Four More Years!

Four More Years! AKA: Take That, You Sons of Bitches
So, George W. Bush won. And he’s done so by a solid margin. The Democrats’ attempted coup managed to last all of eight hours. Not only is the President the first candidate to win a majority of the vote in a Presidential Election since 1988, but he also won more popular votes than any other candidate in history. The Democrats spent months telling us that high voter turnout would equal a win for them but, as it turns out, when 60% of the electorate showed up at the polls it translated into a Bush lead of nearly four million votes. In short: take that, you sons of bitches.

The Democrats are now talking about how this is a signal that Bush should “bring the country together”. Translated into American, this means “now that you’ve won, you should surrender to us.” The hell with that. We’ve won. Winning means not having to say you’re sorry. Bush already brought a majority of Americans together: they voted for him. He doesn’t need to reach out to them: they need to reach out to him.

If anyone needs to work to “bring the country together” it’s those on the left who have divided it so badly. Those who sought to destroy this great man should get down upon their knees and beg the victors for mercy. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a few of them linger on for the simple reason that they amuse us. My life’s goal is to see the Democratic Party virtually obliterated and left as a rump of people like Stephanie Herseth who both mostly agree with us anyways and are easy on the eyes.

That’s the future of the Democratic Party: providing Republicans with a number of cute (but not that bright) comfort women.

Let’s face a hard truth: this was the bitterest Presidential campaign in living memory. The Democrats and their allies staked everything on the defeat of this President. All of the resources they had accumulated over a generation of struggle were thrown into this battle: and they have failed. Despite all of their tricks, despite all of their lies, the people have rejected them. They mean nothing. They are worth nothing. There’s no point in trying to reach out to them because they won’t be reached out to. We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and out boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards.

The first obvious major fight is going to be over the confirmation of the next Chief Justice of the United States and probably a new Associate Justice as well. The reason for saying this should be obvious: William Rehnquist is an ill man and, I think, the obvious candidate to replace him is none other than Clarence Thomas who would be, of course, the first black Chief Justice but who would also, much more importantly, be the most conservative one in living memory. His seat could then be given to another solid conservative and then, once Stevens, Ginsberg, or O’Conner goes, we can get a real conservative majority on the court: and keep it for a decade or more.

It’s worth stepping back to think about the scale of what we have accomplished. We’ve fought back and won against the most destructive attack in the modern history of Presidential campaigns. Despite all of the books, movies, television shows: despite the seeming involvement of all of Hollywood and all of Academia, they lost. They used every trick in the book against us: and they lost. We now control the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and a majority of State Governorships. The Republican Party is now, truly, the majority party in the United States.

This is a mandate. Not only for the President to carry on and win the War on Terrorism, but also to make other needed reforms. To begin: the massive landslides for the eleven state Gay Marriage amendments, even the one in Oregon, show that the Federal Marriage Amendment will carry if it proves to be needed. Better still, with these majorities, the President will have a real shot at enacting some form of entitlement reform in the coming years.

This is a decisive moment in American history. There’s no denying this fact. The nation stood at the crossroads yesterday and the people choose to go the right way. They rejected the Democrat Party and the pernicious things that those people stand for.

Michael Moore and his ilk have been rejected by the people. Treason didn’t carry the day. Forgeries and lies failed to produce the results that they wanted.

It was closer than we’d like, of course. Far too close. I still can’t believe that anyone voted for John Kerry. John Kerry was a personification of everything that’s wrong with the Democrat Party today. A traitor in his youth, he proposed policies of economic division at home and which would have brought military defeat abroad. The once-proud Democratic Party of people like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson has been reduced to such a level as to become little better than the party of AIDS, abortion, adultery and appeasement.

But, whatever, we won: to hell with the rest of them. Those who didn’t support Bush can go and perform a certain anatomically impossible act. They lost, now they can sit in the back of the bus.

Thank God Almighty.

Adam Teiichi Yoshida

 

Your country remains on the path to ruin. You can’t see this from the inside.
I don’t really care about you (based partly on the attitude you display above) but the actions of your country effect the rest of the world.

Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

 

While I share your satisfaction about the Republican victory, and recognize the truth in some of your remarks, I stop short of the vindictive attitude which you express for the Democratic Party and it's Liberal core. They are after all reflective of the attitude and values of many of our fellow Americans, many of whom are as loyal and patriotic as you. Nearly half of our citizens who voted, voted for the "other guys". This is part of the balance of power on which The United States...as in many different states, many different ways of life, many different subcultures...was founded, and depends. Those nations of one party, and one idology, are often tyranical, as were the Nazis, The Soviet Union, and the Bathest bastards in Iraq which our man George W Bush, and our country and it's armies of both Democrats and Republicans so valiantly oppose.

 

Bert/Marion despises those Americans who oppose him politically, almost as much as he despises non-Americans.

Is Bert/Marion's worldview shared by more Republicans like him ? (1)

Or does he control V these longwinded passages (written by other people - needless to say) just to get a reaction ? (2).

If it is option 1 above, the USA is screwed.

 

Marion will tick option (1) but I suspect the real answer is (2)...i could be wrong but i hope i am not.

Lim, do you get ITV1 and if so did you watch the 'New World at War' debate last night?

 

Indeed I did see it - it was very good.
I watched Dimbleby's two programs and I think he hit the nail squarely on the
head.
Poverty/injustice and social exclusion.

What did you think of it ?

David Owen sat on the fence, I thought though.

 

Yoshida-san makes some interesting points about the damage done by the far left and the division between the extremes.

To the victor go the spoils?

I haven't seen anyone lining up at the borders to get out, so they'll probably stay and continue the battle.

 

Here was the headline in one Japan's papers. "Bush Re-elected: World Depressed" Hate to break it to you bud, but you guys are far behind being the world leaders you think you are, not when even conservative Japan one of your present allies, is depressed at your man's re-election

Like 90% of the rest of the world, I was also so very down about the election. Two American friends actually called me, distressed, and said that it looked like they would be staying in Japan for another 4 years. They apologized on behalf of the "idiot religious fanatics and rednecks" of their country. And it's their vote that kept Bush in -- I suspect they were including you as the homophobic, myopic, and incredibly gullible dimwit you've proven yourself to be. Your own diatribe undercuts your credibility: Democrats =liberals(gasp)=pro-choice, same-sex lovin, high taxin, European sympathizin' pinkos who are soft on the islamo facists. The whole thing is an ideologically driven cultural malaise and can be summed up as 100% chickenshit. Afraid of homos, afraid of progessive policy or ideas, afraid of any ideology that differs to your own. Afraid a terrorist will come from under your bed and blow up something in Arkansas or Nebraska or some hick place. (Although if Bush continues to provoke animosity throughout the world one might)

But at the same time, I take heart that it's not even half of the US public but a little over a quarter, as only 60% even voted (and that was a record turn out?) It was also a record for the most number of votes against a sitting president. In the end I've just resolved that maybe America deserves Bush. Another 4 years and the country will be close to broke, they will have finished alienating most of the world and indeed become a kind of cruel joke. They're an Empire in decline. The whole Iraq thing has been such a farce from the get go that there is no way the Republican hawks would get even a tenth of the support - I doubt even domestically - for another war say into Iran or Syria which they will try to. America's international credibility is shot. This is just a bitter pill that the US now has to swallow and my heart goes out for all the Americans that rallied so hard to toss Bush out. History will judge him harshly along with the culture of fear that allowed a war criminal to be re-elected.

Have a nice day.

 

75% of Germans surveyed - also would have voted against Bush, says SKY News.
(remember Europe only see the USA through its (USA's) foreign policy - domestic US agenda - gay rights/abortion mean nothing here).

I think you're right - I suspect that the divisions in the USA are deeper than people care to acknowledge.
I think the citizens of the USA face a very real dilemna - if Bush moves further to the rightwing.
Spoke to some moderate Republicans this morning and even they're saying that the USA is facing more problems than answers.

