| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Dermot Donovan" |
| Date: |
19 Jan 2005 09:54:56 AM |
| Object: |
The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1285199.htm
Global majority think Bush dangerous
A wide majority of people questioned in a global opinion poll believe that
US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself.
They saw US influence in the world as largely negative and viewed Americans
negatively as well.
In none of the countries polled was there support for contributing troops to
Iraq.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the American
people who re-elected him," Steven Kull, director of the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US."
In Senate confirmation hearings, Mr Bush's nominee as secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, has acknowledged the need for more diplomacy and for the
rebuilding of alliances.
She says the UN interaction with the world "must be a conversation not a
monologue."
But typically, one British contributor to the World Service web site says Mr
Bush's re-election "means more pollution, war and social injustice
(particularly in America)."
He asked: "Whatever happened to the freedom-loving, forward-thinking,
right-minded people that made America the envy of the rest of us?"
On average across all countries, the poll indicated that 58 per cent of
people believe Mr Bush's re-election has made the world more dangerous.
Only in three countries, Poland, India and the Philippines, was there a
majority of support for Mr Bush.
But even in traditional US allies such as Germany, France and Britain, as
well as in neighbouring Canada and Mexico, sentiment was predominantly
anti-Bush.
In Turkey, a US ally and the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, 82 per cent of those polled said Mr Bush's re-election was
negative for world peace.
Anti-Bush sentiment was also strong in Latin America, with 79 per cent of
those polled in Argentina and 78 per cent in Brazil describing his
re-election in negative terms.
In the poll, which took place from November 15 to January 5, between 500 and
1,800 people were surveyed in each country.
The margin of error in extrapolating the results to the entire population
was placed between 2.5 and four percentage points, depending on the country.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:19:41 AM |
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From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1285199.htm
Global majority think Bush dangerous
A wide majority of people questioned in a global opinion poll believe that
US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself.
They saw US influence in the world as largely negative and viewed Americans
negatively as well.
In none of the countries polled was there support for contributing troops to
Iraq.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the American
people who re-elected him,"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not convinced that the American people did re-elected him.
Many foreigners, and many Americans, don't seem to understand the possibility of how the
electronic voting machines could have been rigged.
But many of the machines that are currently in use, can be rigged to produce the desired result.
Without a paper trail, this is like entering a casino which has a rigged roulette wheel.
And many of the gambling public don't believe that is possible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steven Kull, director of the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US."
In Senate confirmation hearings, Mr Bush's nominee as secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, has acknowledged the need for more diplomacy and for the
rebuilding of alliances.
She says the UN interaction with the world "must be a conversation not a
monologue."
But typically, one British contributor to the World Service web site says Mr
Bush's re-election "means more pollution, war and social injustice
(particularly in America)."
He asked: "Whatever happened to the freedom-loving, forward-thinking,
right-minded people that made America the envy of the rest of us?"
On average across all countries, the poll indicated that 58 per cent of
people believe Mr Bush's re-election has made the world more dangerous.
Only in three countries, Poland, India and the Philippines, was there a
majority of support for Mr Bush.
But even in traditional US allies such as Germany, France and Britain, as
well as in neighbouring Canada and Mexico, sentiment was predominantly
anti-Bush.
In Turkey, a US ally and the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, 82 per cent of those polled said Mr Bush's re-election was
negative for world peace.
Anti-Bush sentiment was also strong in Latin America, with 79 per cent of
those polled in Argentina and 78 per cent in Brazil describing his
re-election in negative terms.
In the poll, which took place from November 15 to January 5, between 500 and
1,800 people were surveyed in each country.
The margin of error in extrapolating the results to the entire population
was placed between 2.5 and four percentage points, depending on the country.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:30:40 AM |
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This is how you vote when you use TruVote
_____________________________________________________________________________
[1]
The voter touches the screen.
[2]
A paper ballot prints-out under Plexiglas.
[3]
The voter looks through the Plexiglas to make sure that the print-out ballot is the same as
what he/she actually voted.
