"Fun with Dick and George!" or "Where'd my Cojones Git To?"

[elwynsattic]

[Moved from another blog--an oldie but a goodie.]

OK, I've been ignoring this issue like a mound of dog poop freshly deposited in the middle of the living room rug. Everyone knows it's there but is too polite to acknowledge it while making sure they walk around it. Well, I guess I'm about to step right in it, figuratively speaking.

For the record, here is why I don't like the Bush administration and why I think George Bush should have never left Crawford. I may add source documentation later, but for now, the following is my opinion. Putting it kindly, this administration is a vexation to the spirit and I think history will judge it most corrupt.

• Weapons of Mass Deception. Bush & Co. goose-stepped the U.S. and its allies into a bloody war with Iraq based on prevarication and faulty intelligence (i.e., "Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Quaeda and was responsible for the events of Sept. 11th.") Instead, the Downing Street Memo makes it seem as if George Bush and Tony Blair massaged and "spun" the intelligence to justify their goal of deposing Saddam. Saddam Hussein will no doubt burn in Hades for his war crimes and atrocities, but the weapons inspectors concluded that he did NOT have WMDs and biological weapons, sanctions were working, and asked for more time to do their jobs. Instead, the U.S. thumbed its nose at the U.N. and invaded Iraq, and still expected our allies to help us clean up a mess we made. In 2003 Bush declared "mission accomplished"; instead, the war is escalating and casualties on all sides are mounting. We need a clear exit strategy, we need to hand sovereignty to the Iraqi people, we need to refocus our "eyes on the prize" of peace by working for justice. It's trite but true: "when Clinton lied, nobody died." Today's moral dilemma: is it worse to lie about dead sperm or dead soldiers, and which makes a better case for impeachment? And why the hell aren't we looking harder for Osama bin Laden and the true perpetrators of 9/11? Was Saddam just a convenient scapegoat?
  • According to the Washington Post (8/14/2005), "The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad." (Source: http://michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3684).
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil.The United States, historically quick to point out human rights violations in other countries, has blood on its hands. We used to be a shining beacon of freedom, a symbol of justice for the rest of the world; our reputation is tarnished and I don't think we will ever glow so brightly again. Sometimes I am ashamed to be an American:
  • Torture celebrated in photos of Abu Ghraib--and peons take the fall for "just following orders" from on high.
  • Prisoners farmed out to other countries who will do the "dirty work" of torture for us while we, the collective Pontius Pilate, wash our hands of it.
  • Innnocent people who are victims of hate crimes, kicked off of airplanes or "disappeared" because they "look" Middle Eastern (racial profiling) or have a Muslim-sounding name.
  • Prisoners locked away in Guantanamo without the same basic rights to counsel and due process afforded anyone else accused of a crime under the U.S. judicial system. Alleged criminals are assumed innocent until proven guilty--shouldn't this include everyone? And how does our government do it--simple, really. We lease the land from Cuba, so the prison does not fall under U.S. legal jurisdiction, yet it is overseen by the U.S. government. The classic example of a "catch-22."
• Every Vote Counts, Count Every Vote. Elections 2000 and 2004 were marred by numerous incidents of voting fraud, voter intimidation, voting machine irregularities, and misplaced/lost/miscounted and wrongly-awarded votes. Florida in 2000 was a disaster. The election results should clearly have been invalidated. No doubt Florida Governor Jeb Bush helped hand the state, and then the nation, to his brother on a "black gold" platter. Then, in 2004, the CEO of Diebold, the company who produces many of the computerized voting machines used nationwide, promised to deliver an Ohio victory to George Bush. Since then there have been many irregularites recorded with the Diebold machines, as well as documented incidences of "hacking" into them or manipulating recorded data. (Examples are clearly documented at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/). Both Al Gore (2000) and John Kerry (2004) gave in without a fight, even in the face of ever-mounting evidence that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were riddled with fraud and maybe even stolen. And if that wasn't bad enough, the Senate Democrats somehow managed to en masse misplace their cojones and would not stand with their colleagues in the House of Representatives to challenge the election results--not once, but twice! (The 2000 incident is well-documented in Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 911.) This must never happen again. ELECTION REFORM MANDATES A PAPER TRAIL. IN 2006 WE MUST COUNT EVERY VOTE. I'll "get over it" when every vote is counted.
• Other People's Money. Republicans have traditionally represented themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and small government. GWB has run up the largest budget deficit in the history of the United States--and John Kerry was right, he STILL managed to give a tax rebate to the richest of the rich.
• George to the Back of the Bus. It is bad enough that the government's hands are in our pockets; now they want their eyes in our bedrooms, too:
  • It is not the government's business (or in its interest) to legislate morality; the framers of the constitution knew what they were doing when they drew a line separating church and state. Choice of religion (or lack thereof) is a private, personal decision, not a state mandate. Our government does not have the right to legislate or impose particular spiritual precepts on society, to selectively fund or support a particular spiritual path, or to claim divine authority as a catalyst or reason for its policies and actions. Public schools are state institutions; churches are not.
  • Choice must remain a choice. What a woman does with her body is a private, personal issue; the decision to bear a child or not rests with those involved. It should be illegal for pharmacists to refuse to prescribe birth control on so-called "moral" grounds--it is not their decision to make. It is ironic that those who scream loudest about protecting the rights of the unborn do not seem all that concerned once a baby is out of the womb. If our legislators were more concerned with the living, our tax dollars would subsidize universal health care and a vast safety net of programs to address social problems such as poverty, unemployment, violence, addiction, hunger, and homelessness. Expanded stem cell research (on embryo cells, grown in a petri dish, that are going to be discarded anyway) could potentially help cure, or at least slow the progress, of many debilitating or fatal diseases.
  • How to care for a loved one in hospice is a private decision for the family and their doctors of choice to make; it is not up to the government to define or determine "quality of life." Terry Schiavo was treated as a political football, not a person; her family's private ordeal became a public spectacle aired in the media as entertainment. "Quality of life" means many things, including respecting another's life choices whether you agree with them or not; comfort, privacy, and death with dignity are rights for all, not the privilege of a few.
  • Sexual orientation is a private, personal matter and a civil rights issue. Gays have the same rights as heterosexuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--to love, marry, raise a family, join the military, work, worship, play--and have equal participation in all aspects and institutions of society without fear of retribution. Anything else is not only discriminatory, but downright stupid. So-called "differences" such as sexual orientation, skin color, etc. are entirely superficial. It is the government's mandate to uphold individual liberties and civil rights, not take them away.
  • What consenting adults do behind closed doors is their business--not the business of Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court. They're called "private parts" for a reason. As for "Don't ask, don't tell," if I walked into an Army recruiting office with my eyes closed, do you think anyone would notice the color of my skin?

I will get down from my soapbox rant (for now) and add more later. I think Michael Moore, John Conyers, and Cindy Sheehan are patriots, and I wish more people in this country would find their cojones and follow their example. Fire the CEO!

As a nation, as a world, as a people, we can do better. We can be better, and we should be. I hope it's not too late.

4 Comments:


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