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The Bush Lie
First the Big Reagan Lie, now the Even Bigger Bush Lie.
It was only a matter of time, of course, before conservatives would come out of hiding.
Pummeled over the years for their association with the catastrophe known as the Bush administration, singing its praises had become too great a lie even for those whose every political utterance is an exercise in deceit and hypocrisy.
But I knew they wouldn't wait long before trying to canonize their main man, just as they've already done over the years by building a one-man Mt. Rushmore In The Sky for their patron, Saint Ronald of Hollywood-cum-Washington (and what, really, was the difference between the two in his case, anyhow?).
And now, of course, they are starting to do it for the Caligula Kid as well. Billboards are popping up on the landscape with a picture of the prior president, asking, "Miss me yet?" Regressive commentators on television are beginning to dare mentioning the Bush years again. Recent poll data shows that Bush and Obama are rated as near equals in the public's assessment of the two presidencies. Now the Boy King's memoir is soon to be released, and we can certainly expect a lot more of these attempts at reviving the stinking corpse of his wrecking ball presidency.
But the project of turning Bush into a great president comes with a few, um, issues associated with it, however. Heck, even just rescuing him from the cesspool of the club of failed presidents requires no small miracle.
Most of the presidents amongst these bottom-dwellers are guilty of some singular bungling of large proportion, such as failing to prevent the Civil War, blowing Reconstruction, or doing too little in response to the Great Depression. Those are serious indictments. But what if you were guilty of the equivalent of all of those crimes, plus ten more? All in one presidency?
Meet George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States.
Trying to mythologize the Bush presidency is not going to be easy.
If you manage to turn a record high surplus into a record high deficit, and to double the national debt in the process, history will not hold you in high regard for doing so, just as it indicts Ronald Reagan for tripling the debt on his watch.
If your policies serve the interests of an economic oligarchy rather than the people, history will not approve of that, just as it does not admire Republican presidents from Grant to Hoover for doing the same.
If you populate your administration with corrupt political cronies rather than experts and experienced administrators, history will treat you poorly for it, just as it does Ulysses Grant.
If you completely fail to respond to a catastrophic hurricane that drowns a major city, history will adore you about as much as it does Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned.
If you manage to sell your country a war on the basis of lies, history will not regard you well, as it has not Lyndon Johnson for precisely that reason.
If you succeed in mismanaging a war into protracted failure, history will not be kind to you for that, just as it isn't kind to Harry Truman for the stalemate of Korea.
But if you manage to do that for seven years, rather than three, history will be even less kind to you.
And if you manage to that for not one but two wars, over seven years time, history will be very angry indeed.
If you make your country hated in the world, history will not respect you, just as it admires John Kennedy for doing the opposite.
If you shred the US Constitution in order to facilitate a police state with unlimited government powers, history will cast its aspersions upon you, just as it does on Joe McCarthy.
If you ignore a looming catastrophe like global warming - and indeed if you exacerbate that catastrophe - history will regard you very poorly, just as historians generally agree that James Buchanan is America's worst president for failing to respond to its unfolding Civil War crisis.
If you are warned of a cataclysmic terrorist attack by your staff and do not respond, instead spending the month before on vacation, history will devastate you for this alone, just as one of Stalin's great crimes (among many) was to fantasize that Nazi Germany would not attack the Soviet Union, ultimately at a cost of tens of millions of his people.
Indeed, if you spend more time during your presidency on vacation than any other president ever, history will not admire you, just as it does not admire Warren Harding.
If you run for president as one kind of politician but then completely abandon those politics for something different (and supremely ugly), history will not look kindly upon you, just as it does not upon John Tyler.
If you employ disgusting prejudices to win elections, history will consider you cheap garbage for doing so, just as it does George H. W. Bush.
And if you manage to deeply polarize your country, especially in a time of national crisis, history will admire you about as much as it does Richard Nixon for doing the same thing.
If you did any one of these things, you'd find yourself down at the bottom of the list in the historical ranking of American presidents.
