To The Americans - Do You Like Bush?

[Azred]

I concur with my other fellow Americans who dislike having what amounts to only two choices. Two choices usually means "damned if you do; damned if you don't", and the lesser of two evils is still fairly evil....

I would love to remove the two-party system, but a multi-party system would be a culture shock to us. There are still people who avoid Starbucks because they have to make too many choices just to get a cup of coffee (this is also a recognized mental disorder, being unable to decide due to too many options, that is). [img]graemlins/erm.gif[/img] Where was I? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Bush wasn't necessarily my choice, but Kerry certainly wasn't. Unfortunately, what other choice did I have? *sigh*

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Blind_Prophet: Who said it was our job to solve the worlds problems?

The American economy, and relative value of the American dollar, is not determined by what happens in the USA. If you don't lift a finger to help a country in danger, and don't send a dollar to aid relief efforts, noone will want to trade with you. Every country in this world survives on trade. When a major part of any country's trade stops, their economy will begin to fail. If no country wants to trade with you, what I wonder will happen then?

[Chewbacca]

Curious how people complain there are only two choice when I voted for someone other than Bush or Kerry. We have other choices like the Greens, Libertarians (my choice), and others. These other choices simply need continuing support to grow and replace the two existing big parties.

Shop around and check out these other party platforms. Some are almost as extreme as parts of the current Republican Platform, others are more liberal than the Democrats ever hoped to be. Some are both and inbetween!

We do have other choices and only by making these other choices will the now 'little parties' grow.

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Curious how people complain there are only two choice when I voted for someone other than Bush or Kerry. We have other choices like the Greens, Libertarians (my choice), and others. These other choices simply need continuing support to grow and replace the two existing big parties. Shop around and check out these other party platforms. Some are almost as extreme as parts of the current Republican Platform, others are more liberal than the Democrats ever hoped to be. Some are both and inbetween! We do have other choices and only by making these other choices will the now 'little parties' grow.

Well yes, but...
The reason the 'little parties' aren't getting much suppport is because they're trying to make them from the top down, and that's not viable. What would be the point of having Nader (for instance) in office when he would get no support from the house or senate? If we are going to have more parties, we need to build them at the local and state levels first, so there would be some support base in the house and legislature for the president. If we're going to see any change it's going to have to start from the bottom and build up.
If the greens or libertarians were to put forth a candidate and be able to say "We have 30% of the senate, 25% of the house, and a viable candidate" they'd get a helluva lot more support.
Of course having an educated populace would help too, but the chances of that are ever dwindling.

[Lord]

Originally posted by Gangrell: Ok, I'm going to make this subtle and simple because since I'm against Bush, people for him are just going to pick apart what I say anyway. Six months before Bush was elected for the first time into office, someone that worked under him leaked information concerning maps mapping out every oil field in Iraq. He went to war because he said there were nuclear warheads somewhere in Iraq. Obviously that isn't the case, and frankly, as insane as Saddam was and the people that took his place, don't you all think they would've been used by now? So I believe that he used the weapons reason to get into Iraq for the oil. Yeah, we got Saddam, that's true, he even said it himself that he would finish what his father started. So, basicly it's a war of pride or oil. Guys, I don't mean to be rude, but please never say you think a president is sincere. Bush has never been sincere, no president dating back to Kennedy has been that way, and Kerry wouldn't have been either. It is mandatory that leaders lie to the people in their countries, because if every truth were told, it would cause mass havoc and chaos. Ok, he has firm beliefs by which he stands, it is admirable but it shouldn't be accounted for when it comes to his leadership abilities. His beliefs all stand on the podium of relegion and relegion has no place in government, it has no effect on it and makes no difference in it. All it does or ever has done is cause holy wars. Another is a recent decision of his concerning british scientists. It's obvious to everyone by now the world is drastically changing due to the greenhouse effect. Tornadoes in December, more thunderstorms than I've seen in the past 5 years during summer, snowstorms issuing more ice and sleet than I've seen in 7 years plowing across the country, five hurricanes bombarding Florida, and so forth. British scientists have found a way to reduce greenhouse gas, they've found a system for it. Germany, Russia, China, the UK, all are in on it, but Bush said no. Now that may not seem bad, but the states still supply 1/3 of the greenhouse gas in the world, and he turned it down because he said it may hurt the economy. As horribly ironic as that is, the economy has long since been in the crapper. Before he was in office, the dollar was twice to what the pound was, now the pound outweighs it by 80 cents. It's commendable that he wants to rebuild a country... that would rather blow us up, but I just don't see it happening. No matter who we knock down, who we fight, replace, once the US leaves the country, it will fall again. I will admit that if peace is finally able to be established there, then I'll be proven wrong then. My two cents, don't tear apart my argument too badly.

