(Find my current blog at www.erinketheridge.com,
but do enjoy these archives!)
Friday, January 30
Not only are they awesome, but they've also embraced technology. Rock. On.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Yeah! They want to exponentially increase the scope of an already out-of-control federal government, spend trillions on an absurd "stimulus package" bursting with pork, shut down a prison where some of the world's deadliest terrorists are incarcerated, and make the murder of unborn human life easier to commit than ever before - all within the first 11 days of their administration. Rock. On.
Hey, just as long as they promise to keep turning out slick websites and kick-ass YouTube videos! Geez, these guys must put two tablespoons of awesome in their coffee every morning...
You know, you're right. Because the best way to go about running a government is to cloak the administration in secrecy, alienate our foreign allies, utilize torture as an acceptable form of "interrogation," allow corporate greed to run absolutely rampant, and plunge the economy into the worst recession it's seen arguably since the Depression.
That's the way to do it. And murder? Certainly NO murder has gone on under the Bush administration. Everything that's happened in the war is just, because whatever Bush says is the holy writ of God. Right?
For the good of us both - and of your other readers - I'll say my piece and move along with my life before this thread becomes yet another annoying online back-and-forth between two people who aren't ever going to change each other's minds.
Whenever my conscience permits, I try to steer clear of discussing politics with friends; I'm hardly an unpassionate or apolitical person, but I learned long ago that such "discussions" soon devolve into arguments which inevitably result in an intellectual stalemate, with the friendship usually worse for the wear. So among my friends and loved ones, I'll let even the most uninformed and assinine assertions slide on by. But the reason I couldn't help myself from posting on this topic is that I find it so incredibly frustrating how so many intelligent and otherwise right-thinking people have been so captivated by recycled utopian ideology and inane rhetoric from a man without a single noteworthy accomplishment to his name. George Bush was hardly perfect; in fact, there are many respects in which his administration was completely incompetent, or at least inept. But the cult of personality that has sprung up around His Holy Barackness and his veep - the quintessential Washington blowhard - is positively unfathomable, at least to my feeble brain. It's true; Americans have always been suckers for populism. But for so many to invest so much with such fervent devotion in one man's vision smacks of exactly the sort of thing that has enabled totalitarianism to gain a foothold throughout history. There's no doubt that we live in a country that needs improvement, but hardly the sort of existential remaking that The One promises. We need a fresh shave, not plastic surgery. Yet the electorate is strangely eager to hand him the scalpel, and anyone who shouts "Stop!" is either a reactionary, a bigot, or - worst of all - an apologist for that moronic cowboy and his money-hungry Wall Street chums. It's disappointing, it's frightening, it's frustrating, and it makes me worry that we've lost some of the exceptionalism that has been the fuel of our nation's success for the past 230 years.
Oh, one more thing: the implication that my comrades in arms are but a lowly pack of murderers is so laughable that I won't dignify it with any further commentary, save one little blurb: this week, in the very city from which I write this, the Iraqi people participated in the first free and independent democratic election in the history of their most ancient civilization. And if being a cog in Bushitler's war machine is what it takes for me to claim that I played a (microscopically small) part in setting the conditions for such an historic event... well, I hope I can live it down.
4 comments:
Yeah! They want to exponentially increase the scope of an already out-of-control federal government, spend trillions on an absurd "stimulus package" bursting with pork, shut down a prison where some of the world's deadliest terrorists are incarcerated, and make the murder of unborn human life easier to commit than ever before - all within the first 11 days of their administration. Rock. On.
Hey, just as long as they promise to keep turning out slick websites and kick-ass YouTube videos! Geez, these guys must put two tablespoons of awesome in their coffee every morning...
You know, you're right. Because the best way to go about running a government is to cloak the administration in secrecy, alienate our foreign allies, utilize torture as an acceptable form of "interrogation," allow corporate greed to run absolutely rampant, and plunge the economy into the worst recession it's seen arguably since the Depression.
That's the way to do it. And murder? Certainly NO murder has gone on under the Bush administration. Everything that's happened in the war is just, because whatever Bush says is the holy writ of God. Right?
Yikes... exaggerate much?
For the good of us both - and of your other readers - I'll say my piece and move along with my life before this thread becomes yet another annoying online back-and-forth between two people who aren't ever going to change each other's minds.
Whenever my conscience permits, I try to steer clear of discussing politics with friends; I'm hardly an unpassionate or apolitical person, but I learned long ago that such "discussions" soon devolve into arguments which inevitably result in an intellectual stalemate, with the friendship usually worse for the wear. So among my friends and loved ones, I'll let even the most uninformed and assinine assertions slide on by. But the reason I couldn't help myself from posting on this topic is that I find it so incredibly frustrating how so many intelligent and otherwise right-thinking people have been so captivated by recycled utopian ideology and inane rhetoric from a man without a single noteworthy accomplishment to his name. George Bush was hardly perfect; in fact, there are many respects in which his administration was completely incompetent, or at least inept. But the cult of personality that has sprung up around His Holy Barackness and his veep - the quintessential Washington blowhard - is positively unfathomable, at least to my feeble brain. It's true; Americans have always been suckers for populism. But for so many to invest so much with such fervent devotion in one man's vision smacks of exactly the sort of thing that has enabled totalitarianism to gain a foothold throughout history. There's no doubt that we live in a country that needs improvement, but hardly the sort of existential remaking that The One promises. We need a fresh shave, not plastic surgery. Yet the electorate is strangely eager to hand him the scalpel, and anyone who shouts "Stop!" is either a reactionary, a bigot, or - worst of all - an apologist for that moronic cowboy and his money-hungry Wall Street chums. It's disappointing, it's frightening, it's frustrating, and it makes me worry that we've lost some of the exceptionalism that has been the fuel of our nation's success for the past 230 years.
Oh, one more thing: the implication that my comrades in arms are but a lowly pack of murderers is so laughable that I won't dignify it with any further commentary, save one little blurb: this week, in the very city from which I write this, the Iraqi people participated in the first free and independent democratic election in the history of their most ancient civilization. And if being a cog in Bushitler's war machine is what it takes for me to claim that I played a (microscopically small) part in setting the conditions for such an historic event... well, I hope I can live it down.
You are inferring things that I did not imply. I will address this in another post, another time. In the meantime, stay safe in Baghdad.
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