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18 jul 06 "This adminstration is led by a former male cheer-leader, and consists of draft dodgers, senile Good ol' Mr. Wilson as "Sec of Defense" and war-profiteers (VP), and I dont even know what to call our "Sec of State" except very scary. Is this the LEAST" credible ruling party since Idi Amin? I did not even mention the former drug usage." i didn't know about the male cheerleading. i'm going to have to confirm it. yes, according to my competition. interesting. i knew of two of those at my high school, and i think the consensus was to eye them nervously, but accept them, more or less, because they were popular kids. i wonder to what degree of accuracy i could predict which of my classmates turned out gay. i tend to think "to a pretty high degree". or, at least i wouldn't overlook any. someone on that yahoo answers page tells us that male cheerleading wasn't the same as it is now, and that back in bush's yale days they had to tote the baseball equipment about and such. sounds reasonable to me; bush doesn't seem the type to have taken up an arguably fancy-pantsed activity, he being a texas tiger and all. but isn't it weird how g.w.'s father is this pasty, new england-ish american royal, as well as a fairly smart guy (one-time head of the CIA), and then his son turns out with this "texas twang" and tough-guy appeal (not to mention questionable brainpower)? in fairness, i don't know about the questionable brainpower -- i haven't seen any IQ scores. a lot of the stupid-acting might just be appealing to his chosen demographic (uneducated, conservative middle-americans). but he's no clinton or nixon, surely. let's focus on the "gang of four" (harhar), that everyone knows:
not credible, eh? so you don't find the bush administration to be believable or reliable. i guess they lie to the degree that any band of politicians lies -- by being so ambiguous that one can interpret their BS any way one damn well pleases. that whole weapons of mass destruction bit was really just a problem with hasty adoption of bad intelligence, and doesn't quite qualify as a "bold-faced lie", in my opinion. not that there wasn't some administrative eagerness to find these supposed WMD's, but i believe the CIA, NSA, etc, really did honestly think they had proof of their existence, maybe, possibly. either that, or they said "errr...maybe. probably. almost definitely. yeah", because rumsfeld was breathing down their necks. but i really can't speculate there, and neither can you. but certainly, it wasn't something like "mwaha, we know that there aren't any WMD's, but we're going to say there are". and i do agree that saddam wouldn't have been exactly dissappointed if someone had given him five tons of enriched uranium for eid ul-fitr (end of ramadan, sort of analgous to christmas). seriously, he's used chemical weapons in the past. why would he suddenly stop wanting to? of course, none of this provides licesense to barge across a sovreign nation's border, say "you're an Enemy of Freedom", and proceed to change out the cabinet via grenade launcher. i wonder what saddam's doing these days; maybe watching lots of tv. so i can't agree that the bush administration is composed, particularly, of liars. they might be bastards, but they don't tell you the world is flat. not reliable? they can be relied upon to do their thing (fat defense budget at the expense of all else, rabidly aggressive anti-terrorist policy, enthusiastic free market encouragement, and dumping their used motor oil into virgin marshland). my opinions on poltical issues are based on the stipulation that i care, which i really don't, except on a very abstract level. it's hard for me to state my principles, since i'm not 100% sure i have any. in a way, that's one of my strengths: i'm non-judgemental except under a few certain circumstances (you'll never know), and am a good listener. poo-poo. so maybe "credible" isn't a good word for you to use. maybe you meant "is this the least likable government since idi amin?" or maybe i'll give you some credit, and assume you meant "is this administration more harmful to the world than most others?" i'd have to agree with you there; even if market capitalism does make a country richer, and does "provide for" the poor in a reagan-esque trickle-down (because the country is so rich, its poor are comparatively rich on a global scale), but international capitalism works just like naitonal capitalism: there are some winners, and some losers -- entire nations of losers. however, that's not really something that can be pinned on a partiular administration, even though one might steer the country to the right of center, economically. on the environment issue, bush is a terrible choice of policy maker; he just doesn't consider it. you know, i should really just shut up about economics, because i don't know what i'm talking about there. but i do think that markets produce inequity, and i think this is backed up by clear observation -- i don't have to crunch any numbers or comprehend formulae to see that. now, i'm not sure inequity is inherently such a terrible thing, just so long as the "have less"'s aren't dying of the plague or anything. i also know that inequity isn't only the result of market capitalism -- every society has its underclass. the american poor are fat on quarter pounders, except that could be argued to be our version of the plague. nevermind. what i mean is that the american poor are much better off than, say, the chinese poor, or the indian poor; there's really not much desperate poverty here, even though it certainly does exist. bush seems to enjoy answering violence with more violence ("you take one drop of my blood, i want ten of yours"), which is bad, although i can see the argument of totally wiping out a declared enemy, sort of like massive chemotherapy to eradicated a small tumor, so you know for certain it's not going to come back. but i get nervous that "the war on terror" is really "the war on islam". i have very incomplete knowledge of politics, warefare and economics, so it's hard for me to speculate on foreign policy, "defense" policy, or even the "market fundamentalism" i like to talk about. i worry that i'm wrong on a lot of those issues, and that i haven't thought them through enough. but wanting to ban gay marriage (especially because it's "in the bible") and putting the market before the environment are enough to make me want to see another policy set in action. vote alper in 2008! you know you want it. i'm sometimes concerned that i give the impression of being a bush supporter -- i'm not. i just get annoyed at bush-haters, and i think that more often than not they haven't really examined anything beyond the aforementioned texas twang, and other superficial qualities. but mainly, i can't take any unreasoned, emotional argument in politics seriously, or even a reasoned one that's yelled at me. that said, g. bush's eyes are much too close together. i'm actually sort of a fascist socialist (believe in government, screw the market), to pardon the expression. when was idi amin around, and what did he do, exactly? ok...1970s, in uganda. violent dictator, murdered and tortured 300,000, ethnic cleanisng, deporation, etc. idi was also uganda's light-heavyweight boxing champion from 1951 to 1960 (seriously). has bush been the worst since then? consider: charles taylor in liberia, botha and apartheid in south africa, saddam hussien in iraq, not to mention "communist" (really, dictatorial) china, which has been going on since 1949, and has variously tortured religious minorities, executed political dissidents, and run over students with tanks. so no -- not by a long shot. i don't even know that its "worse" than the reagan administration -- then, we had reagan telling the soviets to "make my day" while about a thousand nuclear missles were aimed at our heads; i worried about nuclear war before i went to sleep when i was 10. so, maybe things need to be put into perspective a little bit. but i see your point, even though the former drug usage is about as important as clinton's blow job (ie, not very). |
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