West Coast Terrorist Threat Level: Green
I took this photo in 2003 on Market Street at the San Francisco anti-war protests. Protest is always at its best when served with a dollop of humor, and there was plenty of humor (see below), but as always at these events, it was offset by the parade of po-faced speakers. At the end of the day, this guy was getting the most attention and the best laughs.
Detailing my feelings about the last four years would take way more time and energy than I have right now, and anyhow, I vowed when I started the blog, I wasn't going to get bogged down in politics. In short, I wasn't a citizen when George Bush was first elected, but if I had been I would never have voted for him. Even though his politics are not mine, I never thought we would see the mind blowing levels of arrogance, intransigence and incompetence that his administration has achieved. This is beyond politics. For the record, I am a socially very liberal, but am fiscally centrist even mildly conservative. I'm as green as they come, but I don't think you can force people into environmentally sound behavior, you have to give them options, and making their lives less comfortable or impoverishing them in the process, will never work. I don't really trust the government with my money, but I think government is important as long as it is balanced by a free market, (the opposite also applies.) Somethings are so big that only government can tackle them. The Readers Digest version: I am all over the shop politically.
Regardless of my politics, I have always opposed the Iraq war, and I think I accidentally called it four years ago, when in an argument with a friend, I said this would turn into Northern Ireland on steroids. I was, and still am, a big supporter of the war in Afghanistan.
I still think the US is a great country, both in its incredible physical beauty and its aspirations. It has many faults, but in my experience, few places match it. It depresses me, though, how much this administration has sullied its reputation, and I suspect it will take a long time to repair the damage - it seems we really did misunderestimate Bush.
Labels: Canon 30D, Photography
posted by John Mc at 6:54 PM
9 Comments:
Great post John. I'm like you when it comes to politics, but I could not have described it that eloquently. At any one time, I agree with bits of certain parties' policies. Which makes me seem very indecisive when it comes to supporting any of them.
Stupid pinko commie Liberals...or something seems to be the casual name cast on anyone who opposes the war in Iraq. It was/is a disaster, removing a vile but stabilizing force and allowing the whole country to implode into sectarian bloodshed.
I love 'merica too, I love the music, the programmes, the all round sheer variety of it all. But I don't think it is a bad thing to say Bush got this very wrong.
In some quarters, which shall remain nameless except for I'll call it The South for convenience sake, they are still calling theDixie Chicks traitors and any dissent, any expression of even mild displeasure with the President's record will see you branded unpatriotic. This despite the cact that America was founded upon the right to dissent, even the duty at times to dissent.
Abraham Lincoln picked 4 rivals for his cabinet - people with whom he disagreed and had beaten - in ofen acrimonious campaigning - to the presidency. Plenty of room for awkwardness and conflict there then, but he was a great leader who knew that a great leader must be informed of all the arguments, all the viewpoints and slants and nuances - all these things Bush can barely spell. That philosphy of debate is anathema to him - he just wants a cabal or a bubble of fellow-believers like himself - he has the righteous zeal of a man who has dumped dink for the Lord and has very little brain matter. He is not a bad, evil man in himself, I don't think, but he is a dangerous, dangerous man on the world stage and, in the end, it is the evil that men do, not what they think that causes the harm and blackens their legacy.
This is an eloquently and economically expressed post, John. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Cheers!
Love the pic, John. I am the same politically - a floater. The old loyalty for life to a party like our parents and grandparents had seems to be disappearing rapidly in Ireland?
GB (funny that he shares his initials with the Old Enemy!) is indeed a dangerous man. Sam is right, it's the fact that he will not allow dissent that makes him so dangerous. A bit like our own, fair Bertie if he had a bigger stage?
Great post on a topic I've been itching to do for a while myself.
The day after I was sworn in as a US citizen in 2004 I marched into the post office and registered to vote.In fact one the biggest factors in my becoming a citizen was to be able to vote against the Bush cabal in that election.
It was also a show of support for a country that I truly,deeply love.You see I happen to believe in the idea of America and NOT Bush's vision of "Fortress Amerika".His abuse of power is nothing short of obscene.It is also frightening in it's scope and in the latitude it affords all the closet fascists who crawled out of the woodwork after 9/11.
Living in the same city as that mad wee bollocks has got to be a carcinogen.
This latest episode with the firings of the US attorneys is ,in and of itself ,sheer lunacy that would have had any other president on the carpet for a proper bollocking.With Dubya it's just background noise and the latest in a string of abuses.
Essentially he has told Congress (by extension the electorate) to go and fuck off.Several times.
Gah..I could go on for days.History will not be kind to that man.Rightly so.It's also interesting to see echoes of his arrogance appear in other western leaders.Yeah! Bertie..I'm talking to you.
I mean consider how both the U.S. and R.O.I. came into being.Dissent IS patriotic.
Dubya...Worst.President.Ever!
Kav, FMC, Sam, Mairead, Dev
Apologies for not replying to your comments, work and social stuff have taken precedence recently.
Kav - I suspect most people are like that. I have quite a few friends of the republican / conservative persuasion and they are all over the shop within their own political box. Most are reasonable people who are utterly disappointed by the current administration.
FMC - My love affair with the US started over two things, watching sat night westerns with my Dad on RTE, and his old Elvis records. Small sudden epiphany - my Dad is responsible for me being here!
Sam - Abe Lincoln displayed the one quality that GW utterly lacks, the ability to change course when things weren't working. His path to anti-slavery was a process. He started out against slavery but believed African-Americans were second class. That changed. He showed the ability to LEARN! That said he did suspend Habeas Corpus, which is effectively what GW has done in Guantanamo.
Mairead - I gotta dig more into the anti Bertie thing. I realise that although FF seem to have stewarded the economy well, that they have not availed of the full coffers to fix health care etc, but the level of opprobrium towards Bertie is something I don't quite understand because I have been out of Ireland for so long.
Dev - Yup worse President ever, well maybe not worse than Harding, but close. At least Nixon had rapprochement with China in his favor. Like you, I love this place, and it still rankles that GW failed to rally the great wave of good will towards the US after 9/11, or ask Americans to sacrifice a little when they would have done anything. Bill Maher is so right on this point. He is also right when he says that Americans have had a little 8 year experiment in "straight talking" and "honesty", going forward they will realise that it's smarts the really want in their Chief of Staff. The next President, whomever he or she will be will be able to get as much head as they want in they oval office without being impeached, as long as they are smart.
Wanted to comment but you've got 'em turned off on your most recent post. Intentional?
Kav - no accidental. Thanks, they are turned back on.
Yeah. People misunderestimated him a lot. And Wolfowitz. And Perle. And Cheney. And Halliburton. And all the other guys with their hand through the hole in his back moving his mouth.
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