But if you've managed to do every one of these things over the course of a single presidency, you'd not only occupy the very bottom slot on the list, you'd be in a category all your own.
It really is astonishing, isn't it, to think about how thoroughly this perfect storm of a president could wreak havoc on a developed (or is it?) democracy (or is it?) in the 21st century.
But what is even more astonishing is that his mythologized revival is already showing signs of working.
Even today, less than two years out of that nightmare.
Even today, with both of Bush's two wars still endlessly droning on, still dragging down the country as they chew up American, Iraqi and Afghani lives like some sort of industrial-scale human sacrifice machine.
Even today, as Bush's economic depression spreads misery across the land.
It's astonishing that the guy is taken even remotely seriously, let alone that he has not been thrown in jail or met the same fate that the Tsar or Il Duce did.
It's astonishing that he would dare to publish a book less than two years after having wrecked a world so thoroughly.
In just what sort of country can something so shameful happen?
Yep, trying to mythologize the Bush presidency is not going to be easy.
If this were Sweden or Canada, that is.
But this is America.
139 Comments so far
Show AllMoney, Power and many dumb folks!
Dubya's legacy will become MORE favorable in the eyes of many Americans now that he is out of DC, just like Raygun's has.
Dubyabots still believe Dubya is "just like us".
They are just beginning this propaganda effort and people already make him out as even with Obama ? That is truly scary. Maybe Jon Stewart could create a country devoted to sanity and I would gladly emigrate (especially since I immigrated here from Germany)
In 100yrs who knows. they may spin him as much as Lincoln. forcing the country togther with military force. I think the Constitution says no to that. Forcably removing citizens property without compensation? Yet they spun him into a damm saint.
And the real funny part is, from his own writings, He had no use for blacks :)
So if we can spin this guy, given enough time we may make a saint ot W. yet.
>^^<
History is usually written by winner, but so many never look behind the curtain.
For the USA to eulogize what Bush has done to the world, is the equivalent as Germany resurrecting Hitler for adoration. This is the USA, United States of Amnesia, a society of mindlessness citizens the inability and/or to know how to discern thoughts including the thoughts of others, from facts.Texas has already stricken Jefferson from History, replacing him with Reagan who had Alzheimer's for at least his last term in office. Fact being that he was honest when he told Congress "I don't remember" dozens of times when testifying about the Iran/Contra crimes.Mindlessness is institutionalized by government, business and pretend christians[harlots] which gives it legitimacy and creates peer pressure for a society of mindlessness.
It's called Canada. Go North, Young Man!
I think it is only apt that he is tied with Obama as Obama is just a continuation of Bush's policies.
Judging by his actions during the BP spill, if Obama had been president during 9-11, he would have let the guy that was already in custody be the one to organize the response effort.
I am not saying this because I like Bush, but because I despise them both and see little different between them.
Truly frightful.
Well Done David Michael Green,
Only in America could the Pentagon have been given 40 billion dollar budget to control propaganda and the Main Stream Media.
If you want a never ending war, you create an enemy that is global and hard to defeat.The war on Terror.
If you want to create a global military police state , you need a global threat. The war on Terror.
If you want to distract the world from the fact that you are trying to build a new empire that controls important resources, OIL,GAS,etc. The war on Terror must be be fought in those country's, IRAQ,IRAN,,, and Afghanistan was the gateway Terrorist state. The origins of the WAR on Terror and the easiest point of entry, Afghanistan.
If you want to create a Terrorist State , you need and inside player, CIA trained Osama Bin Laden.
If you want to crush the world financial markets to usher the use of credits as a global universal currency exchange and replace money, you make all currency's worthless.
If you want to make all currency worthless , you remove regulations and allow reckless borrowing and market globally risky hedge funds and derivatives to all rich nations, and then it all collapses.
Bingo, world financial failures, global war on Terrorism and a military police state force that costs Americans a Trillion dollars a year ready for any global deployment, conquest and control of a country resources.
The Neoconservatives have screwed the globe out of its wealth and security and made billions, because they want a new world order.
