Letters to the Editor
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bush, et al
Roughly half the voting public gave the nod to Bush in 2004. As the Guardian newspaper in the UK so aptly put it, how can 51 million people be so stupid?
Sure Bush & Co lied. But half the bloody nitwits in this under-educated country believed those lies.
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Dear sick george
What can I say. There are no words to fully and completely describe the extent to which I despise george bush. He is truly evil incarnate.
I only hope that within the next 306 days, 22 hours, 35 minutes and, roughly 30 seconds (but who's counting), that he doesn't do something really silly like nuke Iran. If he did that, would you folkss commit to marching with me to Washington and really making a lot of serious noise? Why is it this Dr. Strangelove image won't leave my head?
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History repeats
This is not the first time that an apparently advanced, educated nation has taken a path into barbarity on a significant scale. The social and political environment has to be right of course, including the presence of a leader who senses that destiny awaits, those in opposition being cowered by the momentum of events and the general population mesmerised by the call to patriotism. As time goes on the hard core will continue the propaganda, and get away with it, until a residual spark of courage finally lights a fire within those who should know better, or failing that the country is simply too exhausted to carry on the fight.
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A perfect storm
A Democratic party that offers nothing but empty shirt intellectuals as candidates in 2000 and 2004, and then through inaction proceeds to make Bush the most powerful President in our history.
A media that constantly uses the First Amendment as a shield for whatever garbage they feel like foisting on us that day but no longer upholds any of the responsibilities that were the reason for their protected speech.
And an apathetic public that is more than willing to buy into the bread and circuses type government that has been the result.
Bush can lie with impunity because the people charged with calling bullshit have all abdicated their responsibilities. He can do as he pleases because no one is going to even try to stop him.
How have these people managed to remain in office? Why aren't we marching in the streets, calling for impeachment, censure, and imprisonment? Ultimately we have no one but ourselves to blame, because when the American government decided it was no longer answerable to the people, we did nothing. We accept the fact that our elections will be decided by corporations. We accept the fact that our representatives no longer represent us. Long as I have a Land Rover and a McMansion, everything is fine.
To all the Second Amendment supporters, go ahead and hand in your guns. This was exactly the reason we had them, to protect us from a tyrannical government that no longer answered to the citizens, but obviously the days when we would stand up for ourselves are long past. The justification for personal firearms is gone. We gave it up.
God only knows what the next 8 years will bring. Liberal backlash? More of the same? All I know is that a return to the center and our Constitutional Republic isn't likely to happen for a long time.
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Bush's Legacy
Much as Lyndon Johnson will forever be remembered for his tragic mistake in beginning the Viet Nam "war" and Richard Nixon forever remembered for secret incursions into Laos and Cambodia during that "war", George W. Bush's legacy will inevitably be the total sham that was the rush to war in Iraq. Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin "incident" was a lie designed solely to whip up war fever against Viet Nam, Richard Nixon's "secret plan for Viet Nam victory" was another lie designed to win re-election in 1972 just as those phantom WMD's were the core of Bush's lies on the road to avoidable bellicosity in Iraq.
This time, though, the American people, having been lied to repeatedly by Johnson and Nixon on Viet Nam, were naturally skeptical on Iraq. Only by the Bushites waving the flag furiously, demeaning anyone who had doubts about the wisdom of invading Iraq as non-patriotic/anti-American plus trotting out the formerly-respectable General Colin Powell to present faux facts at the UN were they able to launch this disaster.
The legacy of George W. Bush is and will be one of mistakes, failures, lunacy and missed opportunities. The closest Dubya will ever come to being on Mt. Rushmore will be when he is working as a ticket-taker at the visitor's center there.
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The New Colonialists
Unfortunately, W and his pals wouldn't leave well enough alone and so here we are... 5 years of 'war' and what exactly do we have to show for it?
I think we need a new model. There's been some talk about the need engage the Iraqi population with new ideas but a real lack of any new ideas with which to engage. Where are the ideas going to come from? How about asking the Iraqis themselves? How about asking them what they want? We've tried W's way, imposing 'our' view of the world, and it hasn't worked.
The USA was founded by people who wanted the freedom to follow their own path. Why do this nation's leaders find it so hard to accept other peoples' desire to do the same?
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Rhetorical Quislings
What's also scary and dispiriting is that at every step of the way, the MSM has parroted the Bush line, going so far as to have silly academic debates over "Is it a civil war or not? Well, let's ask some experts." And then we get a "he said/she said" which resolves nothing. The MSM has betrayed the profession, the democracy we used to be, and the American public.
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Why do you People's Think that way?
Maybe some of you peoples have not been oversea or you just don't know about why thing are like it is today. For one thing you get remember, that there have not been another plane flying in to any building anymore and if you want to throw a party where all the bad guys want to come to, you pick your spot. And for the Dem. they have and will run from a fight for reasons that I don't understand. When you know who the trouble maker in the world are you take the fight to them. The Iran's have been the cause of most of the problems for some years and it was time to go war. Now get over it, you should be thinking more about how we can keep our peoples out of the poor house if you want somethings to cry about.