Future perspectives . . .

THE CRASH AND BURN of the GOP in the US election can be seen as the consequence of the neo-con Dubya regime, which leads me to wonder if future historians will see Dubya as the Mr. Bean of the GOP: the Man Who Made It All Fall Apart.

Seriously, post-WW2 American conservatives had the whole world, in spite of Uncle Joe's best efforts. Uncle Joe had incredible advantages, the unbelievably pervasive espionage penetration of every important area of America being foremost.

No foolin', even though Uncle Joe had Dirty Harry, aka Harry Dexter White, on the inside, at the Oval Office level, it it still went all pear-shaped in the end.

Benn Steil has a fascinating article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "Red White: Why a Founding Father of Postwar Capitalism Spied for the Soviets" which you should ponder.

In July 1944, in the midst of World War II, representatives of 44 nations gathered in this remote New Hampshire town to create something that had never before existed: a global monetary system to be managed by an international body. The gold standard of the late nineteenth century, the organically formed foundation of the first great economic globalization, had collapsed during the previous world war. Efforts to revive it in the 1920s proved catastrophically unsuccessful. Economies and trade collapsed; cross-border tensions soared. In the 1930s, internationalists in the U.S. Treasury Department saw a powerful cause and effect and were determined to resolve the flaws in the international economic system once and for all. In the words of Harry Dexter White, a then little-known Treasury official who became the unlikely architect of the Bretton Woods system, it was time to build a "New Deal for a new world."

Harry even helped Uncle with a set of printing plates for the Occupation currency, which was paid for, ultimately, by the US taxpayer. The Allies put into circulation a total of about 10.5 billion Allied marks between September 1944 and July 1945; the Soviets likely issued more than 78 billion.

But capitalism prevailed because of capitalist innovations like the transistor and computers and fax machines and mutated into the Wall Street System we had when Dubya came along. And now, things are changing . . .

George W. Bush looks into the sole of Iraq

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28223089#28223089

"This is your farewell kiss, you dog!" shouted Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned Cairo-based TV station. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those were killed in Iraq."

Many will decry this lack of respect for the office of the presidency or the lack of professionalism on the part of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at the man who invaded and destroyed a country for no good reason except that he could. Those people are wrong. Bush has already so defiled the office the presidency that it can't really sink much lower and sometimes even the most professional and objective observer must put their humanity ahead of their professional ethics. I'm sure al-Zeidi is now a national hero in Iraq and I'm almost equally sure he won't see the light of day or his family anytime soon.

Frankly, I think Bush is lucky it wasn't a grenade, or at least a bottle or brick. To be honest I'd like to see Bush pelted with shoes everywhere he goes for the next decade. I'd like to see about 4,200 pair of empty combat boots dumped on the White House lawn. I think people from around the world should mail him their oldest, smelliest, most dogshit-encrusted sneakers both en masse and for the rest of his miserable life so that he never, ever forgets.

Crossposted as usual from the Woodshed.

Did you know?

DID YOU KNOW THAT

in private,

George Bush (aka XLIII)

uses Arabic numerals?

Thanks to my friend, we all do, now.

Pass it on.

Georgie get your gun

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."
"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

Thanks to all cocaine he did in his younger days, Dubya is blissfully unaware of his personal wartime service, bravely flying fighter jets over the Gulf of Mexico to protect Texas from the Viet Cong, at least when he wasn't too hungover to fly and could be bothered showing up.
And thank God he isn't a reader or consumer of popular culture over the last fifty years or he might have learned from books like Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, Catch-22 or movies such as Apocalypse Now, Paths of Glory or Platoon that war is not romantic or glorious.

Luckily, Dubya hasn't talked to his own father or any other veteran about the difference between romance and stark terror, between glory and slaughter. Maybe his daddy could tell him about the romance of crashing your fighter plane into the ocean, or maybe John McCain could talk about the glorious times he had in the Hanoi Hilton. And those were fighter pilots, not the guys on the front lines where things explode and shoot back while you are struggling along in the rain and the mud and heat and cold on crappy food and sleeping in shifts in a hole in the ground and shitting in ziploc bags, if you're lucky.

Lucky, because if George and other morons in charge didn't think war and battle was romantic, glorious and the highest pursuit of manly men, we might have fewer wars. Whatever would the military-industrial complex do? How could governments justify spending billions on bullets and bombs and aircraft carriers and nuclear-tipped cruisemissiles while their people went without medical care and schools or in some cases even adequate food? Where would we be if it weren't for pointless conflict and needless bloodshed?

What would we do? Talk to each other? Settle disputes amicably in the United Nations? Share resources? Compromise? Perish the thought!

