Some interesting reflections on US politics

[trixtah]

...and more specifically, the legacy of GWB.

I read somewhere recently - and I'm not sure where, probably the Huffington Post - that they are grateful for 8 years' of GWB's cockups, because they actually made it possible for a black man to be elected president of the US now. The "no more of this shit" vote did a lot to boost the Democrat vote, to be sure, and even those southern Democrats whose take on the race issue is less than nuanced.

Then a nicely angry "lest we forget" post from William Rivers Pitt.

Your greatness will be defined by how we rise to overcome and undo what you have done. Your greatness will stand forever if we never, ever forget the hard, bitter lessons you taught us.

Ok, "we will never forget" is one of those statements that sounds good, but rarely happens in a historical context, but still. Quality ranting.

Finally, I actually heard about a conspiracy theory that actually has some slight plausability to it. So Bush was warned about 9/11, albeit not with the specifics. Did he want a war then, and therefore didn't work too hard to avert the disaster (in whatever form it might take)? Hm.

Comments

[baglieg.livejournal.com]

A handful of people in his administration had been involved with an insane neocon think tank which always pushed for regime change in Iraq, had reported in 2000 that its militaristic foreign policy goals would be advanced fastest if a "Pearl Harbor-like event" gave the US an excuse to get into some juicy wars, and suggested, nine days after the WTC incident, that the best thing to do in the circumstances would be to invade Iraq and kill Saddam. 9/11 left these men really jizzing their pants at the opportunity to go blow up some foreigners.

Even bringing this stuff up sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but I didn't get this stuff from the conspiracy nuts, the bloody neocons put it right on their crazy website. Conspiracy or no conspiracy, it is at least clear that Bush was friends with some people who wanted a war.

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

It was very clear from the moment the election process for 2000 that Bush was For War and Family; it was evident, at least to me, that he would be a war president whether or not the world at the time justified it. 2001 still surprised me, but it didn't surprise me that he immediately attacked Iraq.

[alphaloria.livejournal.com]

re 911, i read long after that the afghanistan invasion was a pre-planned move as of march 2001. this was according to several international news sources such as the BBC and one of the major indian news sites. apparently some Big Oil wanted to build pipelines through the country and the taliban wouldn't let them.

also flight 93 was shot down. don't believe anything you read that says otherwise. someone i know and trust was working for a newspaper at the time and was told by a source he considers 150% credible, and then he was told "but we aren't printing it."

yeah there's a lot of crap conspiracy theory, but some of it sounds possible. i read a LOT of stuff afterwards - but the whole thing hit a little close to home as my brother was working across the street from the WTC at the time. i woke up to a voice mail message from my mom, along the lines of "your brother is ok, but the twin towers were hit and collapsed."