Defending Bush

I'm not doing it but others are.

It seems lately, though I don't have any other links handy, there's been a lot of this sort of article that says "Bush, though he's made a lot of mistakes, may be a genius after all." To this, I say, horseshit. To his apologists, I say, you're a bunch of pathetic whores.

The Iraqi elections--which took places after a bullheaded invasion by us based on false premises which has killed over 100,000 people and has nothing to do with fighting al Qaida--are barely a month in the past and, while I think it was by itself a great thing, no one knows what any of it means (as the Wolf says in Pulp Fiction--"let's not go sucking each other's dicks quite yet."). The situation in Lebanon occured only because the former PM got killed; before that, no one gave two shits that Lebanon was controlled by Syria. Bush has basically ignored the Israeli-Palestine issue after a good five years of engagement by his predecessor.

The great fallacy, I think, in this linked article is the concept that Bush embraced the potential power of the repressed Arab peoples. After years of simplistic "good vs. evil" rhetoric from him, not to mention conservative calls to lay waste to the area and their actual actions that have literally laid waste to the area, we're to believe that he's been for the repressed people all along, and knew that all they really wanted was some democracy? Cheap oil and weapons of mass destruction, anyone?

I can remember years back, perhaps the 90s, when Democrats said, think about the Arab (or any other) people--let's help them build democracy and make a better life. What was the Republican response? We're not the world's policemen? Who gives a shit about what happens on the other side of the world? Kill all the "sand niggers"?

Suddenly, now, Republicans, led by George W. Bush, are the world's great selfless humanitarians, eager to spread democracy to the world's poor and repressed. I'm sure the rubes who voted for him buy it, but excuse me while I vomit for an hour or two.

Bankruptcy

Krugman discusses the new bankruptcy laws that will soon be passed, here (login required).

This is a "told you so" moment. This is exactly the kind of thing that Republicans want to do and its end result is to screw the average person for the sake of corporate profit (this time, it's credit card companies; with Social Security "reform," it's financial companies; with Medicare "reform," it was drug companies, etc.). Now, there isn't anything the Democrats can really can do to stop its passage because they've lost too many seats in Congress (and it doesn't help when Democrat assholes like Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware, the state of toll plazas and credit card companies, side with the Republicans).

So, basically, if you, the average person, run into financial trouble, whether it be because you have overwhelming medical costs; you are unemployed and can't find employment after searching for months or years in this economic "boom" the Republicans and media claim we're in; your property taxes have gotten way out of control because the appraisal on your house has doubled, tripled or quadrupled; you ran up credit card debt, in a time when interests were low, taking the advice of your government to support your country and go out and spend, and now, those interest rates have risen significantly, and your initial plan to pay it down has gone awry because, well, life got in the way; your children's college tuitions have risen 10%+ per year the last four years; or, you've just spent way too much trying to be a part of this American ideal, where everyone has a big overpriced single family detached house in the suburbs, 2 big comfortable gas-guzzling cars with tinted windows and a DVD player, cell phones with internet access and camera capabilities, desktop and laptop computers, digital cable television, iPods, where everyone eats out 2.5 times a week, goes to the movies and ball games on a regular basis and buys popcorn, soda, and merchandise, hits Broadway shows and takes long Disneyworld vacations--if this is you, you will be fucked.

[Personal side note: I'm not immune from this myself. A couple of years ago, personal circumstances had me run up some big credit card debt that I can't shake. I had a plan for bringing it down, but it fell by the wayside. Whenever I make significant progress, it gets negated by an unexpected expense. I only make so much money--and not much mind you, and my efforts to find higher-paying employment with benefits have been fruitless--so it doesn't take much to hurt me. I accept responsibility for this debt, and I've been working my ass off to keep it under control and attempt to pay it down. However, what will happen if I reach the breaking point, and there's nowhere for me to go?]

You spent and spent, did what you thought was good and what felt good, bought into America's capitalism, the endless parade of cute and clever commercials, the neat little gadgets, and got what is best for your kids. It was all to help the economy, to do what God wants you to do for your children, to make America the great nation it once was. No one told you, however, that, if given the chance, your government will turn its back on you and fuck you to make more money for its corporate friends.

This wasn't part of the game. They just said to buy, buy, buy. Saving is for losers, for the boring, ugly people who never have any fun. Bolster the economy. Support America. Support the troops, you traitor. Everything will work out in the end. We'll all live the dream.

But, we should've known better, right? We should've spent within our means, done without where we could. We shouldn't have trusted our government and its corporate surrogates--who now, in a cyberpunk-Philip K. Dick prophecy come true, are basically one and the same--that we could have it all because we're Americans. And the silliest thing, in my opinion, is this--the people of this country trusted their welfare with the Republicans. An alien historian, 10,000 years from now, will study the artifacts of this world, see this, and just laugh uncontrollably.

But I say this--we shouldn't trust the Republicans or the Democrats on these issues. I say trust the Democrats as a collective because their history shows that they have generally supported the average person over government and corporations, where as no one in their right mind could say this about the Republicans. But the Democrats, in the face of big corporate donations, are capable of turning whore on us.

All I can say is do what I've been trying to do (though, as you'll see above, I'm no shining example). Live on the cheap. Look at the shit you have and realize you don't need a lot of it. And kill your television. What's on your television--the news, the shows, the commercials--has been compromised and exists to seek your ruin.