Just to document it:
Feb. 18th, 2003 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasSo: the recent history of the United States:
For eight years, we had balanced budgets, peace, and prosperity. There were some worrisome things happening -- for instance, people who hated the president used psychological torture on a woman and her husband, who were friends of the president, to attempt to get them to say (untrue) bad things about him. The husband broke, and later died from the abuse, but the woman held firm.
But, other than that: the economy boomed, somewhat safely -- the president made sure to loosen regulations in areas of the economy where innovation was key, but maintain regulations in areas where consistency was key. North Korea was something of a danger, so the president decided to talk to them, and put them in a situation in which it was in their own best interest to be part of the world community -- not a risk-free strategy, but a pretty damn good one all told. Iraq was being contained and sanctioned -- again, not a risk-free strategy, and not a permanent one, but a somewhat stable situation for the time being. The real danger was from terrorist organizations, which the president had noticed real early on were starting to organize, which made them more dangerous, but also meant that, if folks were real skilled, they might be watchable. So the president made it a priority to watch al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Unfortunately, evil forces inside the United States wanted to hurt the president so bad that they impeached him. Which may have distracted him while he was hunting down bin Laden. But he did prevent al-Qaeda from doing very much successfully within the United States.
The economy was starting to soften near the end of that president's term, but he had plans in place to try to make sure that, although the amazing boom might have been over, maybe there wouldn't be a huge crash.
Then there was an election, and the forces of evil took over. They were able to use the information which they'd hounded a man to death to get to tarnish someone completely different, and they put their guy in.
The first thing he did was to change all the regulations in the economy, so that the things which required stability were unregulated. The next thing he did was to stop watching over al-Qaeda.
Then Enron decided to play with California's electricity to make more money. They destroyed the economy of California, destroying the high-tech industry. Now, it's true that the high tech industry was in trouble before that, but, like I said, the previous president had plans in place to mitigate some of that damage. The evil president just decided to fuck 'em over. (And THAT'S what we should hate Ken Lay for, even more than his creative accounting. His creative accounting was illegal, but only hurt his own company and stockholders. His fucking over all of California was legal, because Bush said he could, but hurt many more people.)
So the high tech industry collapsed. And Bush discovered that that had been the linchpin that had been holding together the economy. Now, Bush had been working his busy little beaver butt off trying to destroy the economy in other ways, too, but that was what really did it.
Bush continued to make policy decisions that damaged the economy. I'm going to drop that thread for now -- just know that he continued, and continues, to do everything in his power to destroy it.
Then the World Trade Center, and a wing of the Pentagon, were destroyed by al-Qaeda, the organization that Clinton had been warning us about, and using resources to watch over, and which the Clinton transition team had highlighted for the Bush team as the biggest threat to America, and which the Bush team had decided to completely ignore, because Clinton had been watching al-Qaeda, and the Bushies hate Clinton. This is true. Three thousand people died on Sept 11, 2001, because Bush hates Clinton so much that Bush's people wouldn't listen to Clinton's people.
The Bush administration ran around for a while like a chicken with its head cut off, and then decided that suspending civil liberties was a good thing to do. They haven't managed to do so quite yet, but they've been trying.
They found out that the Taliban was evil. (Which people had been saying for a long time. I remember saying, in the first half of 2001, when the Taliban made all the Hindus in Afghanistan wear yellow badges, "I hope that, if Bush decides to start a war to distract us from the economy, he decides to take out the Taliban. At least that way, there will be some good come out of this.)
Oh, and remember: Bush's father was one of the folks that put the Taliban in power in the first place. Just so's you know.
Anyway, after Sept 11, the Bushies eventually decided to go after the Taliban, which wasn't totally irrational. And they smashed them pretty good.
Of course, now, the Taliban are regrouping, and it's the Germans who are doing their best to protect democracy loving Afghanis from the Taliban, because the Americans aren't doing jack.
Then Bush decided, what the hell, as long as we're attacking one group of people, why not attack Iraq? I've still not figured out his logic here, except that a bunch of his advisors have always wanted to. And I find it suspicious that there are already plans in place for which American oil companies that Dick Cheney has interests in will control the Iraqi oil fields, but there are no plans in place for how to rebuild a nation.
And Bush has pissed off North Korea, which can nuke the West Coast of the US. But why should Bush care about that? The West Coast mainly has liberals.
Okay, I'm too angry to continue this right now. Just let the record show: Clinton's administration foresaw and was taking steps to prevent all the problems that beset the United States right now. Maybe they couldn't have prevented it. But they were trying. And Gore would have made those attempts, and maybe could have prevented some of this. Bush's administration was warned that all of this could happen, and was given the plans to prevent it, and STILL managed to be blindsided by it all. When they weren't going out of their way to make the situations worse.
