*"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." - Interview with CBS News.
*"I think - tide turning - see, as I remember - I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of - it's easy to see a tide turn - did I say those words?" – Response when asked if the tide was turning in Iraq.
*"The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany."
*"I can look you in the eye and tell you I feel I've tried to solve the problem diplomatically to the max, and would have committed troops both in Afghanistan and Iraq knowing what I know today."
yes, all of these quotes are genuine. still feel the world is in safe hands?
6 comments:
if not already, sometime in the next two hours saddam will be hung. i have no love for him and what he has done, but just once i would like to see this country, rumsfield in particular, admit to their aid and advice to the monster saddam became in the 80's. but the conservative talking heads will not do that. that would mean they would have to condemn the actions of their great hero, ronald reagan, and they won't do that.
his crimes are not his alone.
I don't know if any of you have spent much time delving into the subject of anthropology. I have. My gut tells me that our civilization is preparing to extinguish itself. We display all the telling signs.
The framers of our Constitution set up a model for federalism, with its 3-pronged government of checks and balances, because they KNEW corruption would come along from time to time.
It's one of the best things America ever did. Yet, we now have elected legislators voting NOT on behalf of their constituents, but on behalf of their campaign donors. And while the president makes a mockery of this nation, the Senate pretends not to notice the emperor's nakedness. And to top it off, our judiciary, with the awesome responsibility to protect our Constitution from those who would violate it - well, shame on them.
We have lost our balls, pardon the term. We can jump on the bandwagon of a knee-jerk response against impoverished desert peoples, but we can't be bothered to hold our leaders accountable.
We are but sheep. As long as we are comfortably grazing in the sun, we never think twice about those who are being bent over and taken by the US government. We should have stormed the Whitehouse after Katrina. Why didn't we? Because our "government for the people and by the people" HAS perished from this earth, that's why.
God have mercy on our pitiful, apathetic existences.
amen.
Tom,
You are right. American (and probably British) foreign policy sustains tyrants all around the world. Look at Pinochet in Chile, whose brutal coup in the early 70s was sponsored by the CIA. And that's not leftist paranoia, it's fact.
British and American governments wrap everything they do in noble high-blown rhetoric, but in truth their only interest is in protecting what they perceive to be THEIR interests; and they have shown repeatedly throughout the history of the last fifty years that they are prepared to fuck over any number of nations to achieve their goals. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and all such dangerous bullshit.
But the hypocrisy of that attitude stinks. Russia and particularly China are oppressors nastier than Saddam Hussein on the best day he ever lived, but because they have nuclear weapons and are significant trading nations their iniquities can be swept under the carpet. They can even sit on the UN Security Council and decide which other nation gets to feel the righteous wrath of the Americans.Forget the dead and the dying in Tibet or Chechnya.
Invading Iraq on the twin lies of WMDs and its supposed relationship with Al Qaeda has enabled the US and its lapdog Britain to establish a tactical bridgehead in the Middle East from which to influence events in a much more significant way than it could before. That's what it was all about from the beginning. Phase one in the assault on Iran, probably--and if the antiwar crowd in Britain and America don't voice their objection about Saddam's execution vigorously there's a very real risk that war with Iran will follow.
People have to remember, George Bush can wear a big coat and sing carols round the White House Christmas tree with his family like it's 1955 and the world is a lovely, cuddly place where the president is the Father of the Nation and nobody need be afraid, but these are fucking nasty people we are dealing with. And they are poisoning our respective countries and their once-proud reputations in the world.
Anonymous Chick,
You voice the situation we are in with an eloquence I envy.
Protest against the war in this country is almost a liberal parlour game for some. For others it's just something they tut-tut over while leafing through the morning paper. Life goes on. In the meantime the world slides further into some kind of global conflict, or a new Age of Despair when the manifest death of true democratic principles (in the sense that they are understood through the American Constitution and Whitman) in global politics, and the impossibility of believing innocently in the good faith of one's leaders, causes even more alienation than we see today, which in turn breeds paranoia, hatred, violence, murder, suicide.
I have never felt more estranged from my prime minister and even from my country than I felt this morning, waking up to the news of the Saddam execution. So what can I do about it?
Maybe only write, at this stage, and try to explain why it is wrong to murder somebody whose death few people will mourn. I can feel the spies of our exalted democracy breathing down my neck even now.
I have just recently secured a job as a teacher. Most of my students are individuals who have very limited occupational skills. Most have been through he wringer - whether through intimate involvement in the criminal justice system, or as the result of the listless acceptance that they will only have the opportunity their sometimes dire circumstances will allow.
I could go on and on, but the message is:
I essentially have responsibility for a narrow scope of goals, all involving equipping my students for employment in a certain field. However, because I have the freedom that I have with this particular school, and because my students' chosen field is built on law, I am not simply training them for employment. I am also equipping them for more active involvement in their communities by instilling in them an understanding of how we got the laws they will deal with in their jobs.
Our country needs workers, but it also needs participants in government. I've noticed that many, many individuals do not vote anymore because they feel that they have no say. Lots of my students are black, and I began our class this week with a foundation in government. I had such an attentive audience when I lectured on the Constitution and on the amendment to the Constitution which gave blacks the right to vote. And dynamic discussion followed.
Republicans would rather I not invite blacks to vote, but fuck 'em.
I think I've found a pretty good way to alter some of the crap in our country, but I'm certainly aware of the small scale on which this effort is built. But what if all these students succeed and are able to give their kids better role models than they got? What if I help only 5 individuals with 4 family members each? I might end up helping change the future of 20 people. And that's every 10 weeks. Eventually, we may get an ethical president elected.
What do you do? Can you reprogram anyone where you work? HA HA HA
Post a Comment