Historians vs. Bush
 

http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html

Interesting.

Interesting is correct. I'm inclined to agree on all points. As anyone who's read Dune should know, humanity has an inherent inability to look to the future. A lot of what Bush has done may be good right now but is, in the long run, REALLY BAD. The historians said it well. The world likes us less, the environment has been wholly eschewed, oil is being consumed faster and faster, and so on and so forth. All in all it was a really good article.

I just have to say: DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU! DON'T COME RUNNING TO ME WHEN THE WORLD CRASHES DOWN AROUND YOUR EARS!

You know, that dead horse is looking at you guys funny. Maybe you should go beat it some.

Damned liberal academia!

"As far as anyone who's read Dune should know.."

First of all, an argument can never be appopriately supported by citing fiction, unless the argument is a thesis on that particular piece of work. "Dune" is not a historical tale from the future. Its fiction.

"Alot of what Bush has done might be good right now, but in the long run..."

The stuff he's is not good for us right now. The stuff he's done has pissed off alot of people, for a lot of different reasons, and we're paying the price right now. Corrupt foreign politicians hate the fact that he's not playing by the rules established by the international mafioso, and regular people are pissed cause of his screw ups and moral disgressions, imagined or real.
In the long run, his actions in Iraq will probably be more to our benefit. Sure, we've gone to war in Iraq under false pretenses(basically). However, it IS a free country now, despite the pessimistic outlook held by many. 5-15 years from now, what is going to be the real condition of that country? I'm willing to bet it'll be prosperous and maybe even egalitarian, and that's going to have an impact on the entire region. For us, thats PRECISELY what we need to dissuade terrorism in that region.

"The world likes us less"

The world didn't like us all that much in the first place. American business has pretty much had a foothold, then a stranglehold, over foreign economies for about 70 years now. Our military involvement, along with the fact that the military is as strong as it is, scares other countries, even in cases where US aggression towards them is an extremely implausable scenario. Meanwhile, having a president who intentionally mispronounces words like "nuclear", and says crap like "bring it on" definitely doesn't help, but Bush is not the main cause of America's PR problem.

"the environment has been wholly eschewed, oil is being consumed faster and faster"

You mean just like they have been for the past couple of centuries? Blaming it all on Bush's presidency is petty, and stupid.

Also, I'd like to adress a couple things from the "good article":
"My own answer to the question was based on astonishment that so many people still support a president who has:
Presided over the loss of approximately three million American jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office, the worst record since Herbert Hoover."

How the hell is a president going to be responsible for job losses at the beginning of his first term? Seems like these historians know absolutely nothing about economics OR congressional poilitics. The average time span between proposing a legislative measurement that effects the economy.... 1 year. The average time span between the ratified measurement and any discernable impact on the economy.... 3.5 years.
Yes, I am being approximate.
Also, this huge loss of jobs happens to coincide with the "dot-com burst", which Bush had absolutely nothing to do with.

"Overseen an economy in which the stock market suffered its worst decline in the first two years of any administration since Hoover’s."

See my previous statement.

"Taken, in the wake of the terrorist attacks two years ago, the greatest worldwide outpouring of goodwill the United States has enjoyed at least since World War II and squandered it by insisting on pursuing a foolish go-it-almost-alone invasion of Iraq, thereby transforming almost universal support for the United States into worldwide condemnation"

2 years between the 911 attacks and our "pre-emptive invasion' of Iraq. Count em. 2 years. Meanwhile, a tremendous ammount of the "outpouring of goodwill" was lip service. Name one country other than Australia, Britain, and Pakistan that contributed any substantial military help to defeating the Taliban in Afganistan. Sure, many European countries conducted police raids upon Al Queda cells, and for that I am grateful. But the fact remains that they really didn't put their money where their mouth was.... they simply took out potential threats to their OWN country. I do not fault those countries for this, cause it makes sense.... but to fault the US, and Bush in particular, for doing the same damn thing? Thats idiotic, hypocritical, and indicative of the so-called international sense of justice.

