Nothing in the past few decades has eroded America's credibility, its standing in the world, its capacity to go to war, like the war in Iraq. We expended billions upon billions of dollars and thousands of human lives in pursuit of showing off how tough we were, and the result was a disaster.
In the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, candidates Representatives Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, then-Senator Barack Obama (Now President of the United States), Senators Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Mike Gravel were some of the most outspoken critics of the Iraq War. Other than the Pauls, who are right about this like a stopped clock (and wrong about pretty much everything else), and are
libertarians, not Republicans, has any Republican ever expressed regret for support Bush and Cheney's illegal war of aggression? That slimy little weasel Lindsey Graham and John "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iraq" McCain (or is that John "stupid enough to pick Sara Freakin' Palin as his running mate" McCain) are saying Putin's doing his thing because "Obama's too soft" on ... something. Foreign policy, maybe? Whatever, as long as the certifiably insane GOP/Teabagger party isn't to blame. For a situation that we have no control over...
Keeping Republicans out of the White House, permanently, really does matter.
But frankly, their "base" is so bug-fuck nuts, now, that anyone who could win a TeabaggerOP primary couldn't win a general election, so we got that going for us, which is nice.
I think about McCain/Palin finishing their second term, and Palin being in line to be the next POTUS and my mind wobbles...
Below the fold if you're interested in the rest of my rant...
The U.S. government has acknowledged that it swept up huge volumes of data from emails in the U.S. for several years without any court approval, based solely on the orders of former President George W. Bush.
Reagan, then Bush the lesser, changed this country. For the worse.
And I don't see anyone, anywhere, doing anything positive to change it back.
Some Democrats, maybe, no Republicans, DEFINITELY not teabaggers. No citizen indicates by the way they vote that they want this, the brainwashing is complete:
The Second Bill of Rights was a list of rights proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.[1] In his address Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt's argument was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:
Employment, with a living wage
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
Housing
Medical care
Education
Social security
Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America's place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice. Later in the 1970s, Czech jurist Karel Vasak would categorize these as the "second generation" rights in his theory of three generations of human rights.
We're frogs, being boiled slowly. Our kids will think rising sea levels are normal, because they won't remember when we didn't put so much carbon into the atmosphere. They'll just know the "only" way to get to the 7-11 to buy a chili dog is to drive there, so "what are we gonna do?".
Same with us. We don't remember the conditions that led our ancestors to fight against the free market, and 80 hour work weeks for kids under 14 years of age, and all the shit the previous "job creator" heroes the T/GOP hold out as heroes will dole out to us if we gut the unions and give them their Koch-astroturfed "free market". So far too many of us vote against our own interests, for Koch backed candidates, for vicious Darwinian capitalists, tax breaks for millionaires.
God, tonight I just feel like my generation is so complacent and stupid...
I"Democracy" can't be the best form of government because "the people" are too stupid to govern themselves. I think this is what my 11th grade civics teacher meant when he said "the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship".
Here's a gratuitous picture of a traffic jam in Dubai, where they have a benevolent dictatorship:
But, we don't have a benevolent dictatorship in the USA, the most war-like nation at least since the Romans, maybe in the history of the world. We have a democracy, which requires us to participate. And...
We don't, because "our" candidates aren't perfect...
So we DON'T got that going for us, which is decidedly NOT nice.
How do you feel about your "democracy" this morning, when you're stuck in traffic and worried about losing your job, your employer already looking for the next round of sacrificial lambs, because demand isn't there, sitting there in your shitty Ford Fiesta?
PS-the frog boiling thing will apply to being spied on will apply in 20 or 30 years, because my/our generation is so worthless. C'est la vie is our motto. Such is life. The new normal is frightening, and IT'S ALL OUR FAULT because we're willing to settle for cheap gas and Big Macs.