 

Nice post with a lot of home thruths that Americans will find hard to swallow.

With 90% of the world alienated including his strongest allies i dread to think what the next few years have to offer. Bush is hated the world over right now, what will it be like in 3-4 years? I cannot think of a world figue in history that has incited so much hatred and disgust among the population, well maybe just one guy, but Bush , you're number 2. What an achievement!

I dont know why Shirley loves him so much, Bush is a drunken, racist dickhead. Still, Shirley must like that sort of thing. Perhaps she has a photo on her wall of him.

 

I'll tell you, Dimbleby has went way up in my estimation. Yes, he talks a lot of sense. He has actually been there to see the horror that America has produced.

Owen i found to be a bit of a pro-war bigot, still he's always been ineffective when it comes to politics.

The root causes of terrorism:
Poverty
Hunger
Environmental degredation
Cultural Imperialism.

why are none of these on the agenda in the 'War against Terrorism'?

 

'Cause there's no oil bounty in it for America in most cases.

Wtach places like Angola and Nigeria - the USA is becoming more interested in these locations @ all in the name of the war on terror, of course.

 

Four more Years? Maybe not. Let's wait and see what your Enemies have up their sleeves. But more W means for sure more War (joined the Army yet?), more Terror?attacks (got your Emergency Parachute, Gasmask?) and of course more hate for America. Like last Weekend, when some Yanks in my favourite Bar got a real good asskicking after telling everybody how much they appriciate what W is doing and that we should be careful, because if not, they would come after us (Europeans). Well, I guess at least these pricks will keep it shut next time.

 

This post is a direct copy and paste from http://www.adamyoshida.com/

Szbert can't even read, comprehend, interpret, analyse and conclude.

Instead he, glances, believes, copies and pastes

A very very dangerous approach to hard line politics

 

He accepts the soundbite, cliche and rhethoric.

He refuses to read and analyse (he probably cannot analyse to be perfectly honest).
But it's obvious that there are millions of others just like him.

 

QUOTE:
"Those nations of one party, and one idology, are often tyranical, as were the Nazis, The Soviet Union, and the Bathest bastards in Iraq which our man George W Bush, and our country and it's armies of both Democrats and Republicans so valiantly oppose."

I disagree. The Soviet Union probably saved Europe from Hitler and the Nazi Party and sacrificed millions of Russian lives in the process. It was Soviet Russia that liberated the Jews from concentration camps and pounded their way into Berlin. Do you suppose Churchill would have held out against Germany without the millions of Russian troops who fought in Stalingrad and Berlin?

As for the Bath Party, my suspicion is that Saddam Husseins's attrocities have been exaggerated somewhat as a point of propaganda. O.K., the Bath Party used chemical weapons on Iraqi kurds which was a war crime in itself. But sanctions against Iraq also killed thousands of civilians through the malnutrition and poverty that resulted from it. The invasion of Baghdad has also claimed thousands and thousands of Iraqi lives - the ill-equipped conscripts who Saddam forced into action and the civilians who got caught up in the conflict. It is thought that thousands of Iraqis perished over the last decade.

Also ask yourself whether Iraq is now better off under Bush or Saddam? O.K. Saddam was as brutal a dictator as Pinochet of Chile but Iraqis have never suffered quite as much as at this point in time. Whereas under Hussein, women had freedom to study at university and could opt not to wear veils in the street, all Iraqis now face the prospect of a country overun by Islamic terrorists and fanatics. Whereas terrorists were kept out of Iraq by the Bathist Party, they (the militants) now have strong bases in the country and links with Al Qaida.

Plus, Saddam's weapons programs and possibly some chemical weapons have more than likely fallen into the hands of terrorist organizations. That's kind of scary to say the least.

Here's another point, though: How is Bush going to import Christian values into a backward country with a Moslem history going back hundreds of years? How, you ask yourself, is he going to introduce democracy into a tribal society that never had any experience of democracy over thousands of years? Sounds a bit like trying to push a square into a round hole with a big hammer.

