It has taken awhile but several Bush administration policies are beginning to manifest themselves, intended or not, to various segments of American society and it now appears that those affected are reacting negatively. Indeed, a number of disparate stories lately has begun to catch our attention here at the BHC. These stories represent a small but detectable ground swell of resistance from various parts of the country to various federal policies, legislation and ill-considered directives.
Perhaps the most noticeable reaction to the White House War on Terror and its obvious and imprudent lack of planning has been the difficulty the military has been having meeting its recruiting goals and for months now the numbers have been well below targets. The Army has
missed recruiting goals for the fourth month in a row and was 42% off its target for April and down by some 25% in May. For the first time in 10 years the Marines missed their recruitment target in each of the last four months. The Army describes this as a "major concern." In fact, the situation is becoming such a problem that the Army has now
hired a private firm to help in the recruitment effort. The Army is also now
reporting a trend among its soldiers that also does not speak well of the military's deployment policy: the divorce rate of US army officers is now three times higher than it was in 2002.
Unbeknownst to many people when the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, that gargantuan bill contained a provision that mandates schools must allow military recruiter access to high school students. The military claims that they should have the same access to high schools as college and corporate recruiters but it seems that the Army is exercising some undue influence and getting school principals to bring them into the classrooms and, in some cases, recruiters are conducting classes. One high school student says that he was going to refuse to attend his gym class because it was going to run by an Army recruiter and the school had announced that attendance of this military gym day would be mandatory. Apparently, gym day with the military means that students will learn how to throw hand grenades.
Parents across the country are now rebelling against this NCLBA provision mostly because they just don't want their kids joining up and shipping out to fight a war that is clearly a huge and poorly planned debacle. The war in Iraq has lost its allure for what is now a majority of the country and the country is finally responding.
Elsewhere, people who no doubt voted for George Bush and were assuredly aware of his ties to the oil industry are discovering -- much to their chagrin -- that those ties are now affecting them personally. Groups as diverse as the NRA, ranchers, the Boy Scouts and environmentalists have banded together to resist White House drilling lease approvals in the Carson National Forest in New Mexico.
During the tenure of the Bush administration, the number of drilling permits granted in western public lands has nearly quadrupled. One of the most hotly disputed areas is a national forest area called the Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico and next to the world's largest Boy Scout camp. The drilling in this wilderness is becoming so pervasive, even a former Bush campaign manager is now heading up a group called Republicans for Environmental Protection, which has teamed up with hunters, campers, cattle ranchers, tree-huggers and the Boy Scouts to try and slow down development. Cattlemen are actually being put out of business or simply quitting because the network of roads, pipelines, refineries and barbed wire fences has severely stunted and fractured the open range. That and cattle are constantly being hit and killed by trucks and effluent from wells is poisoning livestock.
In other news, Women in Kansas and Indianna are now increasingly worried about State Attorney Generals plowing through medical records on fishing expeditions seeking evidence of late-term abortions. Though this is not the direct result of any White House policy, at least not that we know, it was something first begun by John Ashcroft when he was US Attorney General and the Kansas state government appears to have been emboldened by that maniac's abortion jihad.
Like a pot beginning to boil, bubbles of discontent with White House policy are clearly forming, and in many cases, this is occurring in states that strongly re-elected Bush last November. The country is increasingly populated by people who claim to "support the troops" but don't want their children to be among them; by voters who detest "enviro-demagogues" and watch wildlife and livestock killed by drilling activity on federal lands; by heartland Republicans opposed to abortion but watch privacy rights stripped away by moralistic witch hunts. These folks are now the ones who are living in a country they thought George Bush would make a safer and better place. And they are beginning to experience the grave error of this judgment.
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As always, please read the newest Bonehead Compendium.