They’re On To Us
It seems that a huge flashpoint for liberals/dems/progressives is being misled into war. Conservatives/neocons/repubs seem to think that although the international intelligence was faulty, the waging of war against Iraq was a good, sound decision.
This is where I have the problem. We didn’t pick out the wrong curtains. We didn’t choose the wrong summer camp. We went to WAR with another country based on faulty intelligence. We put our young people, as well as thousands of innocent Iraqi people in harms way to be blown to pieces. To be shot at. To be bombed. To be changed forever psychologically. The people who make decisions shrug and dismiss this error with the “we’re there, get used to it” chant. As much as bush is looking to future historians to see his greatness, he is going to have realize that it just ain’t gonna happen.
We have to look at this picture globally. We are the biggest and strongest on the block. All historians hail benevolent leadership. All societies hold dear their heroes who stood against tyranny, lifted the masses and reigned with a fair hand. All people admire those that strive to make this world better. Better for everyone. I like people who do what they say they are going to do. I admire people who stick to their guns. I really do. But when you look at this from a little further back, it makes your head naturally tilt right and then left – kind of like the dogs when I sing. This is not someone who is thinking of the “whole”, there is no way that from the actions thus far, this can even be implied. You cannot go storming into other countries killing thousands and then say – “oh. We’re here to make you free. Here. Have some democracy, you can thank us later.” It doesn’t work like that. You have to be sensitive to other countries’ cultures. You cannot just start ripping off the burkas saying – you don’t need these anymore! All triumphantly and expect people to herald you as some kind of divine leader. Democracy is not delivered by sword, it is grown through desire. Indigenous desire. You cannot make people embrace democracy just like you cannot make people Christians. It has to be desired from the heart. Not because someone took pliers to your balls.
The administration has had a tough week I hear over and over again. On hate radio, it’s because the liberal (owned by neocons) media is taking every opportunity to do their driveby style of reporting and undermine the president. I call it slap and dash in regards to the right, they call it driveby when relating to the left.
Huh.
Anyway, it’s been a tough week. Excuse me for a moment if I beg to differ. This whole “tough week” is actually the whole sowing and reaping thing. The proverbial chickens coming home to proverbially roost thing.
It seems that the responses that will go down in the history books that represent this administration are:
I didn’t know.
No one told me.
I didn’t hear you say that.
Trust me.
The first three I hear on an endless loop from my two teenage boys. Did you clean your room? I didn’t hear you say that. Did you put your clothes away? No one told me. You’re taking forever! You’re going to be late for school! I didn’t know.
But the last one is like a bad punchline. Especially now.
He has had a tough week because he is being caught in the five years of lying, deceptions, breaches, back room deals, and lawbreaking. He has had a tough week because -Damnit! No one was supposed to tell! Don’t you all know how to keep a secret? - people grew a conscience.
But that’s the beauty of public office and power. Inevitably abuses will come to light because there are people from both parties who are there doing what they are supposed to do –serve the public. Not just the people that financed your way into office. Not just people who can benefit you once you get out. All the people. All the time. It’s kind of like the segment I watched, open mouthed aghast, last night on 60 Minutes. There’s the spokeswoman for the hospitals with her suit and smooth hair and plum lipstick with her BS rhetoric.
“Everyone is charged the same amount for the same services.”
It reminded me of I Robot, except those robots were able to adjust their verbiage to the conversation. This chickbot could just bobblehead her way through the interview bobbling and squinting with false concern all the while spewing crap that was completely false. Uninsured patients are charged 3-4-5-6x more than anyone else.
Yeah. You read that right.
Insurance companies pay lower rates. The bobblehead says that’s because they have to make a profit.
Yeah. Again. You read that right.
Sooooooo. You do charge different amounts to different people.
No, chickbot clicks. Understand me. Everyone pays the same amount.
The look on the interviewer’s face was like someone waiting for the “just kidding!” that never came. He sat there with his head tilted wondering if the words would somehow fly around the room and ricochet back into this woman’s frame of reality whereby she would frantically shake her head, look him dead in the eyes and say “ohmigawd! Did I just say that? What the heck? Hahahaha! That was like an out of body experience or something!”
Because watching it was like an out of body experience. Here he is with an uninsured man’s bill for a quarter of a million dollars for being in the hospital for 18 days (no surgery) after falling from a ladder. 60 Minutes checked the published list of charges mandated by law. Had an insurance company been involved it would have cost 50,000.
50,000. Not 250,000.