"(One historian made this point particularly well: “After inadvertently gaining the sympathies of the world 's citizens when terrorists attacked New York and Washington, Bush has deliberately turned the country into the most hated in the world by a policy of breaking all major international agreements, declaring it our right to invade any country that we wish, proving that he’ll manipulate facts to justify anything he wishes to do, and bull-headedly charging into a quagmire.”) "

These "historians" deserve to lose their degrees if they refuse to ackowledge the fact that Clinton unilaterally sent cruise missles into no less than 4 separate sovereign countries while he was president. The only difference is that while Clinton was willing to slap the offending parties on the wrist, while killing mostly innocent people, Bush was willing to put our troops on the ground, and actually secure military victory. Civilians died, but at least they didn't die for absolutely no reason.
Also, international agreement means nothing if it turns out that the key international opponents to military action are so because they have backroom deals with the offending party.

"Cut taxes three times, sharply reducing the burden on the rich, reclassified money obtained through stock ownership as more deserving than money earned through work. The idea that dividend income should not be taxed—what might accurately be termed the unearned income tax credit—can be stated succinctly: “If you had to work for your money, we’ll tax it; if you didn’t have to work for it, you can keep it all.” "

Probably the biggest bullshit line of all. The tax break was proportionate to your income, sure.... but the biggest tax break was given to families earning 90 thousand to 250 thousand a year, before taxes. Thats NOT rich, dumbass. Thats barely upper middle class, and only if you live in somewhere like Louisiana(where I live) or Mississippi, where average earning are really low. If you live in somewhere like Los Angelas or New York? You're fucking middle class. Barely. So basically, these historians don't consider barely middle class income people "hard working".

The most important fact contained in this survey is in the second paragraph of the article.

If the author of the article and main influence of the survey openly admits that it's informal and unscientific, than why are we debating about the "facts" within? The sample size may be large, but if they're not conducting proper statistical techniques (random sampling, unbiased questions, unbiased sample pool selection, etc) then the results produced are nothing but a load of bunk, plain and simple. It's about as credible as a ten-year-old concluding that a survey he conducts among his classmates is representative of the entire elementary school population. I've no love for Bush, but this is ridiculous.

Corrupt foreign politicians? As opposed to the corrupt home-grown kind infesting the administration? And who is this "international mafioso" you speak of? Do tell us his or her identity! As for screw-ups and moral digressions . . . should we not be? He only, y'know, repeatedly lied and misled the entire American population in order to con them into going into war. I mean, that's nothing!

The ends justify the means?

Dude, the population hates us. We've completely botched the occupation, reconstruction has turned into deconstruction. Iraq has become a breeding ground for anti-West extremism and terrorism. With elections coming up we've created the perfect situation for anti-West Islamic theocrats to carry out a power grab. Do you really think putting an ayatollah in power like Sistani is going to lead to a democratic, West-loving government? At best we'll get another Saudi Arabia--buddy buddy trading partners with our elite corporations while imposing human rights abuses upon its populace and secretly funding the next bin Laden.

Bush started talking about Iraq and al-Quaeda waaaay back towards the end of 2001. Remember Richard Clarke? Ex top anti-terrorist advisor to at least three other administrations? Before 9/11 Wolfowitz was talking about "Iraqi terrorism" that the intelligence agencies continued to find no proof of; right after 9/11 Rumsfeld wanted to go straight to bombing Iraq despite the lack of evidence that it had anything to do with the attacks. See, Afghanistan "didn't have enough targets". 2002 was spent on campaigning in the UN, pretending to let UN inspectors do their job, and preparing troops for the invasion. 9/11 and Iraq were not separate things in the administration's mind--they repeatedly tried to play on the sympathy from the attacks to garner support for a war that had absolutely nothing to do with them. The rest of the world rightly cried bullshit and so the effort failed miserably. If Bush was any sort of a diplomat with any sort of interest in addressing real security concerns he could've ridden the wave of goodwill towards more useful goals if his aim was improving national security. He might've even been able to pull off getting Hussien out if he'd approached the situation truthfully and with more patience and tact.