Its no coincidence that the Terrorists are all living in country's where OIL is a resource.
And the boogy man Osama Bin Laden , is never going to be caught, because he is either dead or living in Saudi Arabia after a face change and identity change. ( CIA Trained )
America has been brainwashed, hijacked , ruined financially , Terrorized, and stripped of its Constitutional protections by a hand full of evil , ruthless greedy American bastards.
Bring America Back !!!!
***It took a lot more than just a "handful" of these
f...in' snakes to pull off and control all us
Sheeples with barely a murmur of outward protest !
***Green has a pretty accurate description here of
the Boy (Oil) Kings two terms. But regarding calling
the sows ear a silk purse, Green seems a bit Naive
when "W"'s rehab began at least a year prior to our
kicking him out of Office with an 18 percent approval
rating.
***About 2007, the FBI--the private police force of the
King in Power began covering up lots of the loopholes
from the 9/11 Lies and Deceptions. Anthrax from NSA;
Fire destroying steel; reinforced skyscrapers;
retroactive immunity for massive felonious wiretapping
of Americans; 9 minutes on videotape sitting stupified
after being informed the USA was under attack;
transforming a cave dwelling boogeyman and 19 airline
pilot flunkours into masterminds of 9/11; etc, etc etc...!
***So the restoration has been in heavy progress for at
least three solid years==all with help of mainstream
Media getting ready for the eventual pilgrimages to the
Boy Kings Library in Dallas.
***Green knows there is no such thing as "History"==only
the perverted human writers who document and print it
out with their slant.
***Even still , it is not Easy to transform a War Criminal
into the Hero of the 2000,s, for all of Greens reasons,
but it is being done right before our eyes, and to very
little objections.
***NOW THE FRENCH, they know how to protest their renegade
Govt, just look what they're doing over their social security
system !!!!! Now that is Public Outrage in the genre
of what we did over Nixon'a Vietnam, and what we NEVER yet
have done over Bush; Faux War on Terror.
***And, was it not our clever French Ally who advised us
NOT to invade Vietnam. Our scumbag Leadership did not
listen way back then, and they still are not listening.
VIVE LE FRANCE !!!!!! WAKE UP AMERICA!!!! VIVE LE FRANCE !
Neoconservatives?
Which of those things in your list are not supported and promoted by Democrats?
Good question.
bornfreemen,
Very astute! Excellent comment.
"Its no coincidence that the Terrorists are all living in country's where OIL is a resource."
That would mean the USA first and foremost. Long before Saudi Arabia there was Texas and Oklahoma crude; indeed, there's still a lot in those two states.
We created the Taliban, to stop the Soviets from getting a choke hold on Caspian sea OIL!
So our own dog bites us :) May be we should have tried funding the Christians in stead of the Muslims as freedom fighters.. it's not like there weren't any,, before the Taliban took over and ran them out that is.
>^^<
Afghanistan has never had a Christian population that has even come close to 1% of the population.
A recent book titled "True Enough" explains what makes revisionism possible.
He writes about something called "selective perception," in which diffferent people seeing the same thing come away with different responses. For example, when a Democrat and a Republican watch a political debate, each will probably decide that their guy won the debate. How is that possible? They see what they want to see.
With all of the money behind the Right Wing, we will be flooded with publicity telling us that black is white, Bush was a good (perhaps great) President, the sun will rise in the West tomorrow, etc., etc.
Becides it hurts Carl Roves reputation, that the boy he was supposed to be leading turned out as such a total failure.
Carl Rove needs to get back his reputation too, and by helping W. it goes a long way to helping Rove.
>^^<
They have debates between Democretins and Repugnican's still?
All I have seen are televised circle jerks.
the term "Debate" implies substantive disagreement between the parties.
Not to mention;
1. The elevation of "signing statements" to a whole new level of illegality.
2. The adoption of torture as an approved instrument of American practice.
3. The thorough destruction of government agencies originally designed to protect the public against the rapacity of corporate greed.