[4]
The machine issues the voter with a paper receipt which has a number on it.
[5]
At any time after Election Day, it is possible for the voter to use any desktop computer
to visit the election web site.
The voter uses the computer keyboard to punch in the number of the receipt.
The election web site will reveal whether or not the vote was correctly transferred
from the polling place to the central tabulation center.
_____________________________________________________________________________
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| User: "Deaf Power" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 11:11:30 AM |
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On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:30:40 +0000, wrote:
This is how you vote when you use TruVote
_____________________________________________________________________________
[1]
The voter touches the screen.
[2]
A paper ballot prints-out under Plexiglas.
[3]
The voter looks through the Plexiglas to make sure that the print-out ballot is the same as
what he/she actually voted.
[4]
The machine issues the voter with a paper receipt which has a number on it.
[5]
At any time after Election Day, it is possible for the voter to use any desktop computer
to visit the election web site.
The voter uses the computer keyboard to punch in the number of the receipt.
The election web site will reveal whether or not the vote was correctly transferred
from the polling place to the central tabulation center.
A double confirmation would be, once all the votes are completed
before declaring candidate the winner, a list of numbers are to be
showned to the voters with the candidates they voted for, and the
total of votes for each candidate tallied in each state and all
states. If your vote differ, then you call up the candidate to let
him/her know your vote was cheated, and you show your original
receipt. This ensures that the votes are showned to all individuals,
not just one individual.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 12:57:13 PM |
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On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:30:40 +0000, wrote:
This is how you vote when you use TruVote
_____________________________________________________________________________
[1]
The voter touches the screen.
[2]
A paper ballot prints-out under Plexiglas.
[3]
The voter looks through the Plexiglas to make sure that the print-out ballot is the same as
what he/she actually voted.
[4]
The machine issues the voter with a paper receipt which has a number on it.
[5]
At any time after Election Day, it is possible for the voter to use any desktop computer
to visit the election web site.
The voter uses the computer keyboard to punch in the number of the receipt.
The election web site will reveal whether or not the vote was correctly transferred
from the polling place to the central tabulation center.
A double confirmation would be, once all the votes are completed
before declaring candidate the winner, a list of numbers are to be
showned to the voters with the candidates they voted for, and the
total of votes for each candidate tallied in each state and all
states. If your vote differ, then you call up the candidate to let
him/her know your vote was cheated, and you show your original
receipt. This ensures that the votes are showned to all individuals,
not just one individual.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is possible for the above information to be available at the election web site.
But before anyone can get into the election web site, they must first punch in the number
of their paper receipt.
They do this on the keyboard of any computer.
This technology has already been tested by TruVote.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.
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| User: "Art" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:41:16 AM |
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Dermot Donovan wrote:
From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1285199.htm
Global majority think Bush dangerous
A wide majority of people questioned in a global opinion poll believe that
US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself.
Precisely.
/America/ is dangerous.
In the end, Dubya is my /servant/. And /your/ servant.
Policy recommendations emanating from PNAC read a whole hellova lot like
a summary of the Kennedy Presidency.
America /is/ dangerous. And the world, last time I checked, is
dangerous, too.
So the world thinks America is dangerous? Yeah, well, the world had
better not forget it.
---
Art
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| User: "Vet.." |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 11:12:10 AM |
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In article <kpvHd.156$YD5.69@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
"Dermot Donovan" <dnd@dnd.org> wrote:
From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1285199.htm
Global majority think Bush dangerous
A wide majority of people questioned in a global opinion poll believe that
US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself.
They saw US influence in the world as largely negative and viewed Americans
negatively as well.
In none of the countries polled was there support for contributing troops to
Iraq.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the American
people who re-elected him," Steven Kull, director of the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US."
In Senate confirmation hearings, Mr Bush's nominee as secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, has acknowledged the need for more diplomacy and for the
rebuilding of alliances.
She says the UN interaction with the world "must be a conversation not a
monologue."
But typically, one British contributor to the World Service web site says Mr
Bush's re-election "means more pollution, war and social injustice
(particularly in America)."
