Bush is fear itself!

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:19 pm

"First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.... The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism, ownership of the government by the individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
—President Franklin Roosevelt

Are you listening Georgy, porgy, Dub-ya and Lie?

Post by **SonomaCat** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:24 pm

That is an interesting quote to bring up -- we have come a long ways from "only thing we have to fee-ar is... fee-ar itself" to the current political atmosphere where fear is the only thing that people are selling. It kind of makes a guy/gal long for a leader (either party) to emerge with a little more positive vision in their corner.

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:45 pm

A leader! Yes, a leader. And a vision! Yes, a vision would be great. How about reaching out to all of the people of America? Even the HALF that didn't vote for you. C'mon Georgie...log onto BobcatNation.com!!!! You've got problems, we've got answers.

WYCAT · Post by **WYCAT** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 5:16 pm

I have been trying to find a good response to this post but am having a tough time. I think I will let Gato field this one - maybe he can do it justice.

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 7:38 pm

I'm having big time problems not using Georgie Costanza's mom's voice when I say Georgie Bush's name. Even though I know W's mumma face, I see Costanza'z folks as his real parents.

It'll be a Festivus for the Rest of US. It's a festivus miracle!!!

lifeloyalsigmsu · Post by **lifeloyalsigmsu** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 7:51 pm

iaafan wrote:I'm having big time problems not using Georgie Costanza's mom's voice when I say Georgie Bush's name. Even though I know W's mumma face, I see Costanza'z folks as his real parents.

It'll be a Festivus for the Rest of US. It's a festivus miracle!!!

What's amazing is that your rhetoric is nothing short of pointless and, other than a little name calling, you haven't said anything remotely constructive or worthy of speaking about.

...and those who lean to the left or those whose political charge consists solely of name calling......does it ever occur to you why many of you aren't EVER taken seriously?

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:45 pm

Yeah, FDR and I just aren't getting across to ya, eh? Saying Bush lied isn't to the point enough for you? Bush is still lying. Bush was Gov. of Texas home of the death penalty and did nothing when DNA evidence was overturning verdicts all across the country. No, lets just keep killing them here in Texas, says Georgie, no point arguing 'bout all this DNA (science!!! She blind me.....with science!!!) mumbo-jumbo. George said he never had any idea we'd be attacked by terrorists, but his administration was conducting evacuation drills all over DC.

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:52 pm

Sieg Hiel, ya' all!!!

http://www.lies.com/wp/2003/09/18/funny ... ush-photo/

Hey, just pickin' on ya all conservatives a lil bit. Summer, Donna! Simmer down now!

lifeloyalsigmsu · Post by **lifeloyalsigmsu** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 10:17 pm

iaafan wrote:Yeah, FDR and I just aren't getting across to ya, eh? Saying Bush lied isn't to the point enough for you? Bush is still lying. Bush was Gov. of Texas home of the death penalty and did nothing when DNA evidence was overturning verdicts all across the country. No, lets just keep killing them here in Texas, says Georgie, no point arguing 'bout all this DNA (science!!! She blind me.....with science!!!) mumbo-jumbo. George said he never had any idea we'd be attacked by terrorists, but his administration was conducting evacuation drills all over DC.

My only suggestion is that you remove the tin foil hat you've been wearing. I was doing evacuation/fire drills in North Hedges when I was a freshman in 1993-1994......hmmm......wonder what Clinton knew back then.......

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:48 am

I believe Clinton is on the record as having told the Bush Administration that the biggest concern/threat to the US is terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.
The Bush Adm. tried to play dumb right after 9-11. As Hitler said, the bigger the lie the more likely people are to believe it.

WYCAT · Post by **WYCAT** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 8:00 am

I think you are on dangerous ground comparing Clinton's responses to terror attacks (and yes we had some on his watch-not to the magnitude of 911 but attacks still) and Bush's. There are a number of things Bush hasen't done perfectly but neither did Clinton. In the area of terror attacks and our responses though - Clinton was as pathetic as he was in morals and credibility. I don't think I would go there if I were you.