4. The stealing of two elections through electoral fraud and malpractice.
5. The return of the Supreme Court to 1890s-era thinking and decisions.
6. The passage of a new version of the alien and sedition act.
Jim Shea
The return of the Supreme Court to 1890s-era thinking and decisions"
Do you think the existing Court is that progressive? I would have compared it to the "Taney" court which produced the Dred Scott decision.
But you gotta hand it to the boy genius, he did all of those things and more and still managed to never get impeached.
Actually it's unfair to compare Bush to Nero. Unfair to Nero, that is, who didn't even want to be emperor and only did so at his mother's urging. Nero was a poet and musician and wanted to remain that way. And whatever the circumstance of the great fire, his urbanization plan that followed was of great benefit to the public. Public, as opposed to private interests. No, Bush lies much farther down inside the dung heap of history.
"The Bush LIe" is a misnomer.
Bush did not perpetrate all this corruption without a great deal of work by republicans and democrats.
His administration was truly bipartisan in the worst ways.
Furthermore, since coming to power (as before), the democrats have made certain that what Bush so proudly promoted has not only been maintained, but escalated.
So why wouldn't Bush be proud?
Go ahead, put his ugly degenerate face on Mt. Rushmore. He and most of Washington do indeed have the all the heart and mentality of a big dense rock, as do the majority of citizens of the United States of Global Domination.
Another peculiarly gross vanity is that we currently have a president who wrote TWO autobiographies and received the Nobel peace prize BEFORE he had done anything significant.
Clearly, we are living in a time of confounding arrogance and corruption. I guess you could say these men are the most prominent examples of our debasement. It would be a "Lie" to pretend otherwise.
"Furthermore, since coming to power (as before), the democrats have made certain that what Bush so proudly promoted has not only been maintained, but escalated."
Bingo! The "system" (or MIC or corporatocracy or whatever you choose to call it) is not controlled by the president. Our "elected" officials are run by the monied interests who put them in office. Don't think of an elephant. Don't think of a donkey. Think of a revolution.
If the USA public consider Oilybomber and Baby Bush equals then I congradulate them for their perception.
DMG is promoting the even bigger lie, that the Dimos are superior to the Repugs.
The Dimos have neither the USA's or its citizen's interestrs at heart.
Oilybomber has seamlessly followed through on all of Baby Bush's crimes.
For a President to claim an UnConstitutional Mandate as his greatest achievement is both pathetic and criminal.
The Dimos have been guilty of facilitating all the disasters that now constitute the USA, whether it be War, Finance, Fascism, Justice, Enviornment, or Electorial i.e. War Appropiations,Increased Budget for new Nuclear Weapons, Greatest Military Budget in world history, Repealling Glass Segall, NAFTA, Patriot Act, Telecom Immunity, Tar Sands Licensing, Nuclear Power, "Clean Coal", MTR, Overthrowing the Ban against Drilling in Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (where Deepwater Horizon Exploded), Support of Fracking.
If you look at it the worst of the Repug agenda has been implemented when Dimos controled the Congress and/or the WH.
Dissolve the Dimos today and the Repugs tommorrow.
Got that order wrong, friend. You MUST take care of the destruction of the Repugs first. Then you may even take over the Dim Party completely. But then, the Repugs are hardly afraid of you, or of the entire CD readership, or of the milquetoast Dims- who won't even toss out the infestation of in-disguise, closeted-Republican Blue Dogs. Much less would Dim pols say something bad about actual Repugs which might make them angry and so not cooperate with Dims even for the good of the nation - even though Repugs don't cooperate at all now, anyway.
Top Repug-Teabagger, Sarah "America'a Sweetest Grifter" Palin, is now worth $12 million from corporate and teaparty-operator 'contributions', political machine bulk-book-buys, and 'speaking fees'. Even though the qestions persist: what the hell is she but a failed short-time governor who quit her post half-done, and so why pay for her mindless drivel? But she is laughing at CDrs all the way to the bank. So just how much you worth, eh?