He asked: "Whatever happened to the freedom-loving, forward-thinking,
right-minded people that made America the envy of the rest of us?"
On average across all countries, the poll indicated that 58 per cent of
people believe Mr Bush's re-election has made the world more dangerous.
Only in three countries, Poland, India and the Philippines, was there a
majority of support for Mr Bush.
But even in traditional US allies such as Germany, France and Britain, as
well as in neighbouring Canada and Mexico, sentiment was predominantly
anti-Bush.
In Turkey, a US ally and the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, 82 per cent of those polled said Mr Bush's re-election was
negative for world peace.
Anti-Bush sentiment was also strong in Latin America, with 79 per cent of
those polled in Argentina and 78 per cent in Brazil describing his
re-election in negative terms.
In the poll, which took place from November 15 to January 5, between 500 and
1,800 people were surveyed in each country.
The margin of error in extrapolating the results to the entire population
was placed between 2.5 and four percentage points, depending on the country.
and;
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=9&u=/nm/20
050119/ts_nm/bush_poll_dc
<g.
you can't fool all of the people , all of the time.
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| User: "Scotius" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
22 Jan 2005 07:57:09 PM |
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On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:54:56 GMT, "Dermot Donovan" <dnd@dnd.org>
wrote:
From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1285199.htm
Global majority think Bush dangerous
A wide majority of people questioned in a global opinion poll believe that
US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself.
They saw US influence in the world as largely negative and viewed Americans
negatively as well.
In none of the countries polled was there support for contributing troops to
Iraq.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the American
people who re-elected him," Steven Kull, director of the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US."
In Senate confirmation hearings, Mr Bush's nominee as secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, has acknowledged the need for more diplomacy and for the
rebuilding of alliances.
She says the UN interaction with the world "must be a conversation not a
monologue."
But typically, one British contributor to the World Service web site says Mr
Bush's re-election "means more pollution, war and social injustice
(particularly in America)."
He asked: "Whatever happened to the freedom-loving, forward-thinking,
right-minded people that made America the envy of the rest of us?"
On average across all countries, the poll indicated that 58 per cent of
people believe Mr Bush's re-election has made the world more dangerous.
Only in three countries, Poland, India and the Philippines, was there a
majority of support for Mr Bush.
But even in traditional US allies such as Germany, France and Britain, as
well as in neighbouring Canada and Mexico, sentiment was predominantly
anti-Bush.
In Turkey, a US ally and the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, 82 per cent of those polled said Mr Bush's re-election was
negative for world peace.
Anti-Bush sentiment was also strong in Latin America, with 79 per cent of
those polled in Argentina and 78 per cent in Brazil describing his
re-election in negative terms.
In the poll, which took place from November 15 to January 5, between 500 and
1,800 people were surveyed in each country.
The margin of error in extrapolating the results to the entire population
was placed between 2.5 and four percentage points, depending on the country.
That's okay, because a lot of us are sensible enough to know
that it's Germany and France, along with most of the rest of the EU
that is the danger to freedom in the World. Them and the UN, actually.
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| User: "Fed Up" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
22 Jan 2005 05:36:05 PM |
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"Scotius" <wolvzbro@mnsi.net> wrote in message
news:f216v057kcro5trpr8111ssckojddulf4r@4ax.com...
That's okay, because a lot of us are sensible
blind
enough to know
or rather not
that it's Germany and France, along with most of the rest of the EU
that is the danger to freedom in the World. Them and the UN, actually.
Yeah, right. I'm sure the EU drew up YOUR Patriot Act 1 & 2.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
22 Jan 2005 05:55:50 PM |
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On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:54:56 GMT, "Dermot Donovan" <dnd@dnd.org>
wrote:
From: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1285199.htm
Global majority think Bush dangerous
A wide majority of people questioned in a global opinion poll believe that
US President George W Bush has made the world more dangerous.
Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself.
They saw US influence in the world as largely negative and viewed Americans
negatively as well.
