Saturday, January 10, 2009

Good Riddance ~A Scathing Goodbye to Bush


Masters of War ~ Bob Dylan

This song sums up the Bush regime- it is a de-sensationalizing of war. Our manipulated, sanitized view of the illegal occupation of Iraq, has been yet another lie. Early on, the press was embedded with US troops. More journalists have died in this war than any other. Iraq had become too dangerous for independent journalists to cover. We don't even have real numbers of the actual death toll, just overall reports from the morgues, and medical records. The US government
They made it seem innocent- journalists could travel with the troops, and get military protection, while covering the "illegal occupation". I don't like calling it a war- war implies opposing entitles are actively fighting for or about something. By agreeing to the arrangement, the press was also subjected to having all materials- including film footage & what was reported, screened and edited, or banned from the public. Manipulation could pretty much describe the entire Bush presidency.

Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. Backing up to the beginning of the Bush administration, began with that lying & manipulation, right from it's inception, the 2000 election. Florida. Hanging chads. Disenfranchised voters, democratic stronghold voting blocks were purged from registered voters lists. The election came down to the State George's brother Jeb just happened to be Governing. No need to count the votes, the Supreme court decided the election.
Bush became the Commander in Thief.

It did not take long to figure out "W" is a bumbling idiot, and a puppet on the strings run by the evil masterminds - Cheney, Ashcroft, Rove & Rumsfeld.

Yes, after the Clinton sex scandal, George stood before us promising to *restore integrity to the white house".
Apparently, the habit of talking opposites began early on.


Indeed, I remember one Donald Rumsfeld standing at a podium making a press conference speech talking about the "precision bombing" and the sanitized war. He would have us believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq was a clean choreographed visit. A slam dunk, easy win. The US greeted as liberators. But you could not watch film footage of the shock & awe bombing, and figure out for yourself whole areas were being obliterated, and anything in it's path would suffer damage as well. In summation, it seemed the whole Bush presidency was based on this kind of mode of operating I refer to as "believe what we say, not what you see."  The Bush legacy is death and destruction.













The whole thing began to unravel ~ the Downing Street memo that was proof positive that the Iraq invasion was planned before 9-11 ever happened. The first thing they did in the Iraq invasion, was to secure the oil fields. Then there was the revealing of the horrid conditions of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison. Rumsfeld gave a press conference stating he was "sorry the photos got out".  Not sorry for the torture & abuse, sorry we learned that it was happening. Then tried to blame it on "a few bad apples", when all along the permission & orders were coming from the top. We were told some photos were too disturbing and graphic to release to the public. They would put the troops in danger, if released.
There were mushroom cloud threats, color coded terrorism fear charts, Mission Accomplished, Stay the Course, not looking for Osama bin Laden, sweet hand holding relationships with Saudi oil tycoons, and just when it seemed things could not get worse-- Katrina. The nightmare scene where a hurricane flood surge took out the inferior levees, massively and catastrophically flooding below sea level New Orleans. Impotent unqualified Bush was asleep at the wheel, but had his totally unqualified pal Brownie running the FEMA emergency response. Bush accomplished making a disaster a double disaster, with deadly ignorance. Years later, parts of New Orleans, still remain in ruin. To this day, for some, relief never arrived.

Worse, the usual assistance in these types of situations would be to bring in the National Guard, and their equipment. The Guard & the bulk of their equipment had already been shipped off to Iraq. Cheaper labor than the Army.
They did call in the Oregon National Guard, but the Federal Government repaid them by... not paying them. Katrina happened in 2005, Two years later, after major issues, the Federal government finally had FEMA grant the State of Louisiana for the $2.7 million dollars owed the ONG.
Somewhere in the midst of the Bush administration, a fellow activist coined the phrase "fuck up fatigue".
Yes, there were so many atrocities, coming at us so rapidly, most of us could not keep up.


