I’ve come to believe that the fundamental problem with Bush is this: He’s honest about not giving a fuck what other people think. And that drives the emotionally motivated folks absolutely batshit.
Clinton et al were very very good at the “I feel your pain” stuff. This made people believe that they were likely to change their views or the strategic course of US policy. Neither was true, but because they were acknowledged, people sort of said… “okay we’ve had our say and you acknowledged it now it’s time for a nice cuppa or maybe a pint”.
Bush just isn’t good at that. It’s not the way he thinks. Therefore when people heckle him in the Australian parliment he responds by saying “I love the freedom of speech we have, I love democracy” which is a way of acknowledging the heckler, without addressing their issue or giving them any satisfaction that they’d been heard or done any influencing. It’s a way of saying “fuck you” very politely.
I am not a Bush supporter, and I have to say that so people understand that I don’t necessarily approve of his way of doing business. I can still see though, that there is at least a bit more basic forthrightness (if not courtesty) in doing that than in pretending you give a shit when you don’t.
As to the Bush limited intelligence stuff… The man was a US Airforce flight certified pilot who flew fighter-interceptors. Draft dodger, cokehead, whatever. The point is, NO ONE, no matter WHO their daddy is, gets flight qualified by the USAF if they can’t do the aeronautical math and pass the flight tests. He may be a poor public speaker, but he is not dumb. It might be easier for folks if he were, but he’s not.
Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I don’t think Bush is really dumb. More likely, he’s a guy with average intelligence(*), who happens to be “intellectually lazy” – he could expend the effort to think things out, but often doesn’t bother, because there’s no motivation for him to do so.
That only looks dumb to us from the outside, and he certainly uses it to his advantage. Bush likes it when people underestimate him, but IMO that doesn’t mean we should overestimate him, either.
(* = I do not think flying a jet requires above-average intelligence. Having written training manuals for the Army in the past, I’ll say that you can teach complex stuff to ordinary folks if you (1) spell it out in small, bite-sized chunks, (2) tell them to ever deviate from the instructions, and (3) use a lot of repetition)
Maybe it made MONUMENTALLY STUPID people believe this, but the whole “I feel your pain” rubbish should look quite fake to anybody with at least three firing cerebral neurons.
I would agree with “intellectually lazy”, but I think he’s even smarter than you think. He has the look of some of the sneaky-bastard fencers I’ve faced, the ones who limp up to the piste so very convincingly, the old guy who walks into the competition using a cane but dances out with a trophy, etc. He may be short on the types of intelligences that academics value, but it looks like he’s got quite a lot of social intelligence and related types of intelligences.
Thus, it is probably more accurate to say that his intelligence is deep but narrow. He’s not intellectually totipotent and doesn’t pretend to be. It is the lack of pretense that distinguishes him from the last two presidents.
Hmmm, maybe we need a thread to discuss whether Bush is “actually stupid” or not. I’m sure that’ll settle it once and for all for everyone on this board.
I kinda thought it was interesting how he finessed the Brit journalist this morning who asked him flat out why he was so hated. He just said something like how it was great to see freedom in action, now Iraqis can demontrate too, blah blah blah. I think he can’t understand it, on a visceral level. He understands the problems people might have with his policy but since he’s so genial–except to certain dictators–he doesn’t get the deep hate that some of more unstable people out there have.
Although if I’d just been told of a massacre ocurring involving two of my closest national friends, I would have had some choice things to say about their being people out there parading with fake heads of him and Tony while saying not a peep about Osama and Saddam and Kim. His restraint is very diplomatic given his reputation.
Sure it will John. Just like the LAST “Is Bush Stupid” thread…what did it go? 5 pages? 6? I’m STILL cleaning up all the foam that flowed out of it every time I opened it up…
I think people underestimate Bush…and he wants it that way. I’ve never heard anyone OVERestimating the man. My thoughts are, Dog pegged him…he’s one of the crafty types that limp into the Dojo, and you think, I just have to watch the hands…then look up from the floor as a spinning round kick drops you to the ground. I, for one, am NOT gona underestimate the man.
As to the OP (lol), I have nothing substantial to add. Our British brothers and sisters are more on top of that then I am. My friends in the UK basically say its a bunch of shit, but I think they are a bit more conservative than a lot of their fellows, so maybe aren’t representative of the people there so much. While they don’t particularly LIKE Bush, they aren’t foaming at the mouth over him either. More like distaste for him, tinged with a wary respect perhaps…which I agree with.
I dunno, I still think the “sneaky cunning” part comes from Karl Rove. George W. Bush, by himself, does not strike me as having the cleverness to think of these sorts of tricks. He’ll gladly go along with them, but won’t think of them on his own.
British SWP Says: Join “Stop the War”or We’ll Shoot You!
Reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 799, 14 March 2003.
The following leaflet was issued on March 1 by the Spartacist League/Britain, section of the International Communist League.
The “Revolution 2003” teach-in at the London School of Economics organised by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) this weekend featured self-appointed SWP thought police dispatching** goon squads to harass the Spartacist League and Spartacus Youth Group** and to impede the public from access to our revolutionary Marxist views. Inside the teach-in, the threats escalated after floor interventions by two young women supporters of the Spartacist League, who argued that opposition to the Iraq war and its domestic repercussions in the anti-Muslim witchhunt requires opposition to the Labour government, and exposed the SWP’s support to Islamic fundamentalism. In response, SWP honcho Chris Bambery fumed that anyone who doesn’t politically support the Stop the War Coalition “deserves a bullet in the head.” This is the real face of the SWP’s “give peace a chance” coalition-building: you’ve got to silence the** reds to get workers and youth to lie down like lambs with the wolves of the Labour Party whilst they wage war on Iraq and against working people at home!
** ________________ END _______________
** These two quibbling peace-loving fun-filled groups were instrumental in organizing the anti-Bush protest in London today.**
Just a question: If the Ku Klux Klan sponsored an anti-war march,would 100,000 people attend? Probably most would not, and those who attended unknowingly would denounce the hood-covered freaks.
But Marxists get to actually speak at these events and get cheered. THey also hand out pamphlets and face little or no criticism. So although the 100,000 marchers may not be left wing extremists, they tolerate them and are willing to lock arms with them in a cause. They would not march with right wing extremists whatever the cause.
The SWP (whom I despise) adhere themselves to pretty much any vaguely left-wing cause going. If one were to avoid marches the SWP were hijacking, one would never attend anything.
I don’t know about over there, but over here in the US, ANSWER, a front group of the World WOrker’s Party, sponsors most of the anti-war marches. At one point they had this guy yelling that the Constitution was the enemy, and not one person heckled him. They cheered him.
No, that wasn’t Milum. TimeCube is the work of Dr. Gene Ray, who’s a great guy and furthermore the ONLY MAN WHO UNDERSTANDS THE CUBIC TRUTH OF THE UNIVERSE. MILUM, LIKE ALL PRODUCTS OF EVIL EDUCATORS, TEACH STUPID!