In none of the countries polled was there support for contributing troops to
Iraq.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the American
people who re-elected him," Steven Kull, director of the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, said.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US."
In Senate confirmation hearings, Mr Bush's nominee as secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, has acknowledged the need for more diplomacy and for the
rebuilding of alliances.
She says the UN interaction with the world "must be a conversation not a
monologue."
But typically, one British contributor to the World Service web site says Mr
Bush's re-election "means more pollution, war and social injustice
(particularly in America)."
He asked: "Whatever happened to the freedom-loving, forward-thinking,
right-minded people that made America the envy of the rest of us?"
On average across all countries, the poll indicated that 58 per cent of
people believe Mr Bush's re-election has made the world more dangerous.
Only in three countries, Poland, India and the Philippines, was there a
majority of support for Mr Bush.
But even in traditional US allies such as Germany, France and Britain, as
well as in neighbouring Canada and Mexico, sentiment was predominantly
anti-Bush.
In Turkey, a US ally and the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, 82 per cent of those polled said Mr Bush's re-election was
negative for world peace.
Anti-Bush sentiment was also strong in Latin America, with 79 per cent of
those polled in Argentina and 78 per cent in Brazil describing his
re-election in negative terms.
In the poll, which took place from November 15 to January 5, between 500 and
1,800 people were surveyed in each country.
The margin of error in extrapolating the results to the entire population
was placed between 2.5 and four percentage points, depending on the country.
That's okay, because a lot of us are sensible enough to know
that it's Germany and France, along with most of the rest of the EU
that is the danger to freedom in the World. Them and the UN, actually.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A lot of us are sensible enough to know that the greatest threat to basic
freedoms are rigged elections.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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| User: "Docky Wocky" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:31:33 AM |
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dd sez:
"Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to
the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself..."
__________________________
Wow!
21,000 people in 21 countries.
That's almost 1000 peoples per country responding, and, imagine, almost half
of them thought Bush and America were dangerous. That's almost 11,500
peoples - generally a ***** poor representative sample of all the people of
the world.
However, just as long as you find some percentage of kooks to support your
world view, huh?
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| User: "Dermot Donovan" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:51:42 AM |
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"Docky Wocky" <mrchuck@lst.net> wrote in message
news:FXvHd.17569$c%6.7589@trnddc03...
dd sez:
"Almost half of the nearly 21,000 people in 21 countries who responded to
the
BBC World Service poll also made no distinction between the Bush
administration and America itself..."
__________________________
Wow!
21,000 people in 21 countries.
That's almost 1000 peoples per country responding, and, imagine, almost
half
of them thought Bush and America were dangerous. That's almost 11,500
peoples - generally a ***** poor representative sample of all the people of
the world.
However, just as long as you find some percentage of kooks to support your
world view, huh?
I know, I know, only the polls that support YOUR point of view are good,
reputable, believable. All other polls are garbage. But if someone would
ask each and every person in the world, record their answers and present it
to you in the most believable manner, and prove it to you that the world is
rejecting American arrogance and aggression, then you will say that the
world is mad and you don't give a damn what the world thinks.
This is the position, the world view of fascism. Get used to the word, it's
here to stay.
DD
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 01:06:56 PM |
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"We are working hard to build a solidarity movement, uniting all Fascists"
_______________________________________________________________
Welcome to the website of the American Fascist Movement. We are
working hard to build a solidarity movement, uniting all Fascists,
Populists and Nationalists alike. By providing informational,
logistical, technical, educational and various other means of support,
we hope to cultivate an immensely powerful movement for all Americans
who want change in America's contemporary decadent, 'democratic'
system. To learn more about us, please view the 'about the afm' link
located above. Slowly but surely we shall create an American people
fully conscious of its identity and destiny, integrated within the
state; and bring to fruition a National community renewed with intense
Nationalist vigor and spiritual human progress. Together the AFM and
future belongs to us! Fascism Forward!
http://snipurl.com/c4rd
_______________________________________________________________
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| User: "Docky Wocky" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 04:17:08 PM |
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dd sez:
"I know, I know, only the polls that support YOUR point of view are good,
reputable, believable..."