Finally, some countries have certainly had one party political systems but many western democracies only have 2 parties. Britain, for example, has 2 political parties but the electorate can't genuinely alter, say, foreign policy, whether they vote for one or the other party. Or we've even had party members flock from one of the two parties to the other party if they lose an election. True, voters are free to protest and express opinions in the U.K. (which is good) but we're a long way off from the Greek definition of democracy (which implies the sovereign power of the electorate to discuss and legislate policy without the need for so-called representatives or self-serving political organisations)

And finally, we liberals believe you need a world-class, free education system to build a genuine democracy. The U.S. just provided clear proof that the majority of the electorate isn't informed enough about politics to be able to cast a sensible vote. One man was asked at random by a BBC correspondent why he voted for Bush Junior and his reply was that it was because "Bush is a religious man."

 

I agree, Bert/Marion doesn't understand the 1st thing about a "representative republic." He could've titled his thread; more accurately-" Listen to this righteous, self-serving, obnoxious, effluent of a vitriolic nature in the form of a novella. I suspect it is a condition brought on by some childhood trauma, of some sort, which has; up to this point in his life, not been resolved. This inaction, on his part, has resulted in anti-social outburst's that exhibit themselves throughout this forum. In short, it's a cry for help. I feel your pain-Bert/Marion

 

The reason he is hated so much is not because he got into Yale on the legacy program & got a "c avg." or that he's a war dodger or that he's a failed buisinessman or that he's a tool of the religious right, its's because he's a wreckless hillbilly. No wonder Marion admires him so much.

 

If szbert, iknowsquat and the handful of other yokels who have been hijacking the discussion here in the soap box lately are so incredibly sure of their convictions and their knowledge that they somehow really know the truth of what is happening in Iraq and all us lefty liberals types are the ones out of touch. Perhaps they should check out this article from the Guardian.

As America moves full on into Falluja to rescue Iraq from the scourge of islamo-fascist insurgents (a bit like bailing a leaky canoe with a sieve) while simultaneously winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, the article make a valid point that no one will really know what the hell happens in Falluja, not szbert, not any of us, for a long while after the dust has cleared. It also offers a counter perspective to the hawkish and simplistic argument that paints Falluja only as a stronghold for insurgents that can be pounded into submission and not really a living, breathing city at all. I'm afraid a lot of innocent people are going to die this week. Thanks Ohio.

The article is a little long so I'm sorry if you lack the attention spans to stay with it; but it makes some good points worth considering about truth and the media in wartime.
_____________________________________________
Screams will not be heard

This is an information age, but it will be months before we learn the truth about the assault on Falluja

Madeleine Bunting
Monday November 8, 2004
The Guardian

With fitting irony, one of the camps used by the US marines waiting for the assault on Falluja was formerly a Ba'ath party retreat occasionally used by Saddam Hussein's sons. Dreamland, as it was known, has an island in the middle of an artificial lake fringed by palms.
Now the camp's dream-like unreality is distorting every news report filed on the preparations for the onslaught on Falluja. We don't know, and won't know, anything about what happens in the next few days except for what the US military authorities choose to let us know. It's long since been too dangerous for journalists to move around unless they are embedded with the US forces. There is almost no contact left with civilians still in Falluja, the only information is from those who have left.

This is how the fantasy runs: a city the size of Brighton is now only ever referred to as a "militants' stronghold" or "insurgents' redoubt". The city is being "softened up" with precision attacks from the air. Pacifying Falluja has become the key to stabilising the country ahead of the January elections. The "final assault" is imminent, in which the foreigners who have infiltrated the almost deserted Iraqi city with their extremist Islam will be "cleared", "rooted out" or "crushed". Or, as one marine put it: "We will win the hearts and minds of Falluja by ridding the city of insurgents. We're doing that by patrolling the streets and killing the enemy."

These are the questionable assumptions and make-believe which are now all that the embedded journalists with the US forces know to report. Every night, the tone gets a little more breathless and excited as the propaganda operation to gear the troops up for battle coopts the reporters into its collective psychology.

