Majority of Democrats now hold favorable views of mass-murdering simpleton George W Bush

boing
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The picture I’m seeing here is one set of politicians handled the situation poorly not properly assessing the potential catastrophe, and in the aftermath of a miscalculation (a grave and costly one but a mistake and not malicious per se) on their parts they requested assistance from another set of politicians whom hold federal powers to act but simply refused any participation in rescue operations out of fear of bad publicity and allowed more people die rather than intervene because the effort would have not been a roaring success.

9/11 we were attacked by 19 hijackers using box cutters and this resulted in a military conquest involving over 1 trillion in military spending in Iraq and at least according to wikipedia :

Official estimates of Iraq War casualties range from 110,000 to 460,000.[1] Other estimates, such as the 2006 Lancet study, and the 2007 Opinion Research Business survey, put the numbers as high as 650,000 and 1.2 million respectively.[1]

19 people using box cutters the justification for that much military force.
A massive hurricane though - can’t spare a single man.

Troops being deployed are fine when people are getting killed in conflict but its taboo when its a crisis? How about instead of a Republican president refusing assistance to a liberal area (which somehow is portrayed as the politically safer position to take) he offered any kind of assistance whatsoever showing at least some effort as opposed to the none that was being provided? Maybe Nagin and Blanco are responsible for the deaths of those in the floodwater, and it looks like your saying that means nobody else should have to help those people either least of all the President, since saving lives due to others negligence isn’t his job even if he has the power to do so. What if he sent them out there and all they saved was one kids life? Or somebody’s grandma? You think that would have been bad press? Or maybe when your getting 100,000 - 1,000,000 people killed what’s a few more right? Take the pleas of a Democratic governor begging for help in the media as a setup then. Maybe he had those people drown on purpose to make GW look bad. Better to just stay away and let nature take its course. Yeah I don’t know why I can’t forgive that guy like Obama did. You’ll probably have more to say about it since this Katrina thing seems like your angle but this is like just a sliver of the heartless crap revolving around most of the decisions he made. It’s late - I’m being a vain jerk thinking I’ll prove anything to you so I’m going to bed. If you want the last word I’ll read it tomorrow but doubt in advance I’ll reply so good night to you, in the end we are all dust, time is relative, may you live long and prosper, the man with the gold makes the rules, get the milk for free, and one in your hand is worth 2 in the Bush.

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Its just so seductively easy to start liking Geo W Bush.

He’s a likeable guy.

He’s doing all those nice paintings.

He’s been bifurcated from his literally heartless Vice-President.

And, 43 is unarguably a vastly more decent, caring, humorous, (fill-in) person than 45. Bush is practically the Dalai Lama compared to Trump.

I don’t have a favorable view of his policies in office. But – God help me – I like the guy. This “favorable view” Democrats are alleged to have has nothing to do with Democrats looking kindly on his past policies. They just like the avuncular former POTUS sitting on the porch next door.

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W seems reasonable only when compared with 45. He’s still a goddamn war criminal who should be shipped to the Hague for trial along with his Veep.

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How were Nagin and Blanca supposed to predict the levees would fail before the storm hit? Even the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t predict that and they were the agency responsible for building them in the first place. Even after the levees breached FEMA director John Brown was trying to assure the public that the city wasn’t “filling up like a soup bowl” when in fact that was exactly what was happening.

To this day people keep painting the destruction of New Orleans as a natural disaster. It would be more accurate to think of it in terms of a massive engineering failure triggered by a natural disaster.

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I think W. would probably be a nice enough guy to have as a neighbor, just a horrible person to have as a President.

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I have no idea what Gandhi was like as a person. As a politician, Ghandi worked hard to avoid bloodshed. As a politician, Bush is a war criminal responsible for at least half a million deaths.

So no, you just can’t compare them.

So what if Bush is a nice guy? Then other nice people can visit him in prison and talk about art. It’s not necessary to make him suffer for his crimes, but there needs to be a clear signal that the use of torture and unjustified attacks on other countries are not issues of party politics to be voted over, but crimes.

And also, so what if Trump is an idiot? Yes, I am afraid of him, because he’s a toddler playing next to a very big red button. But apart from the dangers of what he might do, what has he actually done? I haven’t been keeping exact track, so maybe amidst all the news about stupid tweets and childish behaviour, I missed where he committed crimes that even begins to compare to starting a war of aggression or to establishing torture as a standard procedure again.

So, get Trump out of office before he does something really bad. Then ignore him, because he’s probably not a pleasant person to be around.
And lock up Bush junior. Then, feel free to visit him in prison and talk about art. Feel free to commute his sentence to house arrest on his Texas ranch after a few years. It’s not about revenge, it’s about sending a message to potential future war criminals.

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If you think Obama and W. are essentially the same, you need to recalibrate your political spectrum because the results you’re getting are neither useful nor accurate.

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Uhm, the Klingon Defense Force is composed of warriors.

Apart from that, are we sure we want to use the term outside of military propaganda?

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Why would Klingons have a defense force of warriors? That’s not very Klingon-like… the prefer to be on the offense…

worf-blood-pain-etc

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True. But apparently, some Star Trek writer who might not have truly understood Klingon culture came up with the name “Klingon Defense Force” for the military of the Klingon Empire (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Klingon_Defense_Force).

Maybe they do go on the offense, but do so in order to defend the honor of the Klingon empire? We might never know, given the shameful misrepresentation Klingon culture gets on the newest series…

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Oh god, no spoilers, but am I going to be angry?

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You’ve clearly shown yourself to be ignorant on all the main elements of who was responsable for the deaths caused by Karina and I’ve shown that your assumptions have been systematically contrary to the facts.

