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How do you remember president G.W Bush

Discussion in 'Serious' started by D3s3rt_F0x, 17 Jan 2009.

  1. Bungle

    Bungle Rainbow Warrior

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    How do you remember president G.W Bush?

    Surely thats a no brainer.;)
     
  2. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Tricky one, that. My impression is that Bush does not have a developed enough moral center to really know the difference between good and evil. He's stuck somewhere at the eight-year old level. But then again, a lot of people are...
     
  3. Rocket733

    Rocket733 Austerity - It's the only way

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    Candy, oil. What's the difference?
     
  4. C-Sniper

    C-Sniper Stop Trolling this space Ądmins!

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    One can cause a stomach ache and the other can cause death, destruction, and world wide turmoil.
     
  5. tacticus

    tacticus What's a Dremel?

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    How many foreign terrorist attacks have their been in the USA prior to 2001?

    How about the 30 or 40 years prior You'll find that they are frakking rare events



    Bush and the other neocons removed condoms from public health programs in africa
    prohibited any funding to go to organisations that mention abortion in any way.

    btw that's 2 months of iraq
    that's about 2% of the 1.3TRILLION dollars that the US DOD has lost\misplaced\cannot account for.
    and how many billions were cut from domestic research\health programs by shrub?



    Because the quite detailed positions on his campaign site and afterwards were just blank pages.
     
  6. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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  7. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which often funds programs through religious organizations, has come under criticism for promoting faith-based ideology over science, emphasizing abstinence programs and giving inaccurate information about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission.

    True: Bush launched his $1.2 billion malaria initiative in June 2005 with the goal of reducing malaria-related deaths in 15 African countries by 50 percent. Why? Read on...

    He used the "G" word (genocide), goodie. But although he arranged to provide financial and logistical assistance, he did not commit his troops like he readily did in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US, like the UK and the Europe has repeatedly condemned the atrocities but have failed to carry out any of their numerous threats. A US Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson met President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum in January. He left trumpeting a 60-day ceasefire he had persuaded Mr Bashir to agree to. Within the week Sudanese planes were again dropping bombs in Darfur.

    Tripled actually, but still none to shabby. So where does this generosity come from?
    The policy on Africa is simply a variation on that in the Middle East: conflict investment coupled with Strings Attached aid. Keep African countries under Christian rule (or move them towards it) rather than Muslim rule, keep them beholden to foreign investors, secure access to their natural resources before other political powers can.

    And that's what it is all about: there has been evidence of the Sudanese government's murder of civilians to facilitate the extraction of oil. The U.S.-funded Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, which investigates attacks in southern Sudan concluded that "as the Government of Sudan sought to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oil fields, vast tracts of the Western Upper Nile Region in southern Sudan became the focus of extensive military operations." Sudan has purchased about $100m in arms from China. PetroChina, its national petroleum company has extensive investments in Sudan.

    You should have learned by now that everything that the Bush administration did has a self-serving agenda. Just follow the money. It usually leads to oil.
     
    Last edited: 23 Jan 2009
  8. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    yep, i'm sure the american oil kings bribed bush into the war to grab as much oil as possible. At one point they were pumping it out faster than it could be refined, so they started pumping it in there old oil wells for storage. Thats how crazy it is.
     
  9. Thatguy119

    Thatguy119 Minimodder

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    Nexxo, that picture sums it up much better than any text could have.
     
  10. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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  11. ChArMz

    ChArMz What's a Dremel?

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    Kill Bill 3 OBAMA :D
     
  12. Yourcomputer

    Yourcomputer What's a Dremel?

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    I believe most of the people here have skewed views on the presidency. Just as many back in the day thought President Hoover was the reason for the depression (hoovervilles anyone?), when today we know it was overproduction, everybody here is assuming the president is the reason for all of our troubles. He is not.

    In reality, the president is a figurehead and basically the easiest person to blame crap on. Backing: The president CANNOT spend one red cent of government money. Truth time, how many of you people knew that?

