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.