BozoneCat · Post by **BozoneCat** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 9:39 am

Well shoot, Clinton's response was to continue cutting military and defense spending. Hindsight (ahem) is always 20/20. I don't think it does anyone any bit of good to continue harping on the mistakes our country has made, because (1) we can't change those now, (2) this negative attitude even post-election just continues to divide and polarize our country, and (3) you would be in a small, small minority if you could honestly say you wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq at the time, given the information we had. I just wouldn't believe you, because even the ultra-liberals in Congress voted to go to war. I think it would be much more productive if our society would stop with the Bush-bashing and juvenile name-calling, and start talking about ways to get this country on track - which means more intelligent thoughts than just pulling out of Iraq.

velochat · Post by **velochat** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:19 am

A small, small minority would have invaded Iraq given what we knew (nothing that made Iraq a threat). A majority would have strategized to suppress terror, but war toys don't count for much in that fight, and w wanted to be a war president and buy more toys of mass destruction from his buds in the contracting world. The "war" on "terror", will be won or lost with honest intelligence gathering and investigation and the quality of foreign relations, not with rove rhetoric.

The brilliance of rove and right wing broadcasting is their ability to obscure equally important issues and what's really going on. Oh well, let's have fun with their satire value, sans pareil. Who needs history? Prudence would be boring.

El_Gato · Post by **El_Gato** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:58 am

velochat wrote:A small, small minority would have invaded Iraq given what we knew.

Are you kidding me? OUR REPRESENTATIVES in Congress (the people WE ELECT) saw the same data as the President & voted overwhelmingly to approve the removal of Saddam. Do you really DENY that, velo?

I'm pretty sure the President & the Congress were a little better informed than YOU were before they voted to go to war. If not, maybe you should take your intelligence network to DC & show them how it's done.

Was some of their intell. wrong? Apparently. Do I believe that intell. was EMBELLISHED simply so the President could take us to war? Absolutely NOT. They took the best info. they had (which sounds like the TRUE problem here, that our intell. services need some help) and they made a decision based on it; a decision agreed to by a MAJORITY in Congress.

Mistakes are & will continue to be made by ALL Presidents. Clinton made the mistake of thinking that intell. was obsolete following the end of the cold war; he simply felt we didn't have any enemies that warranted a large intell network. Many in Congress agreed and our intell services suffered the consequences. While it was happening, I'm sure MOST thought it was a good idea to save $$ in that area. In hindsight, I believe those $$ (which, btw, weren't really SAVED, just shuffled to some other beauracracy) were paid for with American lives on 9/11/01.

Please don't start in on me as a Clinton-basher; I'm simply stating that ALL our elected officials are going to make mistakes from time to time. Was Bush wrong about Saddam's WMD's? Yes. Was Bush wrong in taking us to war? No, not given the info he had and not if we can eventually stabilize Iraq and they end up with something better than the dictatorship they lived in under Saddam. Given how it's going over there currently, I'm not sure that verdict is anywhere close to being in, unfortunately.

WYCAT · Post by **WYCAT** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 10:42 am

velochat wrote:A small, small minority would have invaded Iraq given what we knew (nothing that made Iraq a threat).

Give me a break. Maybe a smaller majority would vote now based on how things have played out over the course of the war in Iraq with all the hindsight we all have now but not at the time Congress voted for the war. My how easy it is to monday morning quarterback. That is just so wrong of a statement!

iaafan · Post by **iaafan** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:29 pm

Hopefully everything works out over in Iraq, but the end result will be shaky at best and we will probably be less safe than we were to begin with.

I think that Congress voted to go to war on Bush's urging, not the other way around. I think they/we trusted and believed Bush, but it turned out that Bush didn't have any 'solid' information as he said. That's what is at issue here. Bush told blatant lies to get a war started in Iraq, so that he could pad the pockets of his rich buddies.