And you still don't think there would be any disasterous differences if McCain and Palin were in power?
And about that comparison between Tweedle and Dum... well, look at California. On the Democratic side, we find Jerry Brown for Governor and Barbara Boxer for Senator. Two people who are definitely on the left of center, and have done good things. And who have the Clout to do more good things, and the Wisdom NOT do some very bad ones.
BUT on the REPUBLICAN side, you will see corporate-bitch-goddess billiionaire Meg Whitman for governor and corporate-bitch-goddess megamilionaire Carly Fiorina for Senator. Two evil people who helped make America into the Banana Republic it is today, and who are spending hundreds of Millions of dollars of their 'own money' on their vanity races.
Meg's race is to replace the Gubernator, Arnold, who commutes from his home in Los Angeles to his office in Sacramento daily, on his private jet... to a government job wherein he whines and complains about poor children using too much tax money, and that the State must live frugally now, with all citizens sharing in the suffering... so poor kids' free lunches gotta go... and so on.
Republicans, ya gotta love'em. Or not.
These two Repug women candidates are so mean even their own private companies gave them the shove. And now they are running for office on a simple-minded platform of tax cuts, and the busting of unions for teachers and nurses, and no government except for prisons, and no welfare for the 'lazy' hispanics (excepting those housekeeping for Meg of course. And so much for women in government making a difference... it is now well-proven they are as bad as men.)
These Republicans are two shrewd and mean and vicious people who would cut your throat to juice their company's stock prices, and who truly truly hate democracy and public government (so they are just like most Republicans), and they definitely do not need or even apparently 'like' the government jobs they are going for.
So why are they pursuing this end... unless they think (again, like most Republicans) they can GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT FOR THEMSELVES... like drowning the government in the bathtub by gumming up the works, and throwing the poor to the 'self-responsibility' wolves, and arranging tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, while at the same time, granting big-government-money contracts for their cronies and the companies in their stock portfolios.
Just like Shrub and Chain-ey.
STILL see NO differences? Even though Nader himslef said to vote Dim over Repug? No wonder leftists can't make any headway. We throw even our could-be best and only allies to the dogs, if decided these allies are not 'pure' enough.
"pure enough"
Come now, the dems stood in line for all the oppressive and regressive legislation, Patriot Act, NAFTA, Military Commissions Act, insurance "industry" (they produce nothing) bonanza, opened the vault doors for the financial "industry" (they produce nothing), war, torture, took law right off the table, endless etc etc.
Have you not been paying attention for the last two years?
They have both houses and the big white one.
It's a ruse, faux ideological conflict, smiling puppets on stage.
Frankly speaking, I would love to drown this government and start anew.
Of course every regime that has every existed has had some good people in it ,but it is the overall product of the regime that counts and as you do not deny almost all of the worst injuries to the USA's health have been approved during the tenure of a Dimo Congress and or President.
If a pitbull and a rottweiler are attacking you do you not nuetralize both of them and in the order that presents itself?
Now is the time to destroy the Dims while the oppurtunity exists, as a whole the Dims have proven to be the enemy of the people, more with each passing month.
Do you sit in a car with nice wheels named Boxer and Jerry Brown and attempt to drive it when the engine is irrepairable.
Of course choose the best person possible, but the main goal is the dissolution of the Duopoly in what ever order presents itself, now the Dims may be destroyed, then the Repugs are the next challenge, who knows what the possibilties may be at that moment.
But do you keep a rapist from their timely death in order to defend yourself from a murderer?
I ask not for purity but for sanity. And neither party offers sanity.
Of course it's sad that Obama has not reversed all of Bush's horrors. But if one looks at the fact that ANY policy change by Obama which can be viewed as having even a hint of progressivism, is slammed and wailed over by republicans as the second coming of a Hitler, Goebbels, Marx, Satan amalgam. This automatically renders Obama into a divisive President who creates fear and anger in Americans and leads us into potential armed civil conflicts with such horrible abuses as turning whites into second class citizens and destroying all our freedoms. Many people have wrongly assumed that we emerged from The Dark Age long ago. We have not and will not for a very extended time.