_________________________________
Polls?
Supporting MY point of view?
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:38:07 AM |
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Should political opinion polls be believed ?
______________________________________________________
Only if they were conducted in Red America.
The polls will probably show a different result in Blue America.
The Bush Regime probably knows this.
______________________________________________________
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| User: "Deaf Power" |
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| Title: Re: The World thinks Bush is Dangerous |
19 Jan 2005 10:12:47 AM |
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http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7616
The Most Dangerous President Ever
Harold Meyerson is the editor-at-large of The American Prospect.
I miss Ronald Reagan.
I know, I know: Reagan was our first president to proclaim government
the problem, to cut taxes massively on the rich, to deliberately
create a deficit so immense that the government's impoverishment did
indeed become a problem. He waged a war of dubious merit and clear
illegality in Central America; he pandered to the most bigoted
elements in American society.
The United States would be a far better place had he not been elected.
But politics deals in comparatives, not absolutes. And when I compare
Reagan with his ideological heir currently occupying the White House,
I'll take the Gipper, hands down. George W. Bush is much the meaner
president (and man). He is far more factional than Reagan was. And he
is incomparably more dangerous than Reagan or any other president in
this nation's history.
Forces that first assembled and ideas that first appeared during
Reagan's presidency have now had two decades to develop -- to grow
more powerful and more marginal simultaneously. That is one reason why
Bush is so dangerous now. Policies that were but twinkles in the
Reaganites' eyes -- a war on the mixed economy and the multilateral
world order -- have reappeared fully grown in Bush's presidency.
What Bush seems determined to extirpate are the basic forms of common
security in America. His particular targets seem disproportionately
the handiwork of years ending in "5." From 1965, there's Medicare,
which he seeks to subordinate to the pay-as-you-can calculus of HMOs;
from 1945, there's the United Nations and the whole structure of
postwar alliances, which he seeks to subordinate to an imperial
America freed from international laws and treaties; from 1935, there's
Social Security, which he still seeks to privatize, and the Wagner
Act, whose pro-labor tilt he seeks to obliterate in his tax policy.
Underpinning these assaults is a decided preference for a more social
(and international) Darwinistic order -- though in this uniquely Old
Testament White House, Darwinism is the love whose name cannot be
spoken.
If this is an agenda that the Reaganites could only dream of, it's
just partly because they didn't have enough support in Congress. It's
also because they had too many fair-weather friends across the nation,
many of whom would never have contemplated such radical reorderings.
The Republican congressional leaders in Reagan's time were Bob Michel
in the House and Howard Baker in the Senate -- moderates,
respectively, from the Midwest (Illinois) and the Upper South
(Tennessee). Reagan won election in 1980 by a 10 percent margin over
Jimmy Carter in the popular vote and a 489-to-49 majority in the
Electoral College. He prevailed over Carter and John Anderson in every
region of the country (only New England was close), winning both
California and New York.
Bush, of course, is not even a plurality president, and his victory in
the Electoral College was entirely regional in nature. In the two
decades since Reagan, the Republican Party has grown smaller but
deeper -- becoming above all the party of the white South, as well as
the Mountain States, the depopulating prairie and church-going
America. But for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the
Republican legislative leaders in Bush's time -- Rep. Tom DeLay
(R-Texas), Rep. ***** Armey (R-Texas), Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Sen.
Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) -- have been southern right-wingers. Bush's
nonplurality is less diverse and more embattled than Reagan's
majority. And Bush himself is less confident, more confrontational
than Reagan.
Reagan, in Hendrik Hertzberg's memorable phrase, was "a closet
tolerant." While he'd grown up in the small-town Midwest and inherited
its provincialism, he'd spent his adult years in the fleshpots of
Hollywood. Bush's provincialism, by contrast, was the result of his
own existential choices. His grandfather was a pillar of the old Wall
Street-dominated GOP; his father -- as special envoy to China, CIA
director and U.N. ambassador before becoming vice president and then
president -- was as cosmopolitan a figure as the old Republican
establishment had produced in years. That W. traveled to Europe just
once before his election as governor of Texas bespeaks a curiosity
about and comfort level with the wider world that is almost a rebuke
to preceding generations of Bushes.