Before we knew it, our government had set up a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A special prison neither here in the US or there in Iraq, where they considered themselves to be under no laws, to hold prisoners, use torture and abuse tactics that are in violation of our own and international laws, and the rules of war prisoner treatment- the Geneva Conventions. In fact the Bush regime declared the Geneva conventions to be open to their own interpretation, and declared the occupation to not be a war, therefore the prisoners were detainees.  The Bush administration had so much spin going on, they made themselves dizzy.  Waterboarding, forced feeding, extreme interrogation tactics= handcuffed in stress position, freezing temps, blaring loud music, abuse of religious books, were all acceptable to the Bush regime. If ever Impeachement were in order, Bush was most deserving, but speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi declared impeachment "off the table", her obstruction of justice, and lame congress allowed the lawless atrocities, to continue.

The presidency continued in a downward spiral. Rats began jumping ship. Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Rove, Gonzales- so many names, I can't remember them all. All along Bush was throwing out made up words, and distorting the english language.
Misunderestimate. Put food on your family. Dubbed himself to be "the Decider". While his toady Dick Cheney declared himself immune to laws and regulations, refused to give documents, declaring himself to be not a part of the executive branch of the government.

The only happy part of this story is that reality- their exit is about to come true.
Their murderous, lying regime finally comes to an end. It should never have lasted this long. If law, order and justice, and the check and balance system were functional, these criminals would have long since been prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. I still hope that they have their day in court, and serve time incarcerated for their crimes. George W. Bush did not serve the people of this country, he served big oil and corporations. He ignored the needs of the people while giving all money and attention to the military industrial complex, big oil, and big money. He leaves with our country bankrupt both morally, and financially. Bush leaves this country in ruins, a smoldering heap of the shining place it once was. Ours is now a nation in distress, which is why I display the US flag, upside down.






Rather than the "peaceful exchange of power", it feels more like we are putting out the trash.






















I am in favor of the One Boot Salute-- as seen in this photo above.


In closing, there is another group with a different salute in mind:

The Finger Salute to Bush movement.


* About the graphics: I had been saving what would be good items for a good riddance post re Bush-- and amassed quite the collection. Kudos to the artists for their wonderful creations & imaginations. I join you in bidding good riddance to The Worst President Ever.

15 comments:

Christopher said...

May his plane crash on its way to Dallas, TX.

It would be a fitting final chapter to the book, George Bush: Worst President Ever.

Oh well. A man can dream.

Dr. Know said...

Give 'em hell, kiddo.

Did you forget about the "free speech zones" and ... the list is so long I can't keep up.

I drove to Austin in '98 to chastise the little turd, and lived in FL during the 2000 election. I left GA in the 90s to get away from the Rove/Bush/Gingrich GOP asshats, but they moved Jeb into FL shortly after my arrival there.

The lot of them are a curse upon society. Yet they still have a large block of 60 IQ advocates here.

Ugh.

Fran said...

Christopher~ The thought of the shrub leaving the country trashed & heading off to his new mansion is disgusting.

Dr. Know! I DID forget to mention the free speech cages, and the preemtive RNC arrests and head bashing & the Shrub or Cheney not making an appearance at the RNC! I must be suffering from fuck up fatigue.... so many atrocities, just can't keep up.
Ugh!!! is right! Just get them out of office already.

Christopher said...

Now Bush has requested the city of Dallas gate Daria Lane.

Can you believe it? The fucker.

Fran said...

Christopher- He wants a gate? Better yet a full on prison.

enigma4ever said...

Well, fran when he goes to prison - it will have LOCKED gates..does that count????

omg...

what a shithead..

anways this post is a thing of beauty....I linked to it on the sunday legacy post...( you will appreciate)...I think you hit ALL the highlights just right..I think the taking out the trash analogy is perfect....

sigh....

Fran said...

Enigma~ I bet most taxpayers would gladly approve the kind of gates we are talking about." Slammer Estates", a gated community for Executive branch criminals.

The video kind of touches on some of the worst of it... using depleted uranium and the long term effects, birth defects, and lasting contamination, that our troops were also exposed to.

We set out looking for the evil entity that has weapons of mass destruction, and we needed to only look in our own back yard!!!

