I Am George Bush. I Am a Shameless Scumbag.
20 more American soldiers died in the last two days in Iraq. The response from the nation's Chickenhawk-in-Chief was this: he claimed that the soldiers all "died for a noble cause", and "their families can know that American citizens are praying for them". Aside from the obvious weirdness of the second statement (I should hope that all of the affected families can know that their children have been blown up or shot; I also hope that they can know many, many other things--including solace after the wasteful death of their sons and daughters), it is simply amazing to me that this man Bush can face a roomful of cameras and transmit his hollow, poorly-expressed bullshit to the rest of the world. After uttering the aformentioned platitudes, Bush concluded by saying Iraqi forces (rather than defending their country from invading soldiery) were "trying to shake the will of America...they will fail". If the words "oil companies" were substituted for the word "America" perhaps there would be a grain of truth in his statement.
It's bad enough that Bush has destroyed the integrity of the electoral process in the US forever; bad enough that he has withdrawn the US from a variety of international environmental treaties; bad enough that either his incompetence or his diabolism allowed the events of September 11th to occur; bad enough that his chums at Enron picked out the members of his administration with Karl Rove and then split the scene of the crime to avoid punishment while defrauding pension funds and 401k plans; but what is going on in Iraq is disgraceful beyond words. At least true demagogues like Hitler or Napoleon experienced some success in their attempts to conquer the world before crashing themselves and their nations into the abyss of total ruin...the ineptitude of the US military planners is astonishing, doubly so given the fact that they had fought a ground war in the same area of the same country a mere 12 years prior to the Second Gulf War. Yet there has been no dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld, no demotion of Karl Rove--the only one of the neocons held accountable was Paul Wolfowitz, and instead of a Medal of Freedom he received a sideways promotion to head of the World Bank. I guess GW Bush treats his administration much the same as he himself was treated in his life. Failure is rewarded, not chastised--after all, these are his guys we're talking about here--and those who are privileged enough to be given positions of tremendous responsibility deserve to be honored regardless of their performance in their jobs. Perks are perks, and those who hold the levers of power are beyond the reach of ordinary concepts such as accountability or laws. This upper-crust attitude towards the country is disgusting, more so now that undereducated and overly propagandized members of the lower class are dying for Bush and his blueblooded corporate pals.
The only consolation in any of this is that those who are dying in Iraq for Bush's hegemonic schemes voted for him in overwhelming percentages. Bought off in 2001 with a military service tax credit that represented roughly 7% of a low-ranking infantry person's salary, they now fill body bags in the field and pine boxes in the bellies of transport craft as their corpses are sent back home to the US. They had the chance to save their own lives in the election of 2000, but decided an extra thousand bucks over and above Mr. Bush's Tax Bribe of $300 was worth the sacrifice of their lives. As they rot in the ground, I hope that their extra money in 2001 bought them something other than an early grave.
When GW Bush is alone at night, does he cry for all of these wasted lives? Does he ask his Jesus for guidance, or does he ask for blessings for secret plans of conquest and energy resource monopoly? We will never know, for like Reagan, he is too much of a bovine, unreflective cipher to be able to craft a memoir of his time in office. What is all too clear about this man is that he has no sense of shame and no sense of the actual cost of any real endeavor in life, since everything he has ever "achieved" in his life has been handed to him by the powerful friends of his cynical and morally repugnant family.
It's bad enough that Bush has destroyed the integrity of the electoral process in the US forever; bad enough that he has withdrawn the US from a variety of international environmental treaties; bad enough that either his incompetence or his diabolism allowed the events of September 11th to occur; bad enough that his chums at Enron picked out the members of his administration with Karl Rove and then split the scene of the crime to avoid punishment while defrauding pension funds and 401k plans; but what is going on in Iraq is disgraceful beyond words. At least true demagogues like Hitler or Napoleon experienced some success in their attempts to conquer the world before crashing themselves and their nations into the abyss of total ruin...the ineptitude of the US military planners is astonishing, doubly so given the fact that they had fought a ground war in the same area of the same country a mere 12 years prior to the Second Gulf War. Yet there has been no dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld, no demotion of Karl Rove--the only one of the neocons held accountable was Paul Wolfowitz, and instead of a Medal of Freedom he received a sideways promotion to head of the World Bank. I guess GW Bush treats his administration much the same as he himself was treated in his life. Failure is rewarded, not chastised--after all, these are his guys we're talking about here--and those who are privileged enough to be given positions of tremendous responsibility deserve to be honored regardless of their performance in their jobs. Perks are perks, and those who hold the levers of power are beyond the reach of ordinary concepts such as accountability or laws. This upper-crust attitude towards the country is disgusting, more so now that undereducated and overly propagandized members of the lower class are dying for Bush and his blueblooded corporate pals.
The only consolation in any of this is that those who are dying in Iraq for Bush's hegemonic schemes voted for him in overwhelming percentages. Bought off in 2001 with a military service tax credit that represented roughly 7% of a low-ranking infantry person's salary, they now fill body bags in the field and pine boxes in the bellies of transport craft as their corpses are sent back home to the US. They had the chance to save their own lives in the election of 2000, but decided an extra thousand bucks over and above Mr. Bush's Tax Bribe of $300 was worth the sacrifice of their lives. As they rot in the ground, I hope that their extra money in 2001 bought them something other than an early grave.
When GW Bush is alone at night, does he cry for all of these wasted lives? Does he ask his Jesus for guidance, or does he ask for blessings for secret plans of conquest and energy resource monopoly? We will never know, for like Reagan, he is too much of a bovine, unreflective cipher to be able to craft a memoir of his time in office. What is all too clear about this man is that he has no sense of shame and no sense of the actual cost of any real endeavor in life, since everything he has ever "achieved" in his life has been handed to him by the powerful friends of his cynical and morally repugnant family.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 9:04 AM
1 Comments:
"They had the chance to save their own lives in the election of 2000, but decided an extra thousand bucks over and above Mr. Bush's Tax Bribe of $300 was worth the sacrifice of their lives."
Your blog didn't exist that far back, but it would have had you known the level of incompetence and irresponsibilty to come out of the Bush administration. I don't think you had a crystal ball back then nor did US soldiers. And by the way, compensation for military service is so abysmal that families very often have to rely on community welfare programs.
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