[img]graemlins/jumpclap.gif[/img]

I'm against Bush. I'm surprised Michael Moore's huge effort in an attempt to get rid of Bush (Dude, Where's My Country?, Fareinheight 911) failed. I'm aware that Moore's work is very opinionated and have just 1 view, and many people also believe that much of the information he gathered is false. However, I think Michael Moore is right...Bush is a monster. Even Eminem tried to take a jab at Bush by releasing his song 'Mosh.' I think he would have had more success if he released a week earlier, but there's nothing he can do about that now.

Bush Jr clearly doesn't do enough work. I was actualy watching Fareinheight 911 two days ago; Bush was on vacation for something like 42% of his first 8 months in office (at least I think it was 8, it might have been 6 or something else). WHAT? So the head of the country was too busy to protect us?
Rice even said that there was a paper with a title similar to 'Bin Laden plans to attack America.' Why did Bush ignore that?
On the movie, it said that Bush released a military record that said that he was suspended for not completing his nurse training. Someone's name was blacked out when this record was released. However, Moore already had the record without the blacked out name. IIRC, the name that was blacked out was connected with one of Bush's plans to obtain oil.
Bush asked Fox 5 to connect Saddam with 911. When asked to give proof first, he said that he had none. Um...Mr. President, I'm sorry that no one was there when you requested this to tell you how to lie you out of this one.
BTW, I agree that religion has no part in government. A president can stick by religion and their beliefs, however, they can't let those beliefs get in the way of the way they rule the country.

Whatever, I'm against Bush. My parents are against Bush due to his international policies. These past few years, I've only seen Bush's policies failing (No Child Left Behind). I lived in NY my whole life, most of NY is against Bush. Hell, I wish all of America was against Bush.

[ 12-29-2004, 02:08 AM: Message edited by: Lord ]

[Malthaussen]

Looks like several discussions going on at once here. I'll contribute MTCW, as a sort of random rumination.

To address the initial question, I'll echo the folks who have mentioned that there is considerable anti-Bush feeling in the USA. So the view that we all love him is false. However, sufficient voters considered him the preferrable option over Kerry, rather to my surprise. TBH, I still don't understand it, and I live in the USA.

Do I "like" Bush? Can't really answer the question, as I don't know the man. I certainly wish he wasn't president, but I am not so naive as to believe that the Party necessarily takes direction from its figurehead, and I believe the Republicans have an organized agenda that they would attempt to fulfill no matter who the front man is. As I see it, this is in fact that separates the right from the left in the US: the right has a coherent plan, while the left does not. As Lenin and the bolsheviks demonstrated, even a minority group with a consistant plan can carry out a revolution -- and the Republicans are not so much a minority in the US as they once were.

Since I'm not really happy with the program, as I perceive it, I'm not really happy with the Party, or it's figurehead. I am certainly not competent to judge how much of a "leader" Dubya is, and how much he is simply the mouthpiece for the interests controlling the Party. Since he's the man out front, he gets the attention, and obviously he laps it up. That fact alone makes me uneasy -- at the risk of inlaming the passions of devout Rightists, he reminds me eerily of Hitler in his love of adulation.

We move on to what I consider to be a really feeble argument, made several times in this thread: Dubya is to be preferred because "he has beliefs and sticks to them." Well, that is just nonsense. The question is not whether the man has "beliefs" (which neither you nor I are competent to judge, dear reader), but whether or not those beliefs, and most importantly, the actions that stem from them, are beliefs and actions which I can support or agree with. And they are not.

In the name of a soi-disant "war against terrorism," the US government has done exactly what the terrorists want them to: create programs of repression in the name of answering the threat. The purpose of terrorism, dear reader, is to *terrorize.* It is to make the target government carry out repression among its own people and externally, to destabilize the target government. And it has worked in this case: the US has implemented repressive legislation that undermines the constitution of the nation, and has carried out two acts of international agression against sovereign governments on the flimsiest of pretexts. It used to be that not liking a foreign government was not, in an enlightened age, considered a legitimate causus belli, but the Bush administration has changed all that. Teddy Roosevelt might approve, although I rather expect he'd be disappointed that we didn't come up with more convincing excuses for our attacks.

