George W. Bush is an empty suit

[9000white]

now back to racism being the reason so many did not get out.how does that explain the ones that still wont get out of an open sewer when provided with transportation.could this be foolishness? or another result of racism?

[oldnslo]

This guy has an interesting perspective on this subject. www.fredoneverything.net

[cb360]

If it makes you feel any better, I saw not one, but two white families on the news today who said they weren't leaving New Orleans. I imagine these folks are proud southerners who are loyal to the community rather than black idiots who don't have the sense to get out of the filth.

[9000white]

them honkey's is got plenty of money they made from subjugating the black man.

[Spiff]

A nation can't impose democracy on another nation. We've learned this lesson time and time again and we've backed one crooked murderer after another.

Sadly, events have shown that the U.S. refuses to learn that lesson.

[blair]

A nation can't impose democracy on another nation. We've learned this lesson time and time again and we've backed one crooked murderer after another.

Sadly, events have shown that the U.S. refuses to learn that lesson.

It depends on your definition of "we".

Clearly, democracy isn't a magic bullet for freedom. Iran is a democracy. America under GW Bush is a democracy. Neither is remotely free.

But "DEMOCRACY" is a powerful political symbol, as it's the central change forged by our own American Revolution. It's freedom from monarchy, and is conflated with freedom in general.

As soon as Bush starts talking about "giving them democracy" you know he's playing politics and not promoting freedom.

These Bushes are people who govern by manipulation, not by the will of the people. Though if they can manipulate the vociferous into believing that their will is being satisfied, they retain political power.

Which exemplifies the problem with plural-majority democracy. It institutionalizes the fallacy of Appeal to Popularity, and sets the bar very low for those whose job is to try to fool most of the people all of the time.

We need a form of democracy that is stronger. Like Approval Voting. And we need a form of diplomacy that is more studied than sending bombs to impose democracy on theocratic-minded people. Because that backfires, badly.

[Nibblet99]

prehaps it's time for another amendment to our countries code of laws / constitution, banning politicians from careers in politics

[cb360]

What we need is government by the people for the people. Most of the morons in DC do not remotely represent 'the people'.

[blair]

prehaps it's time for another amendment to our countries code of laws / constitution, banning politicians from careers in politics

Close.

We should institute a law banning election fraud that includes knowingly lying or suborning lies that misinform voters. Put people in jail for lying in elections or being connected to liars. We've got laws against lying in business deals and laws against libeling people, so there's precedent for being able to prove almost any kind of lie.

Plural democracy is fallacious with perfect information. When the information is a well-constructed matrix of lies, plural democracy is its own worst enemy.

If Bush were arrested the day he stepped into Washington, the world would be a safer and wealthier place.

[sv-wolf]

I'd like to live in a democracy. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but I can go on wishing, can't I?.

Instead I have to live in something which is cleverly called a 'representative democracy' which is actually not a democracy at all, but encourages me to think it is - or would if I were unwary enough to have a naive faith in words.

Every five years I have a choice. To represent my views on all the complex issues that affect me, I can choose candidate A or candidate B (great!) whose policies are all pretty vague and pretty similar (not very great!). If they don't represent my views (as they don't) then I'm stuffed. Once they have been elected on the basis of a series of promises they then go off and do what they hell they like anyway. Mostly they pursue the interests of big business. That pisses me off, but I have to accept that is the way of the world and there isn't a lot I can do about it right now.

In the run up to the Iraq War the majority of people in the UK were against the conflict (despite the relentless jingoism of the media). The 'democratically elected' government went ahead with it anyway. More dead, more wounded, more dispossessed, just more human suffering.

Bush and Blair are no more democrats than Ghengis Khan, Stalin or Milosovic. Our freedoms are largely illusory. Our ability to exercise power is a joke. And I can't believe people still buy this crap! Well, I can, but if I thought that way too much I would get depressed. It just really infuriates me that the establishment can hoodwink so many people for so much of the time.

I listen to so much of this self-serving, jingoistic crap about who cares what people outside the US think. We in the UK were taught to think like that once. It's arrogant and puerile and creates so much suffering. As a matter of fact, it is not just France and Germany that hates the U.S. right now. The UK, whose politicians are generally regarded as being right behind the US in most things, is now more anti-American than I have every known it - if you ask the man or woman on the street. The same is true almost everywhere in Europe also. As for the rest of the world, who learns to love their tormentor?

BTW someone said something about how generous the US is. In point of fact the US gives a smaller percentage of its GDP in aid than almost any other western nation. Military aid to dictatrships and murderous regimes is of course the exception to this.

Needed to get that off my chest. I feel calmer now.