this is not my beautiful country
Nov. 1st, 2004 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianArticles by other people:
Molly Ivins on the delusions of Bush supporters.
Bonnie Azab Powell relates a very disturbing interview with investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
Warblogging's latest summary of the scary, scary train wreck that is our administration right now.
Bush Relatives for Kerry have some very good points, especially Jeanny House, who points out that Christians are meant to minister to the poor.
The Bush administration is untrustworthy.
I think I cover this in the other sections, but it's one of the parts that worries me most. There's all of this mind-bogglingly horrible stuff that we do know about.
The "War on Terrorism" is completely fucked up.
. Thousands (I saw 40% but can't find it now) of U.S. troops in Iraq are reserves, meant to defend our country as a last resort.
. The Daily Kos has statistics telling us just how many American casualties there have been at various parts of the Iraq action. (And then there's the godawful number of dead Iraqis.)
. Check out![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ginmar if you don't read her already.
. "Both Donald Rumsfeld and Bush have publicly acknowledged there is no evidence of any links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda." (Ivins) And they knew that, which is why there are tales of nonexistent weaponry.
. "Just two weeks ago, Pat Robertson revealed that Bush told him 'we’re not going to have any casualties' in Iraq..." (See also "Bush is crazy.")
. 'He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts,' Hersh said quietly. 'He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, 'No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents. Don't you read those stories when the Americans say we had a combat maneuver and 15 insurgents were killed?' (Powell)
The Bush administration is against all reproductive rights.
. Yes, abortion is included in that. I hope never to need one, but I can't know, and everyone has to decide for herself. Bush has said that he is against legal abortion. Frankly, I think we need to legislate abortion rights, but I don't see that happening, so Roe needs to stick around.
. As soon as he took office, Bush rescinded all funding to fund birth control and education programs in the Third World if they had any truck with abortion, even if it was only counseling and even if the organizations used non-U.S. funding for it.
. Interestingly, this anti-choice presidency appears to have increased the number of abortions, perhaps because (1) people whose health care is taken away and who have no money might just change their mind about whether they can afford to have a baby around, and (2) Planned Parenthood was among the charities that lost funding when they wouldn't support the "Mexico City policy" of the last point, so a lot of people couldn't get contraceptives.
. It is fundamentally stupid to think that people are going to refrain from having procreative sex. It's very nice to most people. We're selected to be sex-loving primates. People are going to fuck. And the Bush administration wants them to gestate and/or die for it. (Hmm, I guess this one is opinion. Oh well. It stays.)
Bush is crazy. He thinks he's on a mission from God, and he is not interested in mere facts. (This is the one that scares me most.)
. A superior essay from TNH, who is brilliant.
. Warblogging.com's article on "The Reality-Based Community".
Also note that non-Bush Republicans are being scary as hell too.
. "Extraordinary rendition" means sending folks to other countries to be tortured, which is A-OK because we didn't do it ourselves!
(I am leaving out all the parts I simply disagree with, like corporate welfare and tax breaks for the rich instead of welfare for people who need it, screwing up the environment in the pursuit of dollars, fighting gay marriage, regressive taxation, and whatnot. This is just the really freaky stuff that I think anyone I know would object to.)
Finally, look at the people the President brings with him. Cheney, who lies (or does he just have faith that reality doesn't matter?) about Iraq constantly. Ashcroft, who is actively trying to gain absolute power to detain and spy on American citizens at will. (And look at what's happening to those citizens. It's not just being hassled for no good reason. Jose Padilla has been held without trial in a military prison for ALMOST THREE YEARS. He may be guilty, but we don't know, and this is not how America should be run.)
Kerry isn't my perfect candidate either, but he is not a complete madman, and it's worth it for me to vote for the guy who will at least pretend to care that the U.S.A. was founded as a republic. I need Kerry to win.
(Nader is better in many ways, but I would still vote for Kerry for the same reason I voted for Gore: he is committed to keeping abortion safe and legal. Nader wants to leave it up to each state, and that's not good enough for me; the places women are poor and more likely to die from bad procedures (since rich women can always find someone to do it) are the places that are most likely to outlaw them. It's definitely enough to tip the cost-benefit toward the feasible candidate.)