OilyBomber has escaluted Afghanistan, Military Budget, New Nuclear Arms production, Tar Sands Production, Deepwater Drilling, Reissued the Extremely Fascist "Emergency Powers Act".
Failed the workers and homeowners.
Have you not noticed USAans on the left and right are ENRAGED?
And many are fearful.
If one supports Oilybomber one may be counted as one of Oilybomber successes in that the citizen has become complacent enough not to demand that War Crimes be prosecuted or that the fascist trend be reversed.
Greg R:
You got it right, Sir. But we will have that civil war, it just won't come from the usual suspects. Power and Greed leave no alternative and the American Public will return to the "Temple of its Familiar". America will "get it's country back", impeachment procedures will begin shortly for the man who took it, An African American. Let the good times roll.
There's way too much focus on the man and not the ideology of the party here. It's republican ideology that's spoiled our economy, trashed our government, and ruined our Democracy, not Bush.
It won't matter which republican becomes president because the ideology driving him or her is the problem. Until the republican notions of what's right for our country are definitively repudiated and dumped into the dust bin of history our country will continue to be consumed by economic inequality, imperialistic foreign wars, and domestic political chaos.
Stop focusing on the personalities of our leadership and lay bare the ideology that drives them.
There isn't any Republican "ideology." One of the greatest accomplishments of the right wing think tanks and media has been to convince liberals and Democrats that they are up against an "ideology."
Another great accomplishment by the right wing propagandists is to convince liberals and Democrats that they are rallying some conservative "base," that they are expressing a supposed "ideology" that is representative of how half the people in the country think, so that people are deluded into fearing and loathing half of their neighbors.
There is no ideology and there is no base. However, liberal and progressive activism and support for the Democratic party is all based on the belief that there is an ideology and that there is a base, and that this is what we are fighting against. That keeps the support in place for the liberal organizations and the Democratic party and keeps the funds flowing into their coffers.
I agree. Focusing on personalities is a diversion in itself. Demonizing Republicrats is tempting (and fun), but Republican ideology is only superficially different from that of Democraps, both of which reflect the underlying inhumanity and criminality of the real agenda at work---that of the plutocratic, fascist elite which is in the process of delivering the coup d'grace to this system, which is a republic and democracy in name only.
We badly need a third party (or more), but how can that happen when we can't even produce a legitimate two-party arrangement?
Brilliant! This insight needs to be reasserted in every political discussion: It's politics, not People Magazine. This celebrity based culture has allowed its obsession with toxic, sad, irrelevant icons, whose problems we delight in wallowing in, to bleed over into our understanding of public policy. Democrats aren't "spineless" they're the same corrupt pukes the Repubs are. Repubs aren't "heartless", they just serve their owners interests. MSM coverage reflects the "People Mag." version to the almost complete exclusion of substantive analysis.
It is a common practise of the psychologically uneducated to project the depravity inherent in the individual or social body onto someone else. Taking resposibility seems to be near impossible for the american electorate! Everything that David said here, which I agree with, is also to be leveled at the majority of americans because they have promoted this criminality by continuing to vote for the depraved and criminally insane politicians! No, history will not single out just one or two of the current political criminals, it will indicte the mass of americans who became victims and propagators of the mass psychosis which has become epidemic in the U.S of A.
Excellent. This is the deeper truth and the most feared by Americans. To admit to their own complicity is to lose part of their identity and the convenience and illusory safety of denial.
If voting is what controls who has power in the country - do people really believe that? - and if voting is how people "take responsibility" - what sort of view of life must people have to believe that? - and if the problems in the country are actually being caused by "depraved and criminally insane politicians" then and only then can we blame the everyday people.
History will blame and indict the everyday people if and only if the ruling class wins the battle and can then write the history, and still that will only be true or those who identify with the ruling class.
Your post illustrates exactly how supposed opposition to the rulers can be reconciled with opposition to the working class.
