George Bush: Worst American president in history

[BJean 16]

Sometimes in this greed driven, power grabbing world there aren't any.

[Carlene 12]

If you had had a choice of giving Halliburton et al massive lucrative contracts, or bringing back the draft to do it all with the military, which would you choose?

My only quarrel with using private contractors is the no-compete way that Halliburton was awarded the work. It should go to the lowest qualified bidder.

[BJean 16]

Carlene: You're kidding, right? Have you forgotten the title of this thread? Don't you remember how this whole thing started? And why?

[Carlene 12]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 — President Bush threatened on Thursday to veto legislation that would require the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to obtain lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

[gailannr 1]

Jack and Mousecrazy,

Thank you so much for your courage, intelligence and "voice" in the wilderness for many of us.

I was curious on both of your thoughts on what Amidenishad (spelling) and Ortega meeting with the "war monger" Chavez from Venzuela is about? Why would someone from Iran have a meeting with someone from Venzuela unless they were up to some kind of "no good?" Is the left really that blind?

[Carlene 12]

Carlene: You're kidding, right? Have you forgotten the title of this thread? Don't you remember how this whole thing started? And why?

Haven't forgotten that this is the Bush-haters thread, but you will have to be more specific. I'm old, remember?

[Carlene 12]

Why would someone from Iran have a meeting with someone from Venzuela unless they were up to some kind of "no good?" Is the left really that blind?

Well, evidently we are. Or maybe the right-wingers are just suffering from a case of guilty conscience, considering all the "no good" we've been guilty of ourselves in the past. Didn't we have some clandestine meetings with the Contras? How about when we trained Osama bin Laden to fight the Russians? Oh, wait....I fogot! We're the good guys!!!!!! We don't have to play by the same rules as everyone else, do we?

[mousecrazy 2]

gailannr,

I never can spell his name right, so let me just call him the President of Iran. I would say there can only be one reason for him to go on the World Anti-American Tour (I believe he calls it the United Against America tour), and that would be to pull together his resources and support to continue his Quest for world chaos so his messianic world view can be achieved. To achieve this, there cannot be stability or peace. This is where the "wage peace" supporters have it a little confused. Not everyone wants peace. He would be on the top of that list.

Even Clinton cut off Iran. This is not new. Chavez backs Iran's nuclear intentions. Clearly, this is not going to be good news for the U.S. Chavez has the $$ and Iran has the hate.

My world view see the War on Terror as a war with many fronts...right now, we have drawn the enemy to one area, Iraq. This is an advantage for us. We have a concentration of effort in the one area, which makes it easier for us, and we are also able to protect the petroleum supply, which like it or not, is important to us. Imagine your life without it. If Hussein did not have WMD, and I'm stealing this a little from Dennis Miller, this will go down as the worst bluff in history. Well, oops, now we're back to Groundhog Day again. Look to Iran and Syria for the answers to this Great Mystery.

If you are not of the opinion that there is an effort to destroy America, do some more research, Carlene, and read the actual words of the leaders of Iran and Venezuela. They say it in plain language. Are they not credible? Are they too silly to be believed? I believe them. Check out Mr. North Korea. It's all connected. I think it's better to draw them to one area. It might not be the perfect plan, but it's better than sitting around here waiting on another visit. It's better than reading about more and more killing fields and mass graves and torture and rape rooms. I do not believe it is possible to talk them into "liking" us. In fact, I don't really want them to.

[gailannr 1]

Carlene and to whom it may concern,

I think we should all stop living in the past and be very concerned about the future. Viet Nam was 35 years ago and so was some of the other past history you mentioned. I live in the present as much as I can. Doesn't it worry you guys just a little about what "they" (those people that hate us so much) will try to do to get to America? Do you ever wonder what "they" might be planning? No, seriously! Four airplanes, 3000 people dead! That was easy. Tell me you worry just a tad!

[mousecrazy 2]

That's the direction I've encouraged here...we DO have a situation here, and it's in the present, and it concerns the future. There are forces who want to destroy our country. Is that okay with everybody? Not me.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

re: "They take resources and give bombs."

We also produce most of the world's food, medical, farm, technological and many other important segments of industrialized society.

That would be nice if it were true, but we import as much food as we export, much of our drugs are produced by multinational companies based in Germany and other places, much of our medical equipment (MRI, CT-Scan) is made overseas and just about all our consumer electronics are foreign made even when they have US sounding names like RCA and Emerson.

