I can’t imagine any good coming from the proliferation of nukes in the Middle East.
I seriously doubt that a government would use them against another nation. They would risk the rath of the entire world on them, not just the US. The danger is that they get in the hands of group like AQ, who don’t give a rat’s ass about the rath of the world.
I think I’ve got it. How about “Rope the Beast!” ?
Well, I care. I consider GW to be a playboy dabbler, a perpetual sophmore, and so insular that he shouldn’t be allowed out without a keeper. And I base that on his history of failure or marginal performance at everything he tried. As I understand it he had never been outside the US before becoming president. His college classmates have remarked about his seeming complete lack of curiousity, hence no questioning of the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz Iraq fairy tale. It appears to me that he decided how things are, based on being the protected son of a rich family, at age 17 and his development stopped there.
Unfortunately there are those who care about their personal ability to shaft the middle class and they are for GW 99-44/100ths %. His tax program has resulted in record deficits. Although the debt will not be paid, merely refinanced as long as people will by US bonds, the interest payments will occupy a larger and larger share of the government income robbing needed programs of support. His tax program has shifted more of the government’s financial support from the upper 20% of the income strata to the middle 60% according the the Congressional Budget Office. His drug program benefits drug and insurance companies immediately while the drug benefits to seniors doesn’t kick in for several years. And he insists on opening up national resource treasures in the federal lands for immediate use. He seems never to have heard of Jefferson’s point of view that we hold the land in trust, free to use it for our needs but required to pass it on to succeeding generations as undamaged as possible. The legal term I believe is “usufruct” which is the right to enjoy the benefit of an asset belonging to another with the added understanding that the asset will be maintained so as not to destroy its value.
His disregard, almost contempt, for those in the world community that disagree has severely damaged to the US position as a world leader. And we already see other countries’ leaders, like Putin, claiming the right to use preemptive war if in their unsupported opinion there is a threat. Putin is also following GW’s lead in instituting more government interference in personal freedom to read what you want, say what you want, move about where and when you want, again based solely on the claim by the president or his underlings that you pose a potential threat.
Bush has alread got the US hanging halfway over the cliff and that’s enough. I can sympathize with SimonX’s point but I think the risks of 4 more years are just too high.
Simon, I’m bumping this thread to ask you something. Was the report of the Iraq Survey Group’s investigation one of those items you were referring to as items which would shake up the electorate and make them realize they’d been neo-conned? It seemed a very clear indictment of the failures of this administration and yet it has been spun a full 180 degrees by both Bush
What’s your take on this development? Was this one of the points you hoped would bring the neo-cons to heel? Do you think they’ve managed to avoid fallout from it? Or do you think the recent slip in his approval rating is because of the report?
Enjoy,
Steven
It’s not something that I specifically had in mind. To be honest, I’d forgotten that it was yet to come. As far as investigations go I was thinking more of the ones ongoing in the DoJ- grand juries and such.
My largest concerns involve the terrorist attacks that are coming. That’s the things that’ll have Americans looking for someone to blame.
If people actually are frog marched out in handcuffs and when there’re charred body parts strewn about, even more people will take notice.
Consider that the number of people who’re coming to realize that Iraq was a bamboozle is growing. I doubt that this number will ever decrease.
When this is combined with the aforementioned items (grand juries, attacks) something will have to give.
I do think that it will serve as further foundation for the growing discontent re the direction of our foreign policy.
There’s a better solution: Don’t just vote for Kerry; vote for a Democrat Congressman & a Democrat Senator. The GOP didn’t hold their boy accountable; in fact they have no plausible replacement for him. They should be turned out with Bush. And it only takes a few to give the Dems a mojority [sic].
A Democrat-dominated Congress will repudiate all of Bush’s programs, if only from sheer partisanship. And with a Demo Justice Department & Kerry in the White House, the courts will be free to sentence any Bushies for their crimes (& there are surely crimes buried in the obvious asininity) without fear of preemptive presidential pardons. Kerry’s Justice Dept. should get to work on this forthwith. The arrest & imprisonment of former leaders of the GOP will go a long way toward the discrediting of that faction & the slow painful salvation of the American right wing. And it won’t require letting the Nixo-Bushies set policy for another four years.
It’s a quicker solution, & it’s better.
Sure, if I thought Kerry and the Dems had the balls for such a thing. The only way anyone will catch any shit over the debacles is if there’s political gain in it for those initiating the prosecution.
I don’t see Team Bush as being quite that vulnerable in the event of a Kerry victory. Things’d still have to get a fur piece worse than they are now before the country’d be in the mood to lynch a former PotUS.
I do think that there’s enough momentum to get some of the fellows who John Q. doesn’t know by name, though. But not any of the big name players yet.
So you’d rather give control of the gov’t & military back to these [expl. del.] for 4 more years on the theory that the American people will drop Bush like a bad habit then but won’t now?
Get it through your head: The neocons are already discredited among anyone who knows what a neocon is & isn’t Bill Kristrol himself. I was raised a neocon, & I sympathized with Bush going into Iraq; & I’m learning, with difficulty, that I was naive. But I don’t need 4 more years of idiocy to prove that. My country doesn’t need it, either. Already, people want Bush gone, 'cos we’re in a war we didn’t need, & hurting those we went to save. Voting neocons out now is a sign that we’re learning to see through them.
But to vote Bush back in would be approval for these cats! It would be taken as a vindication!
“Bill Kristrol” is of course a misspelling of “Bill Kristol,” which is a stand-in for those of his class: Wolfowitz, the younger Podhoretz (I think), etc. Is late, I tired.
I might be able to think of a worse reason to vote for Bush, but why would I try? “I think their policies stink, so I want to rub their noses in it?” You think the damage they would do in the next four years is worth taking a gamble on people agreeing with you about their overall ideology? Wow.
The way I see it the choice is between four years now or more than four years later.
I’m choosing the lesser amount of time as is sensible.