As for putting this evil man behind bars, I do think it is something we need to do for ourselves and next generations. Bush makes Nixon look like a choirboy, and he was in a position of having to resign or be impeached.
They went forward with impeachment proceedings on Clinton for a semen stain on a dress.

Lets face it, the Watergate break in & sex scandal do not come remotely close to the crimes committed in this administration, essentially mass murder, based on lies.

We really need to prosecute these high level criminals, if only to establish some kind of basic standard.

Although Pelosi drew the line in the sand, with her impeachment not in the table directive, there are
435 member of the House, and 100 in the Senate-- so 535 people in Congress could not get it together to Impeach Bush? And they had a democratic majority since 2006. That is really lame, spineless and inexcusable.
Pelosi does not hold that much power. If the majority of the House insisted on IMpeachment proceedings, she would have had a hard time stopping it.

Somewhere along the line, the whole thing fell apart.

For me, prosecuting these war criminals is not a revenge thing, it is about integrity , and following the laws.

Fran said...

That "liberty & justice for all" part of the pledge of allegiance. Let's keep that real !

Carol Gee said...

Great post, Fran. What is so amazing is there is not one shred of exaggeration anywhere to be seen within your fierce words.
I hate it that OCP is about to become my neighbor just to the east in Dallas. Ugh. I loved reading your commenter who moved to get away from such people. Blog On!

D.K. Raed said...

This is an incredibly good post summarizing the outrageous atrocities! I think for me, from his first debates w/Gore where he yakked about a "humble foreign policy", my antennae went way up. We know he didn't win the first election, and are pretty sure he didn't win re-election either. See what happens when a "democracy" INSTALLS a president, rather than let the people vote. What's so hard about one person/one vote being counted?

I can't say Good Riddance to bad rubBUSH enough! Has he forever tainted the name so that we NEVER see Jeb or George P (or worse, either twin of stupidity) making serious noise about running for prez? I hope so!

ps, would love see see some BOOTS next week. Seeing Bush & Cheney pelted with steel-toed heavy work boots would free up some of the entertainment budget money.

Christopher said...

Fran,

Here's battery powered car you may have been waiting for.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aUMqD_U5PZkQ

Fran said...

Carol~ You have my sympathies~ would not want the Bush clan living near me. With any luck he will have his day in court, and your neighborhood can throw a party!

DK~ Right! There is another thing Bush talked about *fuzzy math*. Good gawd! We had no idea his math would make fuzzy math a vast improvement.
Humble foreign policy- raving madman. The name of bush is like the plague. Don't even think about it Jeb.

Fran said...

Christopher- thanks for the heads up on the electric car. Electric makes sense because people can charge them overnight @ home, add solar collectors, could be the way to go. The more we get off foreign oil, the lower that price will go as well.
We looked at the pic, it reminded us of the Smart car... the tiny car you can park sideways in a regular parking spot. I realize they need to be lighter to be more efficient, but I want a safe vehicle too. Still Toyota seems to be the leader in the greening of autos, so good for them. Keep em' coming, Wake up US big 3 automakers. You'd think they realize big oil does not care about them... time to literally move in another direction.

Christopher said...

Fran,

I'm not sure if the current electric car technology is practical for folks with long commutes.

If you live in states like my homestate of California, or Texas, the Dakotas or Montana, and drive more than 30 miles to work and back, gas powered cars may still be the only option.

But, for short commutes, urban driving like in San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Chicago, this Toyota electric car rocks.

Did you see the Communist Chinese are about to market an electric SUV in the USA? It debuted at the Detroit auto show and will retail for $30,000 loaded.

Fran said...

I'm not sure about the mileage thing. Back when they made the Who killed the electric car movie, a mechanis said the batteries now can run 300 miles a day- which exceeds most peoples normal use. Why are we a few years later coming up with less miles???
The GM EV1 had a car that could go 100 miles per charge which met 90% of the population's need.

Are they supressing the batteries capabilities?
Before it was clear big il was wanting to keep it from becoming available but now big oil & the automakers seem to ahve parted their ways as oil snubs car makers in their time of need.

I still like the idea of cars w solar collectors so they can charge in part by the sun. The more they develop them, the better they will get.