There's a repulsive asymmetry of war here: not the much remarked upon asymmetry of the few thousand insurgents holed up in Falluja vastly outnumbered by the US, but the asymmetry of information. In an age of instant communication, we will have to wait months, if not years, to hear of what happens inside Falluja in the next few days. The media representation of this war will be from a distance: shots of the city skyline illuminated by the flashes of bomb blasts, the dull crump of explosions. What will be left to our imagination is the terror of children crouching behind mud walls; the agony of those crushed under falling masonry; the frantic efforts to save lives in makeshift operating theatres with no electricity and few supplies. We will be the ones left to fill in the blanks, drawing on the reporting of past wars inflicted on cities such as Sarajevo and Grozny.

The silence from Falluja marks a new and agonising departure in the shape of 21st-century war. The horrifying shift in the last century was how, increasingly, war was waged against civilians: their proportion of the death toll rose from 50% to 90%. It prompted the development of a form of war-reporting, exemplified by Bosnia, which was not about the technology and hardware, but about human suffering, and which fuelled public outrage. No longer. The reporting of Falluja has lapsed back into the military machismo of an earlier age. This war against the defenceless will go unreported.

The reality is that a city can never be adequately described as a "militants' stronghold". It's a label designed to stiffen the heart of a soldier, but it is blinding us, the democracies that have inflicted this war, to the consequences of our actions. Falluja is still home to thousands of civilians. The numbers who have fled the prospective assault vary, but there could be 100,000 or more still in their homes. Typically, as in any war, those who don't get out of the way are a mixture of the most vulnerable - the elderly, the poor, the sick; the unlucky, who left it too late to get away; and the insanely brave, such as medical staff.

Nor does it seem possible that reporters still use the terms "softening up" or "precision" bombing. They achieve neither softening nor precision, as Falluja well knew long before George W Bush arrived in the White House. In the first Gulf war, an RAF laser-guided bomb intended for the city's bridge went astray and landed in a crowded market, killing up to 150. Last year, the killing of 15 civilians shortly after the US arrived in the city ensured that Falluja became a case study in how to win a war but lose the occupation. A catalogue of catastrophic blunders has transformed a relatively calm city with a strongly pro-US mayor into a battleground.

One last piece of fantasy is that there is unlikely to be anything "final" about this assault. Already military analysts acknowledge that a US victory in Falluja could have little effect on the spreading incidence of violence across Iraq. What the insurgents have already shown is that they are highly decentralised, and yet the quick copying of terrorist techniques indicates some degree of cooperation. Hopes of a peace seem remote; the future looks set for a chronic, intermittent civil war. By the time the bulldozers have ploughed their way through the centre of Falluja, attention could have shifted to another "final assault" on another "militant stronghold", as another city of homes, shops and children's playgrounds morphs into a battleground.

The recent comment of one Falluja resident is strikingly poignant: "Why," she asked wearily, "don't they go and fight in a desert away from houses and people?" Why indeed? Twentieth-century warfare ensured a remarkable historical inversion. Once the city had been the place of safety to retreat to in a time of war, the place of civilisation against the barbarian wilderness; but the invention of aerial bombardment turned the city into a target, a place of terror.

What is so disturbing is that much of the violence meted out to cities in the past 60-odd years has rarely had a strategic purpose - for example, the infamous bombing of Dresden. Nor is it effective in undermining morale or motivation; while the violence destroys physical and economic capital, it usually generates social capital - for example, the Blitz spirit or the solidarity of New Yorkers in the wake of 9/11 - and in Chechnya served only to establish a precarious peace in a destroyed Grozny and fuel a desperate, violent resistance.

Assaults on cities serve symbolic purposes: they are set showpieces to demonstrate resolve and inculcate fear. To that end, large numbers of casualties are required: they are not an accidental byproduct but the aim. That was the thinking behind 9/11, and Falluja risks becoming a horrible mirror-image of that atrocity. Only by the shores of that dusty lake in Dreamland would it be possible to believe that the ruination of this city will do anything to enhance the legitimacy of the US occupation and of the Iraqi government it appointed

 

lot's of love here.