At heart, the current Bush is a warrior for a region, a faction, a
part of America. No national calamity has tempered his zeal for his
factional agenda. His determination to reward the "investor class"
(that is, still, the rich), to appoint socially reactionary judges, to
favor his business cronies has not waned in wartime. His desire to
make Americans reliant on the market, rather than social savings, has
not been deterred by the worst decline in the markets since the Great
Depression.
Throughout American history, presidents have downplayed the most
divisive elements of their agenda at times of crisis. As the nation
moved toward World War II, Franklin Roosevelt announced a cessation to
New Deal experimentation and brought in Republicans to run the War and
Navy departments. Lincoln came to power in a disintegrating nation and
appointed all his major Republican rivals -- such national leaders as
William Seward and Salmon Chase -- to his cabinet. (Imagine George W.
Bush giving the Department of Defense to John McCain!) Bush, by
contrast, has in his policies and appointments remained resolutely a
president of faction. Colin Powell is the one exception here, but
consider whom exactly Powell represents in the Bush coalition: Bush's
father.
This factional tilt is partly a matter of strategy. Bush and his
political consigliere, Karl Rove, place great stress on rewarding the
Republican right-wing base. As they see it, George Bush Senior was
defeated in 1992 because he broke his pledge never to raise taxes,
thereby alienating the conservative activists without whom a
Republican cannot win. In fact, the senior Bush's failure to
alleviate, or even address, a serious recession is what cost him the
election, but Rove is convinced that by governing on the right,
providing military security for all and voicing a threadbare rhetoric
of compassion, his boy George can win re-election.
And so, by strategy, inclination and conviction, George W. Bush has
been pursuing a reckless, even ridiculous, but always right-wing
agenda -- shredding a global-security structure at a time requiring
unprecedented international integration, shredding a domestic safety
net at a time when the private sector provides radically less security
than it did a generation ago. No American president has ever played
quite so fast and loose with the well-being of the American people.
In foreign policy, the Bush administration seems above all a coalition
of religious and secular millenarians. For many fundamentalists
involved in Republican politics, the United Nations and other
instruments of "world government" are literally satanic. For the
almost entirely secular neoconservatives who provide most of the
intellectual direction for this administration, the United Nations,
the European Union, the International Criminal Court and kindred
institutions are all obstacles to the emergence of unchallenged
American hegemony. The neos don't view the coming American empire as
God's kingdom, of course; they see it -- better yet -- as their own.
But the neos', and the administration's, ability to see anything other
than their own desires is in question. The fact that U.S. power has
long been enhanced by America's alliances and its reputation for
liberal egalitarianism is nowhere on their radar screen. And a couple
of weeks into the war, it's now apparent just how ideologically
blinkered the administration's view of Iraq actually was, and how that
view has already imperiled our troops, the Iraqi people and any larger
strategic objectives the war was supposed to serve.
In its overreliance on a small number of neo-friendly Iraqi
expatriates to gauge the mood of the Iraqi people, in its belief that
our forces would be greeted as liberators, the administration has made
almost the identical error that the Eisenhower and Kennedy
administrations made at the Bay of Pigs. In each instance, ideology
and hope were substituted for factual assessment; in each instance,
the people have not risen to join U.S.-backed forces (in Cuba) or U.S.
forces (in Iraq) to overthrow their tyrant. In Iraq the administration
has underestimated the size and intensity of the forces committed to
fighting for Saddam Hussein -- forgetting everything we have learned
about the infrastructure of a modern totalitarian state. It has
forgotten, too, the power of nationalism in human affairs, especially
in postcolonial nations. And in proposing to subordinate postwar Iraq
to direct Pentagon control, it has all but ensured that our liberation
(in the administration's assessment) of Iraq will be viewed as a
neocolonial occupation, by Iraqis and just about everybody else. In so
doing, it has inflamed anti-American sentiment throughout the world,
and in the Arab world particularly, for years if not decades to come.