That you still cling to your initial evaluation shows that you are hermetic to anything that calls into question your demonstrably false beliefs. In sum you have more in common with Trump and his followers who label anything that bothers them fake news than a reasoning being. I see no point in further dialog with zealots.

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False dichotomy. The Levees were not the reason Nagin and Blanca were at fault…

Nagin was at fault for not evacuating the exceptionally vulnerable 9th ward, the retirement homes hospitals and all the other extremely vulnerable elements of NO. Instead Nagin’s plan was to leave the buses in their parking lots. Nagin was also at fault for telling people to come to the super dome instead of evacuating. These and other mistakes directly led to so many vulnerable people drowning instead of being safely evacuated.

As for Blanco her fault was to stick her head in the sand before Katrina hit instead of requesting the assistance of National Guard elements from other states but waiting until after Katrina had hit.

I’ve already detailed this elsewhere.

In any case, levee failure was not the cause for the flooding of central NO, it was the failure of the walls of the canals that led all the way north on lake Ponchartrain to downtown NO. NO being below sea level, they installed pumps downtown to evacuate rainwater during storms. The pumped water used the canals to drain into Ponchartrain but were recognised by everyone with a brain to be weak points in NO’s defences against flooding. The CoE proposed gates at the Ponchartrain shore but were blocked by idiotic homeowners.

Note that I didn’t blame Nagin/Blanco for the canal failures but the homeowners near Lake Ponchartrain who sued to prevent the installation of gates on the ends of the canals that would have prevented lake Ponchartrain’s waters from drowning NO if the canal walls failed.

Lastly, the CoE DID predict that the levees of the lower 9th ward and that the canal walls were vulnerable and the federal government had proposed funding many times to fix these most urgent problems. The problem is that after seeing corrupt local governments embezzle >50% of the funds allotted to enrich themselves on all recent major works, the USG would only fund 50% of all future projects and corrupt locals were still hoping for a new gravy train and refused.

Had Nagin evacuated those who he knew were most at risk and Blanco better prepared, flooding or no, there would have been little loss of life.

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The regular Army is the spearpoint of our army. The reserves constitute most of the infrastructure behind them and the National Guard are the Military Police, Disaster response & peacekeeping specialists.

Not recognising that the regular army is composed of those who are there to go to war for the rest of us is just sticking your head in the sand and probably forming false ideas on what they can do. It’s not propaganda to recognise that regular army troops are warriors, not peacekeepers or disaster response specialists.

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My point wasn’t about responsibility but to prove that GW was a piece of shit in how he responded (him being the subject of this post). You haven’t been able to prove to me otherwise. I even admitted the chain of events as you described and pointed out he still acted in a selfish manner that hurt people but you have no interest in even mentioning it in reply and then call me Trump-like. I wont call you ignorant but a person with an agenda and you clearly have chosen to protect him in your mind despite evidence that he deserves none.

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By showing to all that you refuse facts in judging you prove nothing & merely expose yourself as a bigot.

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If you are a true Klingon, yes, otherwise, probably not.
I can find hardly any commonalities between the series’ “Klingons” and the proud and honorable warrior people from TNG and DS9. But on the other hand, the series features some of the best-pronounced Klingon ever spoken on screen.

Pretending we’re on topic now… you might like the series because it’s definitely not Trump-ish. My pet peeve: while it does very well at representing a broad range of American society, it again pretends that the only language besides English is Klingon, the language of the Totally Evil Enemy. it’s a bit too Bush-ish for me - everything seems to be about war, and the “enemy” is depicted as completely inhuman so there’s no doubt that they need to be killed.

So maybe this is on-topic after all. Some people are all upset about Trump talking about “shithole countries”, but are perfectly willing to forgive Bush for turning a whole country into a shithole by invading it with no provocation. Likewise, I am sure many people will see The Orville’s politically incorrect humor as a bigger issue than ST:D’s depiction of war against a complete dehumanized enemy.

But in the end, ST:D is a well-made show that I will probably continue watching…

Recognizing that America’s disaster recovery specialists are elsewhere is not propaganda, true. That’s not what I was getting at. I think that the use of the term “warrior” instead of “soldier” is either propaganda, or maybe just another symptom of the rampant militarism in American society. Either way, it should be avoided.

If you label you soldiers “warriors”, you are invoking a dangerous image. A warrior is a proud man who sees war as a way of life, as an end to itself. Once you are part of the Proud Warrior Culture, you don’t complain if the most heroic deed your Warriors ever did for you is to go the neighboring village, kill all men there and take the women as a prize.

Seriously, the American public is too proud of their military strength. Americans are far too likely to think that military force is the solution to a particular problem. Soldiers are celebrated as “warriors” and as “heroes”, it’s a patriotic duty to “support the troops” and it’s a fundamental dogma that they are “fighting for our freedom”. America is (mostly) a democracy, so does it surprise anyone that America ends up fighting way too many wars?
It’s fun to romanticize a “proud warrior culture” on Star Trek, but allowing yourselves to be one is more toxic than most of the things Trump has ever said. It actually kills people.

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Thanks for the spoiler free analysis… I look forward to seeing it, despite the obvious problems.

Back on topic, maybe we can see the redemption of Bush in the same way we see the redemption of older Trek series that some people complained about back when it was on? Part of it is nostalgia and part of it is having something worse right in front of you?

And this is why I like studying popular culture, because it can tell us about what’s going on at the time it’s on, if that makes sense. TOS tells us about some people’s hopes for a future not marred by racism, and how far a united humanity can actually go (wagon train to the stars and all). DS9 (my personal favorite series) had a good deal to say about some events during the Cold War (decolonization and trauma, primarily) and asks some good questions about the institutions built to carry out the cold war. That’s one reason I do look forward to watching Discovery, to see what is got to say about our current moment.

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