From: derekbill@allsummerlong.com
In article ,
Greg Heilers wrote:
> THE SON OF TRUTH wrote:
>
>
> >>>
> >>> .... "... PROTEST IS NOT AN OPTION ! ..." Yuppie Cowboy Fuhrer Bush II
> >>
> >>Hmmm...and when did Mr. Bush utter these words? They do not show up under
> >>a "google" search. Or is this another "dowdification"?
> >
> >
> > I watched/heard it myself on TV a few nights ago. Came right out of his
> > mouth. Sorry, His mouth.
>
> Ahhh...then you definitely *have* "dowdified" it. The actual words were:
>
> Bush said when it comes to Iraq, "protest is not a policy"
> and "retreat is not a strategy." And, he added, "failure is
> not an option."
> (source: NBC News - 10/25/04)
>
> --
>
> Greg Heilers
> Registered Linux User #328317 - SlackWare 10.0
>
> .....
>
> n London's Daily Telegraph, Janet Daley reflects on Bush-hatred as an
> expression of European anti-Americanism:
>
> .....
>
> He is hated because he is the embodiment of everything that the United
> States is, and Europe is not: not just enormously powerful, militarily and
> economically, but brashly confident and fervently patriotic. Where Europe is
> steeped in historical guilt and self-loathing--so immersed in its own
> unforgivable past that it is trying to fashion a constitution that actually
> prohibits national pride--America is profoundly proud of the success of its
> own miraculous achievement.
>
Only if we fail to acknowledge our mistakes (and there've been many,
and not just recently) can we be so proud, which may explain why some
would call it miraculous. A person or nation can be introspective,
reflective, and feel remorse or regret without being "self-loathing".
Grandiosity and megalomania may require denial of all things negative,
but objectivity and the the realization that humans individually and
collectively make mistakes is not only historically sound and
inevitable, its Christian. That would be Christian in the Jesus Christ
sense, not the Christian Crusade sense.
We've got some manifest destiny redux going on now, and it's ugly. We
once moved across a continent of native tribes, first attempting to
bring them civility and Christianity (when in reality we only wanted
their land), and when that failed, slaughtering them as ungrateful,
indefatigable nonconverts. Ditto Hawaii, except those folks were bright
enough to have seen the future and not fight back.
Today its Democracy we're bringing to Muslims. Iraq is a land of tribes
artifically linked by 1920s British colonialist mindset, and held
together by totalitarianist dictators. Now that we've removed the man
who held the 'country' together, it's falling apart. Hussein once said
"they will need six presidents to rule Iraq when i am gone" and his
words are gaining credibility as we watch the various factions fight
over the territory. It's like Yugoslavia and Tito devolving into
Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia, etc. But at least our efforts there resulted
in no loss of American life.
Meanwhile, closer to home, people who would never vote for a candidate
supporting abortion rights will vote for a President who bombs pregnant
women. Are those unborn any less innocent than our own? And we defend
(when we even bother to acknowledge) our actions by claiming our intent
isn't the same. At least with Hiroshima we were killing people whose
leader had started a war with us.
There are fools and there are cowards, and I'm not sure which is worse.
It's easy to be brave when you're fighting with the blood of others'
young. It's easy to be thought of as a hero when you're surrounded with
the likeminded. Mobs are democracy at their purest, then devolve
quickly into dictatorships. And when those 'self-loathers' at home and
abroad who oppose or doubt or criticize you, take solace in the fact
that you've got 51% of the vote. The man had designs on Iraq in 1999
and has used 9/11 to justify spending our blood and our treasure on
trying to drag people into a world they don't want to live in. Which
is particularly ironic when one considers that, here at home, people
vote for him because they don't want to acknowledge that the world has
already changed, that sometimes men love men, and women love women,
that abortion is not only for the rich and well-connected, that cable
TV is kicking network TV's ass because real people can say real words
like 'fuck' on cable (just like satellite radio will kick the ass of
free terrestrial radio someday), that people arrested for using crack
have their voting rights taken away while those who use who illegally
use prescription drugs (or powdered cocaine) are still be allowed to
vote. The list goes on.
Maybe in a hundred years some genius composer and a brilliant
iconoclastic poet will write a suite of songs about the USA's second
great Crusade, and people who are suspicious of the college educated
will complain that the lyrics are too hard to understand. We won't be
around to see it, but as sure as those who deny the mistakes of the
past are bound to repeat them, my guess is it will happen again. I was
wrong about the outcome of this election because I believed the exit
polls which showed a Kerry victory, forgetting that, once again,
casting a ballot and having it counted are two different things. But
sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Besides,
like Barbara Bush once said, "It's more important what happens at your
hosue than what happens at the White House". And I feel very fortunate
not to have to worry about my house being bombed.
Derek
--
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