Finally, because this is explicitly a war of choice rather than
necessity, and because we have chosen to fight over the popular
opposition of virtually every other nation, we are naked before our
enemies. As an already apprehensive Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
has noted, we have likely created a hundred new Osama bin Ladens with
this war.
Some experienced Washington journalists -- Robert Dreyfuss in this
magazine [see "Just the Beginning," TAP, April 2003], Joshua Marshall
in The Washington Monthly -- have spent time with the neocons and come
back to report that growing Islamic militance in the Arab world is
precisely what the neos want; it justifies the United States in
extending the conflict to other nations until the entire region is
transformed. In a sense, this parallels the beliefs of the growing
number of religious Armageddonists who see chaos in the Middle East as
a prelude to the coming rapture. It's hard to say which idea is
loonier, or more dangerous.
For Bush himself, overthrowing Saddam Hussein serves political,
ideological and personal agendas. Politically, Hussein is the best
available substitute for the unlocatable bin Laden -- and even if we
can't find Hussein, we can at least, as is not the case with bin
Laden, depose him. Ideologically, the war and the doctrine of
preemption express the militarism, unilateralism and fear of
international institutions that characterize much of the Republican
base in the South and the Mountain States. Personally, by overthrowing
Hussein in this manner, Bush completes the unfinished work of his
father while consigning to history Bush Senior's world of alliances
and multilateralism.
No wonder Bush seems at ease with this war -- at least more at ease
than with the diplomacy that preceded it.
As with his foreign policy, no level of factual refutation seems to
make a dent in Bush's economic policies. His programs not only shift
the burden of Americans' economic security to an increasingly
deregulated private economy, they do so at a time when the deregulated
private economy is singularly unable to provide economic security.
Given how the market has performed over the past two years, you might
think that that would slow the course of the administration's economic
agenda. But, as with foreign policy, that would understate the role of
blind faith within George W. Bush's White House.
Behind Bush's economic policies lurk a novel political strategy and a
malignant ideological viewpoint. Politically, the administration is
counting on its proposed elimination of the dividend tax to win the
support of what it says is the fast-growing and newly decisive
shareholder electorate. Here again wish outruns reality: As Jeff Faux
has noted in these pages [see "Who Gets to Retire?", TAP, June 17,
2002], fewer than half of the private-sector employees in the United
States have any kind of pension or savings plan on the job. Only the
wealthiest 10 percent of Americans have major investments in their
401(k)s, and it was only they who truly flourished in the boom of the
1990s. That leaves roughly 40 percent of Americans for whom stock
values matter, but probably not nearly so much as wages, and 50
percent for whom stock values have no direct effect whatsoever.
Still, even if the vision of a shareholder majority is a chimera,
rewarding the rich remains the linchpin policy of playing to the
Republican base -- in this case, its funder base. So, too, is lifting
regulations on those sectors of American business that find
regulations most onerous: low-wage employers, extractive industries --
the industries of the historically low-wage South. Indeed, an animus
against wage labor is at the center of Bush economics. In proposing to
eliminate the dividend tax and the estate tax, and to enable families
to shelter up to $60,000 in investment income every year, Bush is
essentially proposing to eliminate taxation on all income except
wages. Bush also opposes any federal increase in the minimum wage,
unless a state can opt out of it.
But then, as Michael Lind reminds us in his new book, Made in Texas,
Bush's Texas, like the South generally, is historically and currently
a low-wage, nonunion region with an abysmal level of social
protections; only federal military and aerospace projects have paid
blue-collar workers a decent wage there. When Bush commends the
privatization of Social Security or the HMO-ization of Medicare, it's
worth noting that the percentage of Texans under 65 without medical
insurance for all or part of 2001-2002 -- 39.9 percent -- was the
highest in the land.
That government which governs in secret is inherently dangerous.