What you are saying is that what the powerful people have done is the fault of the working class people, and that the solution to the problem is to have different rulers in place. That is an aristocratic and authoritarian position, and your opposition to what is happening in the country is merely opposition to one faction of the ruling class and support for another faction.
The American people have about as much control (via the voting process) as the baby on the Simpson's opening credits, turning a steering wheel back and forth, honking the horn- accomplishing nothing. I wish I could take credit for that metaphor, but I just borrowed it from another clever poster here on CD.
Yes the general population is too complacent, ignorant, greedy, violent and unethical.
But to claim that they are the prime movers in their own demise is absurd.
It is the Multinationals Corporations who have set the agenda and implemented their plan.
The people are kinder and wiser if left to their own devises.
The multinationals are the fathers raping their daughters and the populations are the mothers looking the other way.
The general population is not complacent, ignorant, greedy, violent and unethical.
However, since 50-70% of the people may as well be invisible, and since the national political discussion is dominated by 10% of the population it is a common mistake to see that upper 10% as representative of the general population.
About 10% of the popualtion, if that, pays attention to politics the way we do here. That tends to be a better read and better educated segment of the population, and people who have the time to spend on it - largely professional white collar people in the upper 10% income bracket, or those who identify with and relate to those in the upper 10% income bracket. There is a distinct and pervasive gentrified and aristocratic bias in the political discussion as a result, regardless of whether people see themselves as progressive, liberal, conservative, libertarian - all variations on the same basic theme.
Fox news has liberals and Democrats convinced that half the population votes Republican because they are "complacent, ignorant, greedy, violent and unethical." Don't fall for that. It contradicts reality, as is easily verifiable for anyone who gets outside of a very narrow demographic circle.
What liberals/progressives and conservatives have in common is a deep contempt for the everyday people, and neither faction is any friend to the working class people. They are two aristocratic factions battling it out with each other for supremacy, for which faction will rule over all of us. Half of the population sees no practical difference between the two and doesn't vote, a quarter of the population sees the conservative gentry as the greater threat, and a quarter of the population sees the liberal gentry as the greater threat. What the two factions have in common is vastly more significant to the average person then any differences between them are.
To attempt to not be "complacent, ignorant, greedy, violent and unethical" is to be a "loser," yet most people still are attempting that.
Complacent must be true or we would not be where we are today.
Ignorant is certainly true in many ways, What percentage of people believe Saddam was involved in 911? 60%? how many people can not find Mexico on a map? 50%?
Greedy is very relative but since 5% (USA)of the worlds population consumes 20% of the resources, they must be exceptionally acquisitive.
Violent, look at murder and domestic abuse rates, and do not a majority support these Wars which speaks to complacent and unethical as well.
Things are so bad that when I stated that Oilybomber was despotic for claiming his right to Universal Executive Extrajudicial Executions to a chief librarian in one of the most progressive capital cities in the USA she said she "admired my ethics but....
Of course the victim should not be blamed whether it is the USA citizenry or worldwide Muslim populations but likewise shortcomings should not be ignored.
The "majority of Americans" do not vote at all and haven't for decades now. They are too busy trying to survive the incessant predation of the parasitic class.
Apparently, being psychological educated (or just thinking you are) does not protect one from the psychological warfare perpetrated by the media. Stop allowing the perps to blame their victoms, or are you, too, suffering from "mass (media induced) psychosis" yourself?
There were many Nazis, post WWII, who carried out propaganda campaigns to mythologize Hitler's greatness and tragic fall from power. This is no different. Of course rightwing pundits are extolling Bush as some great leader, as they still do with Reagan, because they have a very visible Tea Party movement behind them. Corporate media participates as full partners in reinvoking the Lies-Are-Truth mantra that is the legacy of Bush.
The whole deranged country is bound upon this wheel of fire. Bush appears in public, such as baseball games, and is loudly cheered instead of booed out of the stadium or strung up on a foul pole. At the very least he should be jeered and mocked and hounded into permanent isolation, but in a country that prizes its most successful liars, murderers and thieves, he's held up as some beacon of American greatness. "History" may say otherwise, but most Americans don't read it and are blissfully unconcerned with its judgments.