Is that insane? He is holding the bill with 250,000 written all over it, and this woman still sits there saying “everyone is charged the same.”
This is the problem. When you have documented evidence – video, a paper trail, witnesses – and those in power look at you like “what? What do you want? A medal?”
damn liberal media.
Give a guy a break already.
He’s had a tough week.
NO! I will not give the leader of the free world who is saying torture is a-ok, that we can do whatever the hell we want to do because we’re the biggest ! We’re the best! You’re all jealous cuz we’re number freakin’ one! No I will not give him a break. It’s embarrassing. It doesn’t go away because the camera has turned to a new subject. You are the leader of the free world. You are saying that laws don’t matter. That shoving things into defenseless prisoners rectums is a necessary thing to do to get intelligence. You spy on American citizens and lie about it and then say it is a wartime patriot thing. You said in front of cameras, it is documented, that - hehe trust me, wiretapping requires a court order - while wiretapping without one!
What the hell!?
Nothing about this man says leader!
Nothing about this man says follow me!
Nothing about this man says trust me!
I’m sure that privately he is a swell guy. But I don’t know him privately. I am not commenting on the private guy, because that has nothing, obviously, to do with me. I am talking about a public servant, the man leading our country cutting funding to our schools – except to increase money for testing!
For flippin’ testing!
More tests?
What the hell?
What about getting our kids healthy?
What about getting us safe?
Has there ever been a more terrifying time – everyone is stirred up – flippin’ out about cartoons. The thing is, while people like DeLay, my personal public servant, is off in Scotland with his wife at Abramoff’s expense, I am trying to change the school system so that the boys can grow up to be men, not beaten down raging sociopaths. While our public servants are taking vacations we are volunteering in the underfunded schools trying to implement mentoring programs and stopping the cyclical abuse being waged on our sons. We are volunteering to help people who have been waiting six months, SIX MONTHS, for aid after the Katrina disaster. It’s a damn shame. All of it. The trash continues to pile up and we are, again, on the brink of hurricane season. Those who did not finance this administration into office are paying for it now, big time. We are footing the bill financially with the astronomical budget that has gone beyond comprehension. No one reads it because it is like reading decrees from one of those far off galaxy guys in Star Wars. It’s a completely different language. We are funding a war that was based on faulty intelligence that, sorry, you, gw, chose to believe. You spent how much time convincing everyone that it was true, even going so far as to call anyone who questioned this faulty intelligence “weak on terror” or “unpatriotic”? Although it was flagrantly obvious to an immense number of people that you had your finger on the button well before 9/11 and you have the utter impudence to use that crisis to achieve your goal of crushing Saddam, congress backed you. They believed you. Or rather, they deferred to you because you said you were privy to information that they weren’t. Finally the truth couldn’t be dismissed anymore and what’s said? The intelligence was faulty!
I didn’t know!
No one told me!
But isn’t that your job?
Doesn’t the buck stop there?
You have this history of manipulating laws, rules, evidence, information, intelligence for your own reasons and then we get the leak about the wiretaps.
Huh.
Hmmmm.
Considering that there are people in Gitmo and other black hole prison hells who did absolutely nothing wrong.
Considering there are people dead who did nothing wrong.
Considering there are people without fingernails with scars on their penises and psychological damage that will persist for years who did nothing wrong.
And considering you sent our country into war based on information you now concede was erroneous, I don’t think it is within the scope of reason for you to say – trust me. I don’t think there is anything that indicates that trust is something that should be given at this time. That is way too scary. Because if my name resembles anyone else's and they just happen to be on a list - I disappear. Can you imagine? Your loved one carted off, when you know what's being done to these guys every single hour of every single day. It sends an icey wave to my soul to think of the lives that are being devastated by false allegations and mistaken identities.
Then we have portgate which frankly looks like a company that will change it’s policies, it’s stripes and spots as well as any semblance of character it might have depending on with whom it does business. Kinda spooky considering what kind of access they would have.
And of course we have Katrina. We have someone who knew that this was serious. We have someone who was told that certain things were bound to happen. And he still went on vacation.
There has been a resounding undercurrent of “screw you” during this residency. There are two Americas – the one that gw belongs to where all is golden, where our friends surround us patting us on the back, fixing our messes and where the ends justify the means. And the America that was exposed by Katrina. And Rita. And by the bankruptcy courts. And the Enron scandal.
They’re on to us.
No four words have ever resounded so clearly and solidly in our history. Because no truer words have ever been spoken at just the right time to define a corporation as well as a presidency.
They’re on to us.
Oh boy, are we ever.