If the information doesn't fit, you must convict. Bush is sham and anyone who thinks he is looking out for America first has their head buried in the sand. It's the little man (you and me) in America that gets the shaft. Bush and his pals will come out of all of this in tact and with no worries. Our fellow citizens will come away with the pain of lost friends and relatives and nothing to show for it, but a huge federal deficit.

velochat · Post by **velochat** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:42 pm

I actually felt sorry for Colin Powell when he was making his flimsy case at the UN for an invasion he probably didn't support. Loyal to a fault. I didn't fear Saddam's "suspicious trailers" nor his awful "aluminum tubes" then, either. Neither did the people of Great Britain or Italy or Spain. We need to make the best of the situation, now, but it was an obvious mistake, then. Good luck to our devoted military people, they'll need it.

Many thanks to Hans Blix for his professionalism and integrity. Too bad we didn't listen, but it's no fun to listen to people who aren't attack dogs.

Post by **SonomaCat** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:56 pm

Even though we as a country have yet to admit that we did invade under false pretenses (and have instead just recast the rationale for our invasion retroactively, which makes us feel a lot better as a country and aids in the necessary "finish the job that we started" process), perhaps there is a silver lining to this going-forward. It is possible that our leaders have learned something from this chapter in history and will be less likely to make the logical leaps that we did this time around. There will always be hot spots in the world, and there will always be nasty leaders that we don't like. In light of our experiences in Iraq, however, we might be more likely to listen to the views of others before we take any drastic, and irreversable, steps.

I think we are already seeing evidence of this with Iran. We seem to be letting Europe handle that issue through diplomatic channels. I would actually expect to see this newfound respect for diplomacy to grow in the coming months and years. The administration now realizes what Powell and all of the fired military and intel heads already knew -- taking over a country of people that don't like us isn't as easy as they (Rumsfeld and Cheney) thought it would be.

WYCAT · Post by **WYCAT** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 2:13 pm

iaafan wrote:I think that Congress voted to go to war on Bush's urging, not the other way around. I think they/we trusted and believed Bush, but it turned out that Bush didn't have any 'solid' information as he said. That's what is at issue here. Bush told blatant lies to get a war started in Iraq, so that he could pad the pockets of his rich buddies.

I didn't know Congress did whatever a president wanted??? And I find it humerous that you think Bush is the only one who saw this "fake" intelligence. Congressmen (and women) made their own decisions based on the information we had at the time. Even the most liberal of senators (a.k.a. John Kerry) voted for it.

I think BozoneCat made a good point earlier on this thread. Why keep beating the same dead horse? Bush bashing isn't going to fix everything you think is wrong with this country. And believe it or not, President Bush isn't to blame for all of our problems. How do you think our intelligence agencies got to the point they are currently at? Do you think Clinton and his administration had anything to do with it?

El_Gato · Post by **El_Gato** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:16 pm

Tell you what velo, bay, and iaa,

The 3 of you go to DC, go over ALL the evidence that the President & the Congress had before voting to go to war, THEN AND ONLY THEN sit on your holier-than-thou thrones and tell us that "we should have known better".

I don't care how many newspapers, periodicals, or "e-zines" you have actually read; I'm pretty sure it would not amount to ONE PERCENT of the information our leaders based their decision on.

Would the 3 of you PLEASE stop acting as if you knew more than they did?

And Congress voted overwhelmingly to go to war "at Bush's urging"? Are you serious? If there was even a SHRED of evidence or even the slightest crack in Bush's logic to start the war, the Dem's would have been ALL OVER IT! You know as well as all of us that if there was even a HINT of "foul play" leading us into war, there is no way in hell the Dem's (and I'm sure even some Republicans) would have staked their own political futures on something that might turn out to be just a lie by the Bush administration.

I'm now convinced that some people's hatred of Bush has surpassed the right's loathing of Clinton; something I would have never thought possible.