    If you're going to blame all of these problems on somebody in the government, you're better off blaming it on the entire congress. They are the ones every single government decision goes through. If you think Bush makes absolutely horrible decision, and its so infinitely apparent to you, just think it has to go through 535 people, some Democrat, some republican and a few 3rd party and all of these "horrible bills that a mentally retarded 4 year old in a coma could have come up with" wasn't decided ultimately by president Bush, they were decided by hundreds of people that every US citizen elected.

    I also believe G-dub did better as the president then any single one of us on this forum could possibly do. It's perhaps the most stressful job on the planet, everybody watching over you, every mistake magnified, every correct action wrote off as nothing special and people who frankly don't know shiet complaining that "you're doing it wrong"

    After having said that, I am a Democrat, I've been for Obama since right before he decided to throw his hat in the ring. I believe he's been very popular, albeit for the wrong reasons, and we need a strong figurehead to assure the American people. I believe Obama is going to have a smoother and overall more memorable presidency then Bush, but that even if he is "teh roxzorz" it's all going through congress, Obama isn't single handedly acting as a Superman, he's a figurehead through and through.

    *Rant over*

    *Waiting for rebuttal*
     
  13. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    We all did. Nobod is blaming the Bush administration for the credit crunch --at least not directly. But all that money wasted on Iraq and Afghanistan sure would have come in handy now.

    I think that possibly you are not drawing all the connecting lines. For the first six years of his presidency, Congress was controlled by his Republican party.

    And yes, I could do a better job. Really, no joking. Even Obama is already doing a better job, and he's only been in office for a few days.
     
  14. Yourcomputer

    Yourcomputer What's a Dremel?

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    You know that money *wasted* on Iraq and Afghanistan isn't really entirely wasted. Its not like we just made it rain on them and left. That money is spent paying American manufactures making weapons, vehicles, ect. A lot of that money goes towards jobs which in a sense means a lot of that money isn't wasted.

    I know the majority of congress was Republican for the most part of his administration, but you can't now shift it from being Bush's fault to it being the Republican's fault.

    All of those 535 people are elected by the American people. If the majority of them were agreeing with traditional Republican views, then of course the majority of congress is going to vote a certain way.

    People are just hating on the republicans because its become fashionable. Theres a certain mentality that "Oh I didn't vote for Bush back then so I'm right." or "When i voted for Bush I thought he was going to be a non-conservative Republican, so don't blame me".

    And I'm pretty sure none of us here could do a better job as president.

    It's like saying wow....Kobe Bryant really screwed up in the Championship series....He's so horrible, I could play better basketball then him because I'd know to play better defense on Paul Pierce.

    If you've ever headed up a decision making committee, you know its hard to come to a solid conclusion a lot of the time, well the president has to make hundreds of very tough decisions weekly, He is basically working 24/7, constantly under pressure to make a decision of which lives, money, the well being of the American public and his reputation are all on the line for.

    Bush simply picked lives and the well being of the American people over his reputation. Whether or not it paid off is impossible to answer since we can't go back in time and re-do it and see.

    I will simply remember Bush as the president that it became fashionable to hate because he was in a wrong place, wrong time scenario.

    I'm sure quite a few of you should be disappointed in Obama come the end of his 4th term, because all of his idea's he's thrown out to gain popularity, are frankly impossible to do budget-wise. He's either going to have to raise taxes a ludacris amount or cut some of his ideas out.
     
  15. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Yeah, and we're seeing the economical benefits now, aren't we? How is American manufacturing doing?

    Where the money really went:
    I suggest that you read the rest of that article.

    Is there a difference? It is commonly understood that we are talking about the Bush administration. But just because other Germans were complicit doesn't make Hitler just a guy trying to do his best with a post-war Depression economy either.

    I'm pretty sure some of us could. Mostly those of us who have been tearing their hair out in frustration because we predicted, sometimes years ahead, the disastrous consequences of the decisions he made. Those who did not see it coming are perhaps as dumb as he was.

    If a surgeon botches up your operation, you don't want to hear: "Yeah, but it's a really hard job". He chose that career, didn't he? He gets paid for it handsomely. And frankly, my surgeon colleagues are doing a tougher job for less pay. If their decision causes people to die, it is usually under their very hands and they get to explain themselves to the family, face-to-face. The president has it easy. He has not one-tenth of the accountability that doctors, nurses, policemen on firemen (or indeed, myself) have on a daily basis.