That should be enough to be getting on with. Note, yes, we certainly were attacked by terrorists, and some reprisal was more than needed; but attacking a foreign government because it refuses to extradite a criminal (always assuming that the foreign goverment has the power to extradite the individual in the first place) has never been considered appropriate -- otherwise, I daresay we would have invaded France long ago. As for invading a sovereign nation because its arsenal contains weapons we don't want it to have... well, I don't really see how that's justifiable. After all, the USSR and PRC had/have many WMD, and you don't see us invading them. We invaded Iraq because we could get away with it. Whether for oil (which seems rather a simplistic reason) or some other, more nefarious purpose, that's really the bottom line. The rest is just wind off a monkey's backside.

Of course, might makes right.

-- Mal

[ 12-29-2004, 05:26 AM: Message edited by: Malthaussen ]

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by ladyzekke: I personally was disappointed that I had only TWO people to choose from, I personally want more people, good Lord there are so many human beings alive in this world, and in the U.S., why is it we get frikken TWO people to pick from for our President?

Because apparently most people in the U.S (and the world over) have become so mentally compartmentalised as to their position in their social hierarchy that they ask questions like 'why won't anyone take action and save me/us?' instead of saving themselves. You can't expect born-and-bred cattle to behave like eagles.

[Hivetyrant]

Hoo boy, I am actually finding this conversation very interesting, but I dont think I will say much, as I really dont have anything to base my beliefs on.
I do think however, that anyone who runs the most powerfull country in the world is going to be ridiculed for one thing or another, I mean, how can one person run a country like america perfectly??? There will never be enough money to pay for everything, I very much doubt that there will ever be a time when hospitals will have no emergeny room waiting lines, school classes will have small numbers, unemployment will be nearly gone, streets will be clean of rubbish, there will be no homeless, there will be no wars.
I do not believe that everybody will enjoy the way the government has control over them.
I do not believe that people will ever agree on the way money is spent, there will always be people that think more money should be spent on schooling, there will always be people who believe that more money should be spent on health care, there will always be people that think more moeny should be spent on housing, tourism, foreign aid, environmental services and so on.
My point is, people are different, and if someone has an opinion, it will not likely change unless something forces them to change.
Im not saying Bush is perfect, though im not saying he is not fit for the job, i just think that people make misteaks, and those with power make more devastating ones, but can we blame a man for trying to protect his country? If you had been told that a family on the other side of town who absolutly hated your family and had been making small attacks on your house recently, had come into possesion of something that threatened the life of your family, that you wouldnt investigate?
I understand that he was wrong, and I understand that many lives were lost because of it, but what if they did have weapons? What if they did somehow manage to launch a nuclear attack on America? What would have happened? he would have been blammed for not making the country secure enough.
And that stands for all countries, there will always be problems, and they will almost always be blammed on someone, and seeing as he has made misteaks, people will blame the president.
I also dont believe that everything he does is his decision, I dont believe that one night Bush was sitting in his chair and suddenly thought, "Hey, I have been informed that there may be weapons of mass distruction in Iraq, its my duty to get rid of them" I dont think that it was a decision that was made over a cup of coffee, if they did not believe it, would they have done it?

lol, but please dont take my points too seriously, becuase I dont know first hand what it is like living under Bush. I may be completely wrong, but that is just what i have seen from where I am.

[Lavindathar]

Last night, we had like a quiz of the year program, and guess who was a subject.

Yep, they played some quotes of Mr George Bush's speeeches, and said "Ladies and Gentlemen of the world, we have another year of this idiot to look forward to".

One of the quotes was, and this is excellent:

(regarding the war in Iraq)


I have no doubt in my mind, absolutely no doubt at all, that we will fail.

LMAO![/i]

[SilentThief]

this is a touchy subject becuz people here in the states either love him and say he's the next messiah, or hate him and he's a psycho. This debate has caused numerous arguements and spite at ppl's work and other places that you should be able to expect civil behavior.

Personally, I think he's a psycho from a state chock full of psycho's... Texas; and that he doesn't care one lick about the Iraqis (except thier oil), American economics (except his and his rich friends pockets), peoples rights; only the continuatiuon of his run as presidency (which he never won in the first place) to further his agendas...

for a good example of what I'm saying check this out: http://www.sickamongthepure.com/file...as_Rising.html

SilentThief
PS, I will now stop with the negative opinion aimed at our nations legally elected (?) president, as I don't want to up and disappear or otherwise be "erased"...