analogy.

[ken]

Who's Counting Bush's Mistakes?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, "The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." And no administration in U.S. history has spoken louder, or as often, of its honor.

So let us count our spoons.

Emergency Management: They completely failed to manage the first large-scale emergency since 9/11. Despite all their big talk and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on homeland security over the past four years, this administration proved itself stunningly incompetent when faced with an actual emergency. (Katrina Relief Funds Squandered)

Fiscal Management: America is broke. No wait, we're worse than broke. In less than five years these borrow and spend-thrifts have nearly doubled our national debt, to a stunning $8.2 trillion. These are not your father's Republicans who treated public dollars as though they were an endangered species. These Republicans waste money in ways and in quantities that make those old tax and spend liberals of yore look like tight-fisted Scots.

This administration is so incompetent that you can just throw a dart at the front page of your morning paper and whatever story of importance it hits will prove my point.

Katrina relief: Eleven thousand spanking new mobile homes sinking into the Arkansas mud. Seems no one in the administration knew there were federal and state laws prohibiting trailers in flood zones. Oops. That little mistake cost you $850 million -- and counting.

Medicare Drug Program: This $50 billion white elephant debuted by trampling many of those it was supposed to save. The mess forced states to step in and try to save its own citizens from being killed by the administration's poorly planned and executed attempt to privatize huge hunks of the federal health safety net.

Afghanistan: Good managers know that in order to pocket the gains of a project, you have to finish it. This administration started out fine in Afghanistan. They had the Taliban and al Queda on the run and Osama bin Laden trapped in a box canyon. Then they were distracted by a nearby shiney object -- Iraq. We are now $75 billion out of pocket in Afghanistan and its sitting president still rules only within the confines of the nation's capital. Tribal warlords, the growing remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda call the shots in the rest of the county.

Iraq: This ill-begotten war was supposed to only cost us $65 billion. It has now cost us over $300 billion and continues to suck $6 billion a month out of our children's futures. Meanwhile the three warring tribes Bush "liberated" are using our money and soldiers' lives to partition the country. The Shiites and Kurds are carving out the prime cuts while treating the once-dominant Sunnis the same way the Israelis treat the Palestinians, forcing them onto Iraq's version of Death Valley. Meanwhile Iran is increasingly calling the shots in the Shiite region as mullahs loyal to Iran take charge. (More)

Iran: The administration not only jinxed its Afghanistan operations by attacking Iraq, but also provided Iran both the rationale for and time to move toward nuclear weapons. The Bush administration's neocons' threats to attack Syria next only provided more support for religious conservatives within Iran who argued U.S. intentions in the Middle East were clear, and that only the deterrent that comes with nuclear weapons could protect them.

North Korea: Ditto. Also add to all the above the example North Korea set for Iran. Clearly once a country possesses nukes, the U.S. drops the veiled threats and wants to talk.

Social Programs: It's easier to get affordable -- even free -- American-style medical care, paid for with American dollars, if you are injured in Iraq, Afghanistan or are victims of a Pakistani earthquake, than if you live and pay taxes in the good old U.S.A. Nearly 50 million Americans can't afford medical insurance. Nevertheless the administration has proposed a budget that will cut $40 billion from domestic social programs, including health care for the working poor. The administration is quick to say that those services will be replaced by its "faith-based" programs. Not so fast...

"Despite the Bush administration's rhetorical support for religious charities, the amount of direct federal grants to faith-based organizations declined from 2002 to 2004, according to a major new study released yesterday....The study released yesterday "is confirmation of the suspicion I've had all along, that what the faith-based initiative is really all about is de-funding social programs and dumping responsibility for the poor on the charitable sector," said Kay Guinane, director of the nonprofit advocacy program at OMB Watch.." (More)

The Military: Overused and over-deployed.

Former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned in a 15-page report that the Army and Marine Corps cannot sustain the current operational tempo without "doing real damage to their forces." ... Speaking at a news conference to release the study, Albright said she is "very troubled" the military will not be able to meet demands abroad. Perry warned that the strain, "if not relieved, can have highly corrosive and long-term effects on the military. (More)

With military budgets gutted by the spiraling costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration has requested funding for fewer National Guard troops in fiscal 2007 -- 17,000 fewer. Which boggles the sane mind since, if it weren't for reserve/National Guard, the administration would not have had enough troops to rotate forces in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 40 percent of the troops sent to those two countries were from the reserve and National Guard.

The Environment: Here's a little pop quiz: What happens if all the coral in the world's oceans dies? Answer: Coral is the first rung on the food-chain ladder; so when it goes, everything else in the ocean dies. And if the oceans die, we die.

The coral in the world's oceans are dying (called "bleaching") at an alarming and accelerating rate. Global warming is the culprit. Nevertheless, this administration continues as the world's leading global warming denier. Why? Because they seem to feel it's more cost effective to be dead than to force reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. How stupid is that? And time is running out.

Trade: We are approaching a $1 trillion annual trade deficit, most of it with Asia, $220 billion with just China -- just last year.

Energy: Record high energy prices. Record energy company profits. Dick Cheney's energy task force meetings remain secret. Need I say more?

Consumers: Americans finally did it last year -- they achieved a negative savings rate. (Folks in China save 10 percent, for contrast.) If the government can spend more than it makes and just say "charge it" when it runs out, so can we. The average American now owes $9,000 to credit card companies. Imagine that.

Human Rights: America now runs secret prisons and a secret judicial system that would give Kafka fits. And the U.S. has joined the list of nations that tortures prisioners of war. (Shut up George! We have pictures!)

I could go on for another 1,000 words listing the stunning incompetence of the Bush administration and its GOP sycophants in Congress. But what's the use? No seems to give a fig. The sun continues to shine in this fool's paradise. House starts were up in January. The stock market is finally back over 11,000.

But don't bother George W. Bush with any of this. While seldom right, he is never in doubt. Doubt is Bush's enemy. Worry? How can he worry when he has no doubts?

Me? Well, I worry about all the above, all the time. But in particular, I worry about coral.

[strat-0]

Good piece. Where's it from?