Contracts go to cronies, regulations get lifted, troops get deployed,
all with no public scrutiny. Halliburton is currently putting out
fires in Iraqi oil wells, on a contract that didn't go out for bid.
Which brings us to ***** Cheney, the most influential figure in the
administration after Bush and the most influential vice president in
U.S. history. By a number of accounts, it was Cheney who convinced
Bush, early last July, that we had to go to war with Iraq. But
Cheney's most distinctive contribution to this administration is his
penchant for near-absolute executive power. Serving in the House
during the Reagan administration -- and as the first leader of the
more militant conservative forces that later came to power with House
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) -- Cheney argued that the president
should be able to back the Contras' war in Nicaragua free from
congressional oversight. As Bush Senior's defense secretary, he
contended that the president needed no congressional approval to wage
the Gulf War. As vice president, Cheney has insisted that the
composition of his energy-policy task force be kept secret, and
opposed going to the United Nations for a second resolution. In an
administration determined to free American power from all constraint
and business power from most regulation, Cheney's particular
contribution has been to keep power as unchecked -- and often as
unseen -- as possible.
So where, in the panoply of American presidents, do we situate Bush?
He's not the first president to try to reconstruct the economic order.
But the president who really attempted a general fix -- Franklin
Roosevelt -- did so because the old order was plainly collapsing. No
such situation exists today. Worse yet, what Bush is proposing is to
erect a new economy by giving more power to the shakiest element --
the private-sector safety net -- of the old.
Just over a century ago, William McKinley set America on the course of
acquiring a colonial empire, setting off a debate over America's
proper role in the world every bit as impassioned as the one raging
today. McKinley's path was a radical departure from past practice, but
the United States was still a second-tier power. The shift did not
destabilize the world. A half-century before that, James Polk plunged
us into war with Mexico over considerable northern-state opposition
(including, in the later phases of the war, that of Congressman
Abraham Lincoln), but at that point, America was a third-tier power.
The three presidents who sought to build a multilateral framework for
international affairs were Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and
Harry Truman. Wilson's plan was killed in its crib when Congress
refused to ratify our entry into the League of Nations. Roosevelt's
and Truman's contributions -- setting up a structure of international
law, bringing prosperity and freedom to Western Europe, cementing
alliances with other democracies, containing and eventually defeating
Soviet communism -- are the enduring triumphs of U.S. foreign policy.
Bush seems bent on destroying Roosevelt's and Truman's handiwork,
however, and substituting a far more grandiose version of Polk's and
McKinley's, in what is distinctly a postcolonial world. As with his
assault on Roosevelt's New Deal order, he professes to replace an
architecture that may be flawed but certainly isn't broken -- in this
case, with an empire not likely to be backed up by the consent of the
governed.
None of these presidents, great or awful, seems quite comparable to
Bush the Younger. There is another, however, who comes to mind. He,
too, had a relentlessly regional perspective, and a clear sense of
estrangement from that part of America that did not support him. He
was not much impressed with the claims of wage labor. His values were
militaristic. He had dreams of building an empire at gunpoint. And he
was willing to tear up the larger political order, which had worked
reasonably well for about 60 years, to advance his factional cause.
The American president -- though not of the United States -- whom
George W. Bush most nearly resembles is the Confederacy's Jefferson
Davis.
Yes, I know: Bush is no racist, and certainly no proponent of slavery.
He is not grotesque; he is merely disgraceful. But, as with Davis,
obtaining Bush's defeat is an urgent matter of national security --
and national honor.
Copyright @ 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc. This piece is the May
2003 cover article.
Published: Apr 18 2003
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: BUT The World KNOWS YOU ARE Dangerous |
22 Jan 2005 09:56:07 PM |
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you are just another left wing kook, lying your ***** off, hoping
something bad will happen.well, you LOST the
election.HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH..and now we are gonna have voting in iraq
!!!
BWAA HAHAHHAHAHAH. and there is NOTHING you can do about it !
HAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH
" We are not men unless we destroy Syria, the pillar of terrorism, next
!"
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