"A Couple of Confessions"
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WHEN IN DOUBT--CRY TERROR! 10 October 2005 Isn't it interesting that we have "credible terrorist threats" whenever GW's popularity is waning? Karl Rove is called back to testify, George's popularity is in the tank, the numbers of American kids killed in Iraq is rising, inactivity during hurricane Kristina was a huge black mark against Bush and his cronies, DeLay and Frist have their own problems. Even conservatives are against his supreme court nominee. Gas prices are soaring. There are cracks in the armor all over the administration, and suddenly we have a major terrorist alert in New York. This gives Bush an opportunity to go before the cameras and say "Al Qaeda" fifty bazillion times, with that steely-eyed smirk and lets us all know that yeah, there is corruption running rampant in the higher eschalons, but he's there taking care of us and keeping the terrorists out from under our beds. Excuse me for being skeptical. The problem with this is that it happens so consistently that the man in the White House has become the boy who cried wolf. The "terror alert" gets raised and lowered so often, with no visible real terror that we have become blasé about it. Of course, the natural retort is that we can't see the terrorists hiding in the bushes (or is that Bushes?) but--trust him. They are there and he's too busy fighting terror, staying the course, and prevailing to actually pay attention to the corruption under his own nose. We don't see terrorist activity because they are so good at stopping it. Well, I hope that's true. I hope that they are actually good at something, but I have this terrible feeling that what they are good at is diverting attention from the real problems in the administration and keeping Americans so unbalanced that we are too busy looking for suspicious looking foreigners in Peoria that we aren't really looking at anything else. What has this administration done to this country and to its standing in the world? An article by Joan Chittister is really chilling and gives a very sad view of how the rest of the world sees us. Comments from... Turkish women: "You cannot bring in war for the sake of peace. The United States cannot interfere in the democracy problem and solve it through war." Saudi women: They told her that they were happy, thank you, and that they didn't need America to make their lives complete and that, frankly, they would be a lot happier if she just went home. Comments from a Peace Conference Chittister attended: The Korean said that their president, who had run on a platform that promised independence from U.S. control, announced shortly after his election that his government had been extorted into being part of "the coalition of the willing" for fear that U.S. boycotts and tariffs would destroy the Korean economy. The Taiwanese said that if it weren't for the Western model of security through force and the increasing intervention of Western arms traders Taiwan and China could develop peaceful relations. The Indian said that it was U.S. capitalism that was destroying India: its economy, its value system, its culture. An imam from Sudan said, "It was such a sad moment. Such a
wasted opportunity. After 9/11, the United States could have said, 'We will not destroy
others as they have destroyed. We will seek to understand why this happened so that it can
never happen to anyone again.' " I have never been more discouraged about our country -- where it is now, the direction in which it is headed, our standing in the world, and the credibility of the leadership. I have never before reached a point where I believe nothing that the administration says. I can't even watch news conferences because all I see is insincerity and spin, smirk, and coverup. Oh for a good old sex scandal and the days when people were only laughing at us, and not hating us.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
Peacock butt
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Created 8/15/05