Can we impeach based on incompetence?
For eight years, we had balanced budgets, peace, and prosperity. There were some worrisome things happening -- for instance, people who hated the president used psychological torture on a woman and her husband, who were friends of the president, to attempt to get them to say (untrue) bad things about him. The husband broke, and later died from the abuse, but the woman held firm.
But, other than that: the economy boomed, somewhat safely -- the president made sure to loosen regulations in areas of the economy where innovation was key, but maintain regulations in areas where consistency was key. North Korea was something of a danger, so the president decided to talk to them, and put them in a situation in which it was in their own best interest to be part of the world community -- not a risk-free strategy, but a pretty damn good one all told. Iraq was being contained and sanctioned -- again, not a risk-free strategy, and not a permanent one, but a somewhat stable situation for the time being. The real danger was from terrorist organizations, which the president had noticed real early on were starting to organize, which made them more dangerous, but also meant that, if folks were real skilled, they might be watchable. So the president made it a priority to watch al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Unfortunately, evil forces inside the United States wanted to hurt the president so bad that they impeached him. Which may have distracted him while he was hunting down bin Laden. But he did prevent al-Qaeda from doing very much successfully within the United States.
The economy was starting to soften near the end of that president's term, but he had plans in place to try to make sure that, although the amazing boom might have been over, maybe there wouldn't be a huge crash.
Then there was an election, and the forces of evil took over. They were able to use the information which they'd hounded a man to death to get to tarnish someone completely different, and they put their guy in.
The first thing he did was to change all the regulations in the economy, so that the things which required stability were unregulated. The next thing he did was to stop watching over al-Qaeda.
Then Enron decided to play with California's electricity to make more money. They destroyed the economy of California, destroying the high-tech industry. Now, it's true that the high tech industry was in trouble before that, but, like I said, the previous president had plans in place to mitigate some of that damage. The evil president just decided to fuck 'em over. (And THAT'S what we should hate Ken Lay for, even more than his creative accounting. His creative accounting was illegal, but only hurt his own company and stockholders. His fucking over all of California was legal, because Bush said he could, but hurt many more people.)
So the high tech industry collapsed. And Bush discovered that that had been the linchpin that had been holding together the economy. Now, Bush had been working his busy little beaver butt off trying to destroy the economy in other ways, too, but that was what really did it.
Bush continued to make policy decisions that damaged the economy. I'm going to drop that thread for now -- just know that he continued, and continues, to do everything in his power to destroy it.
Then the World Trade Center, and a wing of the Pentagon, were destroyed by al-Qaeda, the organization that Clinton had been warning us about, and using resources to watch over, and which the Clinton transition team had highlighted for the Bush team as the biggest threat to America, and which the Bush team had decided to completely ignore, because Clinton had been watching al-Qaeda, and the Bushies hate Clinton. This is true. Three thousand people died on Sept 11, 2001, because Bush hates Clinton so much that Bush's people wouldn't listen to Clinton's people.
The Bush administration ran around for a while like a chicken with its head cut off, and then decided that suspending civil liberties was a good thing to do. They haven't managed to do so quite yet, but they've been trying.
They found out that the Taliban was evil. (Which people had been saying for a long time. I remember saying, in the first half of 2001, when the Taliban made all the Hindus in Afghanistan wear yellow badges, "I hope that, if Bush decides to start a war to distract us from the economy, he decides to take out the Taliban. At least that way, there will be some good come out of this.)
Oh, and remember: Bush's father was one of the folks that put the Taliban in power in the first place. Just so's you know.
Anyway, after Sept 11, the Bushies eventually decided to go after the Taliban, which wasn't totally irrational. And they smashed them pretty good.
Of course, now, the Taliban are regrouping, and it's the Germans who are doing their best to protect democracy loving Afghanis from the Taliban, because the Americans aren't doing jack.
Then Bush decided, what the hell, as long as we're attacking one group of people, why not attack Iraq? I've still not figured out his logic here, except that a bunch of his advisors have always wanted to. And I find it suspicious that there are already plans in place for which American oil companies that Dick Cheney has interests in will control the Iraqi oil fields, but there are no plans in place for how to rebuild a nation.
And Bush has pissed off North Korea, which can nuke the West Coast of the US. But why should Bush care about that? The West Coast mainly has liberals.
Okay, I'm too angry to continue this right now. Just let the record show: Clinton's administration foresaw and was taking steps to prevent all the problems that beset the United States right now. Maybe they couldn't have prevented it. But they were trying. And Gore would have made those attempts, and maybe could have prevented some of this. Bush's administration was warned that all of this could happen, and was given the plans to prevent it, and STILL managed to be blindsided by it all. When they weren't going out of their way to make the situations worse.
Can we impeach based on incompetence?