Those giving full military backing (sending troops): Australia, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, India, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Spain, Uzbekistan

Offering vocal support and/or actual physical support (intelligence, use of airspace, etc): Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei, Croatia, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Mozambique, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Tunisia

One can hardly expect every country in the world to send troops--some barely have enough to protect themselves. Additionally, it's not as if the US has sent in troop support every time another country has suffered a serious terrorist attack. We've only done it when it was in our best economic or political interest to do so. Explain why we should expect so much more from everyone else.

Yeah, but he had international support while doing it. If you're have to kill people for stupid reasons, a semi-responsible leader would at least make sure he wasn't endangering the lives of his populace and his country's reputation in the process.

Because every one of the 11,000 civilians killed in Iraq was actually a terrorist in disguise. Including the children.

Yeah, look at Iraq now! It's free, the economy is booming, corruption has been quashed, population morale is at an all-time high, reconstruction of roads, water supplies, and power grids is going fantastically, the people love us, and the US is poised to hand the country over to a stable, fair, democratically elected, non-theocratic, West-loving government. Those tortured prisoners and dead civilians should be proud to give their dignity, freedom, health, and lives to the cause.

Ohhhh yeah. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

They also mean nothing if the proponents have based their support in lies and backroom deals with major corporations through unfair contract distribution.

Whoa whoa whoa, $90,000 is barely upper-middle class? It's good to know that despite the three cars (fourth on the way), sailboat, canoe, four-bedroom house, in-ground swimming pool, three kids comfortably put through college, and debtless status except for the mortgage my family is barely skirting the poverty line. I'll need that info to put on my FAFSA next year to get the fat tuition break a struggling family like ours so rightly deserves.

God, you're calling them bullshit? What world do you live in? The President (supposedly) makes $250,000--he's barely middle upper class? Check out the 2002 US Income Distribution taken by the Census Bureau! Let's see, of the 111,278,000 households surveyed, 18,156,000 fell between $90,000-$250,000, while $1,472,000 were above $250,000. You say the top sixteen percent "barely upper middle class"? My God, the Urban-Brookings institute classifies its economic classes by quintiles--and the fourth quintile falls between $40,000 and $75,000. You're calling out bullshit and dumbassery on the historians? Did you even check your arguments before spouting them off?

You do realize that the percentage of the Bush tax cut recieved by the top 1% is growing with each year? That in 2010, 1.4 million taxpayers will be recieving $121 billion of the $234 billion in tax cuts? That most of the money set for the middle to lower-class tax breaks has already been set aside, at at the end of his 10-year tax plan of the approximately 1.3 trillion in cuts 0.5 trillion will have gone to that wealthiest 1%? Try the Citizens for Tax Justice, or if you feel they're too liberal go for the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Dune is a good reference. It is a work of fiction, but it raises some valid philosophical points. Humanity doesn't think much about the future.

I would argue that the administration's actions aren't even beneficial in the short term, though. Not for the world at large at large, not for the US. Not even good for him and his clique, as he's discovering.

#1 Nobody freaked out this hardcore with the other wars in our history
#2 Even when people freaked out a bit, we're apparently still fine
#3 I'll finish this tonight


and yes, academia is monolithically controlled by hardore leftists, you're right, fifthfiend!

I thought the President's payheck was raised to $400,000 a year. Anyway, 90,000 to 250,000 isn't filthy rich, but it is most definitely upper middle class. 'Barely' isn't correct there.

Bush is however responsible for lessening are reputation by a considerable degree.

Oops, my bad. You're right, it got doubled in 1999.

Yep yep yep. He offends foreign officials. It's not only his bad policies and single-minded vision of American dominance, he's also a really awful diplomat.

Yeah, they have. There have always been anti-war protesters for every war America's gone into. The more sketchy the war, the more protesters--remember that little skirmish in Vietnam?

Who knows if we could be better? Anyway, the political climate is much different than it was during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, even World War II. Globalization, my friend, globalization. America's economic and political future depends on cooperation and negotiation with the rest of the world, not throwing our power around like the biggest chimp in the tribe. We can't rush blindly into conflicts and assume everything's going to be OK.

Additionally, even if it does turn out fine for us what about everyone else? What about the people of Iraq? What about the dead and tortured civilians? Good foreign policy takes into consideration not only how it will affect one's own people, but also the people of other countries.