Letters to the Editor
Xrandadu Hutman
Published Letters: 2630 Editor's Choice: 52
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Bush HAS to be at peace with himself... It's the only option that allows him to go on
[Read the article: The war president "at peace" with himself]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really, psychologically, Bush has no other options than to choose being "at peace with himself." He has to build up a wall in his mind, a fortress of rationalization to allow him to continue doing his job.
After the war started to go badly, the insurgency rose, and the search for WMD became a joke, Bush was seen joking about WMD at a function. "Where did those WMD go? They're not over there..." he said, looking under the dais. The audience laughed along with him. "Ha ha, it was a joke all along!" Perhaps the only reason they could laugh is because nobody really believed we were invading for WMD to begin with. Or maybe Bush felt he had to put up a strong front to overcompensate for the serious shame he was feeling.
At some point, Bush decided that invading Iraq was a good thing because of the democracy it would bring. He read a few books about the imporant effect democracy had on national character and so on. Early in 2004 Bush was strongly touting "democracy" as the reason for invading Iraq. The national rationalization shifted; "democracy" is something we can all feel good about! Iraqis, hoping to see their lives get better, went along -- voting and getting their fingers stamped purple. Women in burkhas were happily photographed holding up a purple finger. They looked a lot like Americans, signaling as if to say, "We're number one!"
Now the democracy rationalization is dead. There is no democracy where people are blowing each other up by the scores week after week. The war on terror angle doesn't work anymore either. "We have to fight them there so we won't fight them here" is a neat way to justify and rationalize the violence in Iraq. People are seeing through that one too (it's a watered down version of "Everything changed after 9/11").
Finally, after all the rationalizations have fallen, now we are stuck with this: "We can't leave, because as bad as things are in Iraq now, if we leave, they will be 10 times worse."
That's what we're stuck with. We went from self-deceptive rationalizing to lesser-evil statism. Karl Rove couldn't have planned it better.
Bush knows he has fucked up. But he can never admit it publically. To do so would be to signal to all the parents whose children have been slaughtered that, yes, they died for a giant mistake. People are reaching that conclusion anyway, but as long as Bush communicates optimism, people will grieve without necessarily blaming him. They'll hold on to some amount of the original delusion. But once Bush signals that he knows it was all a sham, the sluice gates of anger will open. Once Bush says, "I made a mistake," people will focus their vengeance. There will be no more giving the liar the benefit of the doubt.
Bush is hedging his bets. He bought land in Paraguay adjacent to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's large getaway. (Moon owns and editorially controls the Washington Times, a newspaper that prints attack stories against political opponents. These stories are in turn "reported" by outlets like Drudge and various front publications that are basically propaganda arms of the Bush Administrations.)
When Bush retires he says he'll go on the lecture circuit to "refill the coffers." What's more likely is he'll go AWOL from public life. Bush is good at going AWOL, after all...he was officially AWOL for 1.5 years of his 4-year National Guard service, so what else is new?
If Bush had a shred of decency he'd admit to the world the depth of his deceptions, manipulations, and failures. But the problem is that if he did this and had any honor, he'd need to commit hari-kiri. There would be no way for him to exist publically.
So he'll keep feeding the lie till the day he dies, hiding out as much as he can to keep his liar-fatigue low.
Bush is basically the O.J. Simpson of presidents.
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Farhad... Please follow up on this...
[Read the article: Radiohead's new album: Choose your price]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Farhad writes: "For every $1 song sold on iTunes, according to reports, Apple keeps about 30 cents, giving about 70 to the record label. But activists say artists typically get just 8 to 14 cents per song from the deal -- or about $0.80 to $1.40 per album sold digitally."
Why don't you write an article about this? Is it true? Are the record labels really taking 6/7 of the profits and only giving 1/7 to the artist? This would be worth looking into. I would certainly like to know if it is true.
As for the new Radiohead album, one question has not been answered yet: Is it any good? Anybody have any idea? Also, besides the ridiculous $81 super-package, how can a guy who likes physical CDs obtain one? I am old-fashioned -- I like having a THING and not just some computer files. Why doesn't Radiohead allow for people like me to get their new album? Thanks for flipping me the bird, Radiohead!