It seems that a huge flashpoint for liberals/dems/progressives is being misled into war. Conservatives/neocons/repubs seem to think that although the international intelligence was faulty, the waging of war against Iraq was a good, sound decision.
This is where I have the problem. We didn’t pick out the wrong curtains. We didn’t choose the wrong summer camp. We went to WAR with another country based on faulty intelligence. We put our young people, as well as thousands of innocent Iraqi people in harms way to be blown to pieces. To be shot at. To be bombed. To be changed forever psychologically. The people who make decisions shrug and dismiss this error with the “we’re there, get used to it” chant. As much as bush is looking to future historians to see his greatness, he is going to have realize that it just ain’t gonna happen.
We have to look at this picture globally. We are the biggest and strongest on the block. All historians hail benevolent leadership. All societies hold dear their heroes who stood against tyranny, lifted the masses and reigned with a fair hand. All people admire those that strive to make this world better. Better for everyone. I like people who do what they say they are going to do. I admire people who stick to their guns. I really do. But when you look at this from a little further back, it makes your head naturally tilt right and then left – kind of like the dogs when I sing. This is not someone who is thinking of the “whole”, there is no way that from the actions thus far, this can even be implied. You cannot go storming into other countries killing thousands and then say – “oh. We’re here to make you free. Here. Have some democracy, you can thank us later.” It doesn’t work like that. You have to be sensitive to other countries’ cultures. You cannot just start ripping off the burkas saying – you don’t need these anymore! All triumphantly and expect people to herald you as some kind of divine leader. Democracy is not delivered by sword, it is grown through desire. Indigenous desire. You cannot make people embrace democracy just like you cannot make people Christians. It has to be desired from the heart. Not because someone took pliers to your balls.
The administration has had a tough week I hear over and over again. On hate radio, it’s because the liberal (owned by neocons) media is taking every opportunity to do their driveby style of reporting and undermine the president. I call it slap and dash in regards to the right, they call it driveby when relating to the left.
Huh.
Anyway, it’s been a tough week. Excuse me for a moment if I beg to differ. This whole “tough week” is actually the whole sowing and reaping thing. The proverbial chickens coming home to proverbially roost thing.
It seems that the responses that will go down in the history books that represent this administration are:
I didn’t know.
No one told me.
I didn’t hear you say that.
Trust me.
The first three I hear on an endless loop from my two teenage boys. Did you clean your room? I didn’t hear you say that. Did you put your clothes away? No one told me. You’re taking forever! You’re going to be late for school! I didn’t know.
But the last one is like a bad punchline. Especially now.
He has had a tough week because he is being caught in the five years of lying, deceptions, breaches, back room deals, and lawbreaking. He has had a tough week because -Damnit! No one was supposed to tell! Don’t you all know how to keep a secret? - people grew a conscience.
But that’s the beauty of public office and power. Inevitably abuses will come to light because there are people from both parties who are there doing what they are supposed to do –serve the public. Not just the people that financed your way into office. Not just people who can benefit you once you get out. All the people. All the time. It’s kind of like the segment I watched, open mouthed aghast, last night on 60 Minutes. There’s the spokeswoman for the hospitals with her suit and smooth hair and plum lipstick with her BS rhetoric.
“Everyone is charged the same amount for the same services.”
It reminded me of I Robot, except those robots were able to adjust their verbiage to the conversation. This chickbot could just bobblehead her way through the interview bobbling and squinting with false concern all the while spewing crap that was completely false. Uninsured patients are charged 3-4-5-6x more than anyone else.
Yeah. You read that right.
Insurance companies pay lower rates. The bobblehead says that’s because they have to make a profit.
Yeah. Again. You read that right.
Sooooooo. You do charge different amounts to different people.
No, chickbot clicks. Understand me. Everyone pays the same amount.
The look on the interviewer’s face was like someone waiting for the “just kidding!” that never came. He sat there with his head tilted wondering if the words would somehow fly around the room and ricochet back into this woman’s frame of reality whereby she would frantically shake her head, look him dead in the eyes and say “ohmigawd! Did I just say that? What the heck? Hahahaha! That was like an out of body experience or something!”
Because watching it was like an out of body experience. Here he is with an uninsured man’s bill for a quarter of a million dollars for being in the hospital for 18 days (no surgery) after falling from a ladder. 60 Minutes checked the published list of charges mandated by law. Had an insurance company been involved it would have cost 50,000.
50,000. Not 250,000.
Is that insane? He is holding the bill with 250,000 written all over it, and this woman still sits there saying “everyone is charged the same.”
