Look, the problem with a lot of political tit-for-tat is that it focuses on a lot of small stuff without looking at the big picture. The big picture is, unfortunately, very difficult to grasp since the media has become so fragmented. People don't just have different opinions. That's expected. They have different *&#%ing FACTS! Seriously. There is absolutely no hope of honest debate when pundits' and politicians alike say "Black!" "White!" "No, Black!" "White, I say!!"
You will find intelligent, sophisticated people on both sides saying completely opposing things. It makes no sense at all.
I am horrified that Bush won. My reasons are many, but overall I am just mystified as to why people trust this administration so much. I do not understand why 51% of the population, when it comes down to it, BELIEVES what these people say. Yes, we all know politicians and lies go together like like salt and pepper, but to us 49%, this bunch has taken the art of misleading to a whole new level.
To all Republicans here, I want to stress somethng. Certainly there are partisan issues involved here. Plenty of them. But this matter has gone WAY beyond the issue of whether you're a Repulican or Democrat. It stopped being about that long ago. The anger with this administration has completely transcended party issues. To put it simply, we believe the very existence of our fragile American democracy is in trouble.
I used to laugh it off as silly when people talked about our "slow but steady slide towards fascism." I am not laughing anymore. We are certainly no Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy and never will be, but something much subtler and slower is happening here. While corporations and big business have had our leaders wrapped around their fingers for decades now, the problems are now only intensifying. I am appalled that Republican voters don't, at the very least, view the Halliburton contract in Iraq with suspicion. I do not know the exact quote, but Orwell once said, basically, "If the government says there is democracy, and the people believe there is democracy, then there is democracy." Our freedom that Bush is so fond of celebrating in cheap, shallow rhetoric is slowly being infringed on from a dozen directions, all in the name of, indeed--- "freedom". The word has become a meaningless uniting buzzword that instantly produces nodding heads but that no one actually stops to consider the true meaning of. Look around you. This is the most secretive, exclusive, stubborn, hawkish, impersonal administration that ever led the U.S. in the modern age. Nearly everything they have done has been shrouded in secrecy. Outsiders are not let in. Bush's homespun, cheerful good-ol'-boy image is the mask this administration disguises itself with. If the nominal president were Dick Cheney, they would have a much tougher sell.
Lest I sound like an X-Files conspiracy theorist type, I only point to, as I have in the past, Project for the New Amercan Century. Google, along with "Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol, 1992, 1997, and 2000." Any few of those in combination. This openly imperialist plan has been out in the open for years, yet no one is questioning the true motives of these people.
Republicans often say "so where are all these people who the Patriot Act has hurt? They probably don't even exist." They exist, all right. Wait until you are tapped for some activity or library book that at one time would have been innocuous. Certainly they are not watching everybody all the time, but we are much closer to approaching that than we ever have been.
People seem to value the US being "strong" above everything else. What does strong mean to you? Militarily powerful? That's what it means to the administration. What about being just? What about compassionate? What about cooperative? The government makes moderate stabs at appearing to be these things, and sometimes genuinely does so (like when we went into Liberia last summer), but it's clear that they are far more interested in taking advantage of the dead Cold War to become an imperialist power.
The GOP often accuses the Democrats of playing to voters emotions and avoiding logic. I ask you, in what possible way could the Bush people play more extremely to people's emotions, avoiding any deep insight? The religious conservatives, the evangelicals, the "moral values" workoing-class crowd---they play these people like a fiddle. All they have to do is talk about gays, guns, or religion, and the Christian crowd will jump off a cliff for them. That's all it seems to take, and that's all the administration wants or needs. There are no George Wills or William Buckleys speaking for this crew. (Why Will and Buckley themselves don't look down on all this eludes me.)
Does no one remember just how determined our leaders were to go to war? Does no one remember how thousands of people were predicting EXACTLY the situation that has now unfolded---insurgencies and destabilization? Does no one, above all remember that Bush himself said that the whole Iraq mission would take mere months? He denies he said it, but I clearly remember.
Secrecy, half-truths, simplistic emotional baiting, very suspicious motives, hawkish histories, absolutely no compromising, oil industry ties, Saudi oil ties, questionable military decisions, responsibility evasion, prisoner abuse, secret measures for detainees, dodging of the Geneva Conventions, belittling the already troubled UN, overstretching the military, cutting taxes during a war, reluctance to build a 9/11 commission, barely cooperating with it, the president's inability to testify without Cheney, unanswered questions about the events of 9/11, the disparity of Bush and Cheney's stories...I could go on.
What I am trying to say is, above all, above partisan party disagreements, this bunch is dangerous. Their motives, right from the beginning, have been suspect. If I give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment and say that they are all only interested in benefitting us all and are decently honest, surely you can admit they they give us EVERY reason to be suspicious. Nothing adds up. I do not have all the facts and neither do you. If I am ignorant of something you feel I should know, please tell me. But what I do see makes me very, very afraid for the future. Whether our leaders even realize it or will admit it to themselves, they are underming our extremely fragile democracy and, by extension, the very course of American civilization.
With Kerry, at least there would have been a faint glimmer of hope.
