[Grovenet] Musings

[allnutt]

I have to believe that we can recover. Why? Because I think more people are 
paying attention.
They may still have several fears about speaking up and like Ron felt many 
years ago they may still believe that somehow Bush has access to some super 
'secret' information that he can't share with the world and the only way to 
be safe is to 'trust' somehow that bush has the country's interests at heart 
and we should follow along.  Over and over again he pushes more people into 
the column that believe that even if he is president we don't necessarily 
need to believe what he says.

As a matter of fact, he pushed a few more people into that column today.
He has been telling us that we are in Iraq to set up a stable corner of 
democracy in the mid east. Yet as he landed in Australia one of the 
diplomats inquired about how things were going in Iraq.  Within earshot of a 
reporter Bush replied, somewhat gleefully if the reporter read the emotion 
right, that  "We're kicking butt!"

I have been around adolescent boys recently, because I have a son.  And 
often they make statements that indicate the mindset of male adolescents is 
that 'kicking butt' is a wonderful pastime, especially when it comes to 
sporting events.  But none of them seem to indicate that they believe it has 
anything to do with diplomacy or nation building.

If the Iraqis hear, and I'm sure they will get the news from the 
international reporters, that Bush thinks their hardships under war time 
conditions and the effort that they are making to reconcile their 
differences is nothing more than an American presidents jovial 'butt 
kicking' sport, then our job will be harder in the long run to put that 
country back together.

Take heart in knowing that there are many adults running for president and 
while it may be difficult to put us back on a mature path, it can be done. 
The candidates are making too many statements about the consistitutional 
abuses, the secrecy, the torture, the incompetence etc because they 
recognize that those problems are being uncovered by Bush and his entourage 
all by themselves and that it is so bad, the average voter is getting the 
picture in living color.

Take hope in the fact that some districts are decertifying the electronic 
voting machines that have a 90+% hack rate.  I've been bragging to my 
relatives who live in NM and OH that we have a paper trail here in Oregon. 
They are a little jealous.  As other voters come to realize that paper 
trails protect voters they will want them too. We still have the vote and it 
is a powerful tool.

More people are coming out to speak their minds (today's newspaper said even 
little ol' Forest Grove had a decent turn out for war protesters).

Bush can speak all he wants about how wonderful the surge is doing and how 
we should stay, but people are realizing that if the surge is working 
doesn't that mean we should be coming home?  (You no doubt noticed that in 
the show case surge province of Anbar where things are going so so 
splendidly, that the markets are only secure because US Army personnel have 
all the roads blocked off and search all shoppers for weapons before they 
get into the market.  Yep that is how well it is secured and nope there is 
not a chance in hell that all that success will result in our troops leaving 
Anbar anytime soon.)
There will be much celebration when we bring home 1% of our troops and it 
will be trotted out as a troop reduction rather than a normal blip in the 
rotation, but the military and enough of the people will see what it is. 
Same ol', same ol', bring 'em on, so we can kick some butt thinking of GW.

I'm feeling like we aren't so much broken as a country as we are getting a 
hard  education in how to actually run a democracy and it will be so much 
better when GW is out of office.

Katie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steele, Mike" <steelem at pacificu.edu>
To: "Forest Grove local interests list" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 8:54 AM
Subject: [Grovenet] Musings


> In the waning days of the current administration, it seems that most of
> us have more or less abandoned ongoing criticism of its policies and
> practices.  I'm almost numb to further revelations of malfeasance,
> cronyism, new constitutional assaults, lies, etc.
>
> I'm starting to turn my attention to the future...the 500+ days out
> scenario, when Shrub will be a former Federal employee.
>
> But for me there's a snag about that future...has this administration so
> eviscerated this country and its government that it cannot recover?  Are
> we forever stuck with the imperial presidency, mind-boggling secrecy, $9
> trillion in Federal debt, debtor nation status, the consequences of
> imperialistic bullying, a mangled military barely able to keep the
> Humvees running, a highly politicized judiciary, historically low levels
> of admiration overseas, warrantless wire-tapping, the virtual end of
> habeus corpus, etc., etc., etc.  The list could go on ad nauseum.
>
> I don't hear the presidential candidates making case statements about
> these matters.  Are they accepting the status quo?  I don't hear many
> apologies from those who put this idiot in office in the first place.
> Do they realize the damage they have inflicted on this country, its
> constitution, its standing in the world, and on our very roles as
> citizens?
>
> --Mike
>
> _______________________________________________
> GroveNet mailing list
> GroveNet at rdrop.com
> http://www.rdrop.com/mailman/listinfo/grovenet
>