This is the problem. When you have documented evidence – video, a paper trail, witnesses – and those in power look at you like “what? What do you want? A medal?”
damn liberal media.
Give a guy a break already.
He’s had a tough week.
NO! I will not give the leader of the free world who is saying torture is a-ok, that we can do whatever the hell we want to do because we’re the biggest ! We’re the best! You’re all jealous cuz we’re number freakin’ one! No I will not give him a break. It’s embarrassing. It doesn’t go away because the camera has turned to a new subject. You are the leader of the free world. You are saying that laws don’t matter. That shoving things into defenseless prisoners rectums is a necessary thing to do to get intelligence. You spy on American citizens and lie about it and then say it is a wartime patriot thing. You said in front of cameras, it is documented, that - hehe trust me, wiretapping requires a court order - while wiretapping without one!
What the hell!?
Nothing about this man says leader!
Nothing about this man says follow me!
Nothing about this man says trust me!
I’m sure that privately he is a swell guy. But I don’t know him privately. I am not commenting on the private guy, because that has nothing, obviously, to do with me. I am talking about a public servant, the man leading our country cutting funding to our schools – except to increase money for testing!
For flippin’ testing!
More tests?
What the hell?
What about getting our kids healthy?
What about getting us safe?
Has there ever been a more terrifying time – everyone is stirred up – flippin’ out about cartoons. The thing is, while people like DeLay, my personal public servant, is off in Scotland with his wife at Abramoff’s expense, I am trying to change the school system so that the boys can grow up to be men, not beaten down raging sociopaths. While our public servants are taking vacations we are volunteering in the underfunded schools trying to implement mentoring programs and stopping the cyclical abuse being waged on our sons. We are volunteering to help people who have been waiting six months, SIX MONTHS, for aid after the Katrina disaster. It’s a damn shame. All of it. The trash continues to pile up and we are, again, on the brink of hurricane season. Those who did not finance this administration into office are paying for it now, big time. We are footing the bill financially with the astronomical budget that has gone beyond comprehension. No one reads it because it is like reading decrees from one of those far off galaxy guys in Star Wars. It’s a completely different language. We are funding a war that was based on faulty intelligence that, sorry, you, gw, chose to believe. You spent how much time convincing everyone that it was true, even going so far as to call anyone who questioned this faulty intelligence “weak on terror” or “unpatriotic”? Although it was flagrantly obvious to an immense number of people that you had your finger on the button well before 9/11 and you have the utter impudence to use that crisis to achieve your goal of crushing Saddam, congress backed you. They believed you. Or rather, they deferred to you because you said you were privy to information that they weren’t. Finally the truth couldn’t be dismissed anymore and what’s said? The intelligence was faulty!
I didn’t know!
No one told me!
But isn’t that your job?
Doesn’t the buck stop there?
You have this history of manipulating laws, rules, evidence, information, intelligence for your own reasons and then we get the leak about the wiretaps.
Huh.
Hmmmm.
Considering that there are people in Gitmo and other black hole prison hells who did absolutely nothing wrong.
Considering there are people dead who did nothing wrong.
Considering there are people without fingernails with scars on their penises and psychological damage that will persist for years who did nothing wrong.
And considering you sent our country into war based on information you now concede was erroneous, I don’t think it is within the scope of reason for you to say – trust me. I don’t think there is anything that indicates that trust is something that should be given at this time. That is way too scary. Because if my name resembles anyone else's and they just happen to be on a list - I disappear. Can you imagine? Your loved one carted off, when you know what's being done to these guys every single hour of every single day. It sends an icey wave to my soul to think of the lives that are being devastated by false allegations and mistaken identities.
Then we have portgate which frankly looks like a company that will change it’s policies, it’s stripes and spots as well as any semblance of character it might have depending on with whom it does business. Kinda spooky considering what kind of access they would have.
And of course we have Katrina. We have someone who knew that this was serious. We have someone who was told that certain things were bound to happen. And he still went on vacation.
There has been a resounding undercurrent of “screw you” during this residency. There are two Americas – the one that gw belongs to where all is golden, where our friends surround us patting us on the back, fixing our messes and where the ends justify the means. And the America that was exposed by Katrina. And Rita. And by the bankruptcy courts. And the Enron scandal.
They’re on to us.
No four words have ever resounded so clearly and solidly in our history. Because no truer words have ever been spoken at just the right time to define a corporation as well as a presidency.
They’re on to us.
Oh boy, are we ever.
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