Saturday, April 03, 2004
Anti-Bush, anti-American or anti-war?
Readers may be surprised to hear that I’ve got some sympathy for Dubya. Yes, even ignoring matters beyond his own borders, I know that he’s a disgraceful crony capitalist, a reckless borrower and profligate spender, and an anti-gay redneck. Yet he was democratically elected – well, more or less – by the voters of America, and nor he be accused of changing his colours once getting into office, either.
I raise Bush’s democratically-elected status not to suggest this gives him some kind of quasi-divine fiat, but simply because hating Bush (and his inner circle) makes no sense to me. You’ve got to hate the ordinary folk of America as well – or at least a good-sized chunk of them.
Not that I’ve got any reservations about this – no sirree. The average American is a vacuous, oil-guzzling pig whose environmental footprint is an obscenity close to being matched by only . . . (wait) . . . the average Australian’s.
Of course the Iraq war was about oil, not WMDs. Maybe Bush should have just called a spade a spade on this one – just maybe. But what electorate likes being told that they’re a bunch of petro-drunks living on borrowed time, so necessitating an urgent break-in at the local oil “bottle shop”?
Likewise with the Bush family’s close ties, to say the least, with the Saudi royals – probably the single-most evil government on the planet today, both in terms of oppressing their own people (especially Saudi women and GenX Saudi men) and as covert sponsors of Islamofascist terrorism in the West. The Texas-Riyadh connection is hardly a pretty picture, but I don’t think it means that Bush is implicated in a conspiracy over the September 11 attacks.
It’s called unfettered capitalism, Americans – and there’s no great secret to that. Y’all know that even putting the Democrats in for four years this November wont change a thing. All that Bush has done – rightly or wrongly – is to oil the huge, creaking machine that is your economy, keeping it going as smoothly as possible in challenging circumstances.
Saying “You get the government you deserve” is perhaps a bit harsh, particularly on cast-iron Democrat voters. But when the corrollary of (relatively) cheap oil for America is recognised – the despicable government of Saudi Arabia – it can be observed that Americans could do much, much worse than Dubya. Indeed, unless and until they do do this (or help Saudi democratise, which seems a remote prospect), America and its people are simply a walking, talking double-standard. So maybe it's about time that you really got the government you deserve, America.
Readers may be surprised to hear that I’ve got some sympathy for Dubya. Yes, even ignoring matters beyond his own borders, I know that he’s a disgraceful crony capitalist, a reckless borrower and profligate spender, and an anti-gay redneck. Yet he was democratically elected – well, more or less – by the voters of America, and nor he be accused of changing his colours once getting into office, either.
I raise Bush’s democratically-elected status not to suggest this gives him some kind of quasi-divine fiat, but simply because hating Bush (and his inner circle) makes no sense to me. You’ve got to hate the ordinary folk of America as well – or at least a good-sized chunk of them.
Not that I’ve got any reservations about this – no sirree. The average American is a vacuous, oil-guzzling pig whose environmental footprint is an obscenity close to being matched by only . . . (wait) . . . the average Australian’s.
Of course the Iraq war was about oil, not WMDs. Maybe Bush should have just called a spade a spade on this one – just maybe. But what electorate likes being told that they’re a bunch of petro-drunks living on borrowed time, so necessitating an urgent break-in at the local oil “bottle shop”?
Likewise with the Bush family’s close ties, to say the least, with the Saudi royals – probably the single-most evil government on the planet today, both in terms of oppressing their own people (especially Saudi women and GenX Saudi men) and as covert sponsors of Islamofascist terrorism in the West. The Texas-Riyadh connection is hardly a pretty picture, but I don’t think it means that Bush is implicated in a conspiracy over the September 11 attacks.
It’s called unfettered capitalism, Americans – and there’s no great secret to that. Y’all know that even putting the Democrats in for four years this November wont change a thing. All that Bush has done – rightly or wrongly – is to oil the huge, creaking machine that is your economy, keeping it going as smoothly as possible in challenging circumstances.
Saying “You get the government you deserve” is perhaps a bit harsh, particularly on cast-iron Democrat voters. But when the corrollary of (relatively) cheap oil for America is recognised – the despicable government of Saudi Arabia – it can be observed that Americans could do much, much worse than Dubya. Indeed, unless and until they do do this (or help Saudi democratise, which seems a remote prospect), America and its people are simply a walking, talking double-standard. So maybe it's about time that you really got the government you deserve, America.