We use lots of world resources. We also produce a lot of benefits and goods that are in fact donated to other people. Just how could that happen without large corporations?

We are 5% of the world's population and use 25% of the world's resources.

This country is based on the profit motive. That requires a certain orientation to making various choices and decisions enabling that end.

Just how do we eliminate that basic human drive, so we can be congruent with the notion we 'should just give it all away'....

There is a large gap between giving it all away and having a fair distribution. When some people make more money per day that other hard-working people make in a lifetime, things have gone too far in one direction.

Does the phrase 'to each according to his need; from each according to his ability' seem familiar??? How well did that work?

You are referring to Communism. Communism has never been tried except for the use of its name. If Communism was in effect in Cuba (for instance), the man who cleans Castro's toilet would receive the same rate of pay as Castro does. Actually, the toilet cleaner would probably receive more money since he would probably be raising a family and have more needs than the "Old Man" Castro.

And please explain just why WE should, and who else in the world actually DOES, support governments that are opposed to them in the first place?

Those governments might not be opposed to us if we stayed out of their business. When country A has a feud with country B and the USA supports country A with weapons and other assistance, can the USA blame country B for not liking the USA? When the only reason that the USA likes A is that both the USA and country A dislike country C, but when country A is a dictatorship, while country B is a democracy, then how hypocritical is it of the USA to claim they want democracy to flourish?

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Carlene and to whom it may concern,

I think we should all stop living in the past and be very concerned about the future. Viet Nam was 35 years ago and so was some of the other past history you mentioned. I live in the present as much as I can. Doesn't it worry you guys just a little about what "they" (those people that hate us so much) will try to do to get to America? Do you ever wonder what "they" might be planning? No, seriously! Four airplanes, 3000 people dead! That was easy. Tell me you worry just a tad!

I worry about the idiot in the White House who was warned about possible hijackings of commercial airliners in a CIA briefing on August 6, 2001 and did not have the nerve to tell the airlines and airports to tighten security. If there had been no attack (because the extra security stopped it in its tracks), how would he have faced the angry flying public (who never would have known the security stopped the possible attacks)?

BuSh needed 911.

[Betsyjane 2]

Humanitarian efforts don't give us the right to invade a country.

I am TERRIBLY worried about Iran and a coalition with Venezuela or anyone else. I am very afraid of Iran's hatred. I also think that we become a target for hatred when we invade sovereign countries. North Korea arms in part because we are armed and pointing at them. We can then turn around and say they are the bad guys, and that escalates it another notch. I just think we have to look at the history instead of taking a snapshot of today, or we will just keep doing the same finger pointing back and forth across borders until somebody gets blown up in a much bigger way. I don't believe we can talk it out with suicide bombers, but I do think in many cases, diplomatic solutions are not as valued by our current leaders as is duking it out.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

BuSh called Iraq, Iran and North Korea and "Axis of Evil" (proving that he does not know the meaning of the word "Axis") and then bombed and invaded Iraq.

What would you do if you were the leader of Iran or North Korea?

Get ready for war. What else?

Put the shoe on the other foot. If China called Tibet and the USA the countries least worthy of surviving in the world and then invaded Tibet, what would you expect our government to do?

Now there is talk about war with Iran. What do you expect North Korea to do?

BTW: The US will not mess with Venezuela because Chavez has signed deals with China to co-develope oil fields in South America and Cuba.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Jack, do you believe because a country says it is a communist country, that it is a Communist country?

If so, then I am a 14 foot tall women with a 99 DDD bra size.

Leaders who wanted to take hold of a country through revolution promised the masses income equality (Communism), but said that it would only happen after the revolution was complete.

Well, they used the name communism after they threw out the old government, but they never finished the revolution.

That is pie in the sky rhetoric. But then again, so is capitalism.

No one can work hard enough to justify making millions of dollars a day when a man and wife combined both working full time for Home Depot don't make that much in a lifetime. The CEO who retired from Exxon-Mobil made $500,000,000 per year. That is 1.4 million a day. A husband (sales) and wife (cashier) both working full time at Home Depot would make about 1.4 million in their lives. At Wal-Mart it would be much less.

No, I don't expect them to make the same salary. But for a worker to make as much or less in a year as another person makes per day is not good for the moral of the worker. But that is not it. It takes the worker his whole life and a part time job to boot, and he still doesn't make what that other person makes in one day.