    And the truth is: the invasion of Iraq was already on the charts before 9/11. But there was no plan beyond the invasion; no exit strategy. It was pitifully amateurish by anyone's standard .

    No, he picked the wellbeing of oil companies over his people.

    Many of us saw his decisions and predicted disaster. All those dire predictions have come true. Now either we're all psychics, or political geniuses or, more likely, it takes just a modicum of brains to understand the problems that he was facing and what would be the wrong thing to do. Just because you can't see it does not mean it is difficult to see.

    You forget that most of us have been debating these topics for years in here. We're a bit informed. With all respect, I don't think that you are.

    No we won't; we already understand that he has been handed a poisoned chalice and that it would be foolish to expect miracles. We can see ahead, see? It's the basis of governing.
     
    Last edited: 25 Jan 2009
  16. C-Sniper

    C-Sniper Stop Trolling this space Ądmins!

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    Except for closing GTMO/CIA Black Sites, the transparency of the government, and others. Those don't seem to have any effect on the budget. Also at least Obama is listening to the republicans and taking suggestions for how the economy should be fixed.
     
  17. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    more like a explosive hot potato...
     
  18. Yourcomputer

    Yourcomputer What's a Dremel?

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    Agreed.


    Comparing surgery to the presidency is a comparative fallacy, they are just too different.

    I still stand by my arguments. Bush is a modern-day Hoover. All in all not a horrible president, just wrong place, wrong time.

    Republicans and Bush are two different things, while being part of the Republican party means you agree with most conservative views, that doesn't make decisions you make set in stone.

    Saying any semi-educated Joe could see his decision at the time would end badly is asinine. Democrats and Republicans backed the war after 9/11, and saying all politicians are mentally unfit for their job is a completely untrue stereotype. Most politicians, I believe, are in the top fifth of the world in intelligence. They aren't stupid, its impossible to get every decision right.


    I'll go into more detail later on, I have to leave right now though..........
     
  19. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Really? Both are jobs involving complex decision making based on complex, multi-factorial and constantly evolving information. Both have far reaching consequences for people's lives. Both involve management and development of services and resources and the balancing of needs and interests. What? You think it is just about operating on people? Not at the consultant level, dude.

    No, I'm saying that any reasonably bright person could do his job. You forget that there were literally thousands of people, both politicians and ordinary voters, who quite vocally protested every step of the way against the Iraq war and predicted exactly the dire results we see now.

    This is not about not getting every decision right. This is about getting most of them totally, completely and persistently wrong. An utter inability to learn from mistakes gain new insights and change approach. I mean, I don't know if you have been keeping up with events, but in the halls of the UN Bush has been a laughing stock. Quite literally the object of ridicule. During the debate of the global banking crisis at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2008, his speech mentioned the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. Politicians were observed shaking their heads in disbelief.

    I cannot remember when I supposedly said that "all politicians are mentally unfit for their job". Most politicians are reasonably bright, but not all of them (e.g. Dan Quayle). Some are chosen for certain positions specifically because they are not (again...). Moreover intellect is not enough to protect from the usual human weaknesses and stupidities such as greed, hubris, lust for power, narcissism and plain dumb beliefs. Careers are subject to Peter principles and decisions to cater to the voting public and important party donors, to Abilene paradoxes and trading favours... And why is it that politicians want to be politicians again? Think about it. It is a complex business, but not the way you think.

    I've thrown you some facts to back up my arguments above. I note that you dig your heels in but do not address them. I can see how you consider Bush not a bad president.
     
  20. cyrilthefish

    cyrilthefish What's a Dremel?

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    Well looking back, Obama has done more good in a week than Bush did in nearly an entire decade...

    I've actually gone from despising anything that American politics comes up with to actually being very jealous that they have a president who (for once) is intelligent and trying to fix/improve things.
    I'd kill for a similar prime minister in the UK, instead were stuck with an essentially unelected one, throwing money at the banks, drowning the UK in debt, whilst spending money that we simply don't have on more un-needed and insane 1984-style police-state schemes...

    I want an Obama for us too :waah:

    Can we clone him and give him a UK accent?
     

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