Friday, October 31, 2008

Bush's Legacy

This article is an excerpt from a book by Naomi Wolf, who may be a bit batty, but presents an interesting perspective on the depth of depravity to which the current administration has been willing to delve and some interesting parallels to other examples of unhealthy concentrations of power.

I honestly don't think that there has ever been as disastrous an administration as the Bush-Cheney shredding of the bedrock principles of the Constitution. Buchanan was probably the closest (whistled past the cemetery as we headed toward Civil War), Woodrow Wilson (WWI and wicked racist) was no good, Nixon (price and wage controls and Watergate) horrendous, and Carter (Iran-hostage crisis, gas lines, etc) was simply overmatched.

None of these guys can hold a candle to the Bushies. His father, for whom I voted in 1992, can't really be proud of him, can he?

Now we are presented with a less educated, less experienced more "fringe" (Alaska is just wierd and AOG end-timers are at least as kooky as the Mormons or Scientologists, if not more) VP candidate. I think I read something that compared W to Cicero when faced with Palin as the alternative. I echo YGG's point that her selection by McCain was probably the last little shred of fig-leaf falling away from the bresaola of a once decent man. A pure pander to the religious wingnuts who hijacked the Republican party in 1994. These people controlled Congress for 12 of the last 14 years and the White House for the last eight. Why are they so angry? Those folks in the video from Nevada were a little scary. That "hate face" reminded me of footage from the integration of Central High in Little Rock or of Ole Miss. Scary, scary, scary. Hoss, care to illuminate us as to where the hate comes from?

I also would be very interested to see a third party emerge that was libertarian on social issues, pro-business without being held hostage by oligarchical corporations, provided some measure of safety net for those on a bad run, and invested in education and infrastructure. I think the old Republican party (think Nelson Rockefeller or Lincoln Chaffee) was pretty close, but the current zealotry on that side of the aisle would almost certainly tag them as traitors.

Bit rambly today. Two days of celebrating the Phillies World Series Championship has perhaps inhibited synapse-firing.

2 comments:

GammaBoy said...

I completely agree with Wolf - in fact, I have been intending to read her book for quite a while. Might order it off Amazon now, actually.

The crazy thing is that although I would never have thought Restless and I had congruent political views, I am looking for much the same things from a political party. This is where I am right now. Not exactly a party, but maybe the beginnings of one...

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

Yo Gabba Gabba said...

Echo your thoughts about a third party....also about Naomi Wolf. Jim (blog codename yet?) will recall a mutual fascination with her 15 years ago when she described her infatuation with young, nubile soccer players.