I'll grant him that being on the front line in a war is probably exciting. I'm lucky enough never to have had the experience, but I'd bet there is nothing like having people shooting at you and IEDs and car bombs going off to really get the heart rate up and the adrenaline flowing. Some people get so excited, they have a hard time calming down, even years later.

I'm sure just about any of the men and women on the front lines in Afghanistan and Greater Clusterfucktopia Iraq would be delighted to switch places with you. In fairness, I suppose we should point out that Bush said what he said about going to Afghanistan, proving that while he's stupid, even he isn't crazy enough to think there is anything good about going to the meatgrinder on the Tigris.

Sadly, No sums it up. If you have a strong stomach, Canadian Cynic has a romantic, exciting photo of the results of George's boundless appetite for adventure, but be warned, its pretty damned romantic -- lets just say that one soldier who won't be holding hands with his sweetheart anytime soon. I bet he'd have loved it if GI George had traded places with him a while back.

And people in the United States voted this crapulous dimwit into office repeatedly?


Crossposted from newly redesigned Woodshed

George Bush proves the nonexistance of God

Because if there was a God, he/she/it/they would be chucking the thunderbolts, raining down fire and brimstone and unleashing a plague of locusts on George W. Bush's pasty hypocritical ass right now in a way that would make the Old Testament God look like a flat-out pussy and his treatment of Job on par with inflicting a minor hangover

Emphasis and links all mine:

Bush warns world must rally to confront danger of Iran

The Associated Press
By ANNE GEARAN – January 13, 2008

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late."

Bush said Iran funds terrorist extremists, undermines stability in Lebanon, sends arms to the hardline Taliban regime (coughbullshitcough) intimidates its neighbors with alarming rhetoric and defies the United Nations by refusing to be open about its nuclear program.

"Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror," Bush said in a speech about democracy that he delivered about midway through his eight-day Mideast trip, which began with a renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact — an accord he said whose "time has come."

Chiding U.S. allies who have withheld civil liberties, Bush said governments will never build trust by harassing or imprisoning candidates and protesters. But his rebuke was general, and he did not single out any U.S. partner in the region for oppressive practices.

"You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government," Bush said. "And you cannot stand up a modern, confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms."

Bush's speech, reprising the call for democracy in the Middle East that he made in his second inaugural address, was delivered in one of the few countries in the region — the Emirates — where democracy has not been a vital issue. In other countries in the region, especially Egypt, the fight between democracy activists and autocratic governments has been much more pointed and controversial.

The president lauded some democratic reforms among Arab nations. He urged the Arab leaders to show support for the fragile Iraqi government, open their societies and provide backing, and possible funding, to help make an Israeli-Palestinian agreement stick.

(snip)

Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace, at an opulent, gold-trimmed hotel where a suite goes for $2,450 a night. Built at a cost of $3 billion, the hotel is a kilometer long from end to end and has a 1.3 kilometer white sand beach — every grain of it imported from Algeria, according to Steven Pike, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy here.

Half the audience was dressed in western attire and the other half in Arabic clothes — white robes and headdresses for men and black abayas, many with jeweled edges, for women.

In renewing his "Freedom Agenda" — Bush's grand ambition to seed democracy around the globe — the president declared: "We know from experience that democracy is the only system of government that yields lasting peace and stability."

Yet he was speaking about democracy in a deeply undemocratic country, the Emirates, where an elite of royal rulers makes virtually all the decisions. Large numbers of foreign resident workers have few legal or human rights, including no right to citizenship and no right to protest working conditions.

Some human rights groups have accused the Emirates of tolerating virtual indentured servitude, where workers from poor countries like Sri Lanka are forced to work to pay off debts to employers, and have their passports seized so they can't leave.

Shortly after landing during a steady rain on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Bush met at a ceremonial palace with Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who was appointed president of the United Arab Emirates in 2004 following the death of his father, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan. The UAE president presented Bush with a ceremonial sash that looked like a thick golden necklace about two feet long. A portrait of the late president hung on the wall behind them.

After the speech, Bush ventured to a sprawling horse farm for a traditional desert dinner, outside of a tent set up in the sand. Large carpets with colorful red and white pillows were set up for the meal.

Before eating, Bush was shown several prized falcons, and even took a turn holding one. When the bird moved suddenly, Bush jumped back a bit, but quickly recovered. "You're making him nervous," Bush told the assembled media. "He never had a press conference before."

An earlier version of the same story quoted Bush as saying: "This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed."

Where is your mighty vengence now, oh great omnipotent, omniscient sky-wizard?

cross-posted from the Woodshed