Molly Ivins on the delusions of Bush supporters.
Bonnie Azab Powell relates a very disturbing interview with investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
Warblogging's latest summary of the scary, scary train wreck that is our administration right now.
Bush Relatives for Kerry have some very good points, especially Jeanny House, who points out that Christians are meant to minister to the poor.
The Bush administration is untrustworthy.
I think I cover this in the other sections, but it's one of the parts that worries me most. There's all of this mind-bogglingly horrible stuff that we do know about.
The "War on Terrorism" is completely fucked up.
. Thousands (I saw 40% but can't find it now) of U.S. troops in Iraq are reserves, meant to defend our country as a last resort.
. The Daily Kos has statistics telling us just how many American casualties there have been at various parts of the Iraq action. (And then there's the godawful number of dead Iraqis.)
. Check out
ginmar if you don't read her already.. "Both Donald Rumsfeld and Bush have publicly acknowledged there is no evidence of any links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda." (Ivins) And they knew that, which is why there are tales of nonexistent weaponry.
. "Just two weeks ago, Pat Robertson revealed that Bush told him 'we’re not going to have any casualties' in Iraq..." (See also "Bush is crazy.")
. 'He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts,' Hersh said quietly. 'He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, 'No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents. Don't you read those stories when the Americans say we had a combat maneuver and 15 insurgents were killed?' (Powell)
The Bush administration is against all reproductive rights.
. Yes, abortion is included in that. I hope never to need one, but I can't know, and everyone has to decide for herself. Bush has said that he is against legal abortion. Frankly, I think we need to legislate abortion rights, but I don't see that happening, so Roe needs to stick around.
. As soon as he took office, Bush rescinded all funding to fund birth control and education programs in the Third World if they had any truck with abortion, even if it was only counseling and even if the organizations used non-U.S. funding for it.
. Interestingly, this anti-choice presidency appears to have increased the number of abortions, perhaps because (1) people whose health care is taken away and who have no money might just change their mind about whether they can afford to have a baby around, and (2) Planned Parenthood was among the charities that lost funding when they wouldn't support the "Mexico City policy" of the last point, so a lot of people couldn't get contraceptives.
. It is fundamentally stupid to think that people are going to refrain from having procreative sex. It's very nice to most people. We're selected to be sex-loving primates. People are going to fuck. And the Bush administration wants them to gestate and/or die for it. (Hmm, I guess this one is opinion. Oh well. It stays.)
Bush is crazy. He thinks he's on a mission from God, and he is not interested in mere facts. (This is the one that scares me most.)
. A superior essay from TNH, who is brilliant.
. Warblogging.com's article on "The Reality-Based Community".
Also note that non-Bush Republicans are being scary as hell too.
. "Extraordinary rendition" means sending folks to other countries to be tortured, which is A-OK because we didn't do it ourselves!
(I am leaving out all the parts I simply disagree with, like corporate welfare and tax breaks for the rich instead of welfare for people who need it, screwing up the environment in the pursuit of dollars, fighting gay marriage, regressive taxation, and whatnot. This is just the really freaky stuff that I think anyone I know would object to.)
Finally, look at the people the President brings with him. Cheney, who lies (or does he just have faith that reality doesn't matter?) about Iraq constantly. Ashcroft, who is actively trying to gain absolute power to detain and spy on American citizens at will. (And look at what's happening to those citizens. It's not just being hassled for no good reason. Jose Padilla has been held without trial in a military prison for ALMOST THREE YEARS. He may be guilty, but we don't know, and this is not how America should be run.)
Kerry isn't my perfect candidate either, but he is not a complete madman, and it's worth it for me to vote for the guy who will at least pretend to care that the U.S.A. was founded as a republic. I need Kerry to win.
(Nader is better in many ways, but I would still vote for Kerry for the same reason I voted for Gore: he is committed to keeping abortion safe and legal. Nader wants to leave it up to each state, and that's not good enough for me; the places women are poor and more likely to die from bad procedures (since rich women can always find someone to do it) are the places that are most likely to outlaw them. It's definitely enough to tip the cost-benefit toward the feasible candidate.)
