Reply #10: Hard for us to see maybe, that Bush is "perilously weak," but there is a [View All]

a lot of truth in it. Some 60% of Americans disapprove of Bush--about the same amount who don't trust his word--and also about the same amount who have opposed his horrendous, illegal war from the beginning, before the invasion (Feb. '03), with even greater disagreement on other Bush foreign and domestic policy (for instance, 63% oppose torture "under any circumstances"--May '04). His return to power in 2004 was based on NON-TRANSPARENT vote tabulation, by two rightwing Bushite corporations, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code--a phony election system arranged by the two biggest Bushite crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney.

It's been obvious all along that most Americans despise his war and everything he stands for--and that the great progressive majority in this country has been hoodwinked into believing that they are the minority, by the five CEO's who control all news and opinion (and clean up in tidy war profiteering and monopolies of our public airwaves).

A regime built on lie after lie, on secrecy, on spying, on spin, on false and phony imagery and dictated "talking points"--a house of cards--guilty of mass death and thievery, and treason.

The super-rich and the nutso 'christians' who promote or buy his crap are--and always were--a minority of maybe 30%, with a confused, muddle-brained 10% sometimes joining them. That's IT. I don't think Bush has ever had any more support than that--40%, at best--and all the rest is war profiteering corporate news monopoly manipulation.

The Bush junta is scary as shit, but I don't think it can stand. There are too many of us. Our country is too big, too open-minded, too multi-cultured and the trend of history, both here and worldwide, and over the millenia, is democratic and progressive.

It may be difficult to recover from this looting by our Corporate Rulers--and from the frontal assault on our Constitution, and on everything we value. And the damage goes well beyond our shores--to the hatred and contempt in which our country is now held by one and all, and involves neglect and destruction of many kinds. But I think the lesson is in determining what "strength" and "weakness" really are.

"Strength" is not the ability to strut around the world like a jack-booted little emperor. It is not shoving bad government and theft by the rich down the throats of the poor. It is not bullying, and spying, and blackmailing, and lying your way to power. Real strength is flexible, compassionate and seeks the good of all. Real strength is being able to GIVE UP brute strength, and to prefer a cooperative, peaceful world, where everyone may prosper.

And listening to the people whom you serve is not "weakness"! "Weakness" is being deaf to others, being stupidly set upon your own egocentric course, in your tiny egocentric world. "Weakness" is not even being able to recognize what service to the good of all is. It is being without core values of any kind--having nothing that moves you except a crude kind of acquisitiveness, seeking power over others and material wealth, so that, in the end, you are alone and without the resources of real friendship and community.

Bush and the people around him--and behind him--I don't think have a clue what real strength is about. They may not be done with looting us and bullying us and everyone else in the world; and god knows what mischief they are still capable of; but I have for a long time seen them as empty people, who can't fathom what the rest of us mean by peace and justice, nor do they have any of the creativity, inspiration, vision, competence, and sense of duty that moves most of us. They are liars and fakes, whose main motive is looting. They thus have no basis for ruling over us.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Bush being "perilously weak" means that we, the people and the true sovereigns on this land, are strong. It would be a peril to almost no one if Bush were to "fall"--be impeached, be tried, be forced to resign in disgrace. The writer's term "perilously weak" is not used with much understanding of democracy. It is a term that would apply in a situation of jackals or sharks turning on each other. Weak? Perilously weak? So what if he can't shove the UAE ports deal down our throats?* That means--hopefully--that we still have a democracy, and I consider that to be real strength.

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*(The UAE deal may not be over yet. It was possibly a bait and switch to contrive Cheney's retirement package through Halliburton control of US ports. But it's still true that Bush blustered about a veto, etc., and was unable to shove it down our throats in the manner designed.)