Another article here today reveals the egregiously lying and conniving Clarence Thomas, the most unqualified justice to ever sit on the Supreme Court (though most of them now are), the lies he told about Anita Hill 19 years ago, and the fact that none of the recent exposure will make one goddamn bit of difference. Exactly like our very own Little Caligula. The criminals go scot free in this country, because we always reward them, if they commit crimes on a national scale. Bush will make millions from his lying shithole of a book, Clarence Thomas will go on ruling robotically as Scalia instructs him, Warshington corruption will bloom into even more evil flowers than now pollute the whole farce of a system, and most Americans will remain riveted to Dancing with the Stars.
"The whole deranged country is bound upon this wheel of fire." –(Ephraim)
–Well said. America can no longer be reached by the light of reason, much less morality. It consumes itself.Things have gone too far. It is a dreadnought. Built for death. Only death.
"Alas, the time of the most despicable of men is coming, he that is no longer capable of despising himself. Behold, I show you the Last Man." –(Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra.")
On the far horizon America has a date with 'Moby Dick.' It plans to kill it.
Let us hope the whale shall prevail.
What will be interesting to observe is what form the mythic cleansing of Dubya, Cheney, & Co. will be. It is a great challenge for any skilled propagandist, as even Leni Reifenstahl would have a hard time rehabilitating the Bush II debacle.
Similarly, progressives should well heed the example of not counter-acting the Grandpa Caligula (Reagan) memorial mini-industry soon or forcefully enough.
Just as 'Mein Kampf' infamously states that if the Big Lie is repeated enough times, it is believed, it is necessary that every time the nascent lies being spouted about America's premier boy-king ne'er-do-well fuck up president rear their ugly head, they be forcefully rebutted at every opportunity as a solemn duty to history.
I agree with Birdbrain Alley...'s 10:43 am comment.
There are general, overarching sociopolitical conditions that facilitate the appalling rehabilitation of a former leader's unsavory reputation: a mendacious culture; an imposed surrealistic post-modern, non-linear mode of perception that lives in and for the (present) moment, and resists cumulative and historic understanding; the increasing buzzing, blooming confusion Alvin Toffler called "future shock".
All of the above makes for a shifting, kaleidoscopic cultural reality that resonates with the dystopian domains presented in "1984" and "Brave New World".
The ruling class traps us all, including themselves, on a bullet train with tracks built of self-serving spin, hype, and myth. Trying to discern clear and enduring truth is like trying to pick out details of the passing scenery. But even when night passes, and the fog and smoke lifts, all that the hapless citizen can discern is a chaotic blur.
This mega-maya serves to convince even, perhaps especially, truth-seekers that everything they know is wrong, or perhaps obsolete. It erodes authentic vision and judgement, and renders the masses far more susceptible to reliance upon "experts" and authorities to inform our views-- to tell us what we're "really" seeing outside that window, and interpret the shadows streaking by when the train plunges into numerous tunnels.
But apart from these general conditions, the rehabilitation of Dubya is made that much easier by Team Obama's tragic and reprehensible decision to ratify and vindicate the worst components of the Bush legacy: the Unitary Executive, the post-Constitutional Security State and the Imperial War State, and the economic Hollow State that gives the predatory tycoons and banksters unlimited license to plunder and squeeze the populace to secure and increase its immense wealth.
By keeping faith with the form and spirit of its abominable predecessor, and resolutely declining to "look backwards" to repudiate and hold the Bush Gang accountable for its staggering crime spree, the Obama Maladministration retroactively endorses and exalts the despotic and malevolent Dubya.
Apart from some superficial political distancing, Team Obama has effectively embraced Bush and Cheney. No lie is too big to cook up and swallow when the rule is to let bygones be bygones.
Ob 10:43 you said it best. Mega Maya ...... great!
It would be a service to the comminity to replace the DMG article with this post and put the article in the comments section.