What has Bush done for America?
I really must ask.. What has he done?
Let me draw a picture with an analogy:
Take a suburban neighborhood and the house at the end of the street is the most expensive. The owner of this house can't afford the mortgage for the long haul so he decides to invade another house and rob the "gold from the closet" (oil). While in the home the children of the invaded home are raped and told that their father was bad and that a new order would come to the household.
Ok,,,, where are we? This "war on terror" where are we exactly?
How much blood do we need for oil?
How many homes will be invaded so that the mortgage of the large home (America) can be paid for the next 50 years?
Discuss
Fellowship
Let me draw a picture with an analogy:
Take a suburban neighborhood and the house at the end of the street is the most expensive. The owner of this house can't afford the mortgage for the long haul so he decides to invade another house and rob the "gold from the closet" (oil). While in the home the children of the invaded home are raped and told that their father was bad and that a new order would come to the household.
Ok,,,, where are we? This "war on terror" where are we exactly?
How much blood do we need for oil?
How many homes will be invaded so that the mortgage of the large home (America) can be paid for the next 50 years?
Discuss
Fellowship
Comments
This is not energy policy.
Fellowship
Originally posted by Fellowship
For the record I do not blame Bush for this alone. I blame US energy policy of the last 40 years. I do question the "strong leadership" some say Bush displays when in fact Bush has not taken a progressive and innovative approach to prepare our country for the future. I think the only leadership I have seen is a race to calibrate geo-political and international business structure to a spec which can be set to dispense the same old same old.
This is not energy policy.
Fellowship
Here, fellows, you've hit on something that I truly do not understand.
Why can't we have a vigorous and forward looking federal energy policy? Why can't it be a point of national focus ala the space program in the 60's? Think of what those hundreds of billions of dollars disappearing down the drain hole of Iraq could do for a domestic "energy independence" crash program.
Upside: creation of a vibrant new industrial sector that could drive technological innovation for years to come and put America at the forefront of what will inevitably be one of the key global economic areas.
Create tens of thousands, if not millions of new jobs.
Decrease or eliminate dependance on foreign oil, increasing America's security.
Decrease pollution, increasing American's health.
Give Americans a sense of progress and focus, of actually building for the future for a change, instead of just going from talking point to talking point.
Down side: the economic influence of big oil extends into virtually every walk of life. These companies, and their amen corner amongst "free market" absolutists, can be counted on to fight tooth and nail against any emergent energy tech or distribution system that disrupts the centralized, profit heavy
model that has served them so well.
The vast installed infrastructure of our current model, from cars to highways to refineries to politics, will be very difficult to change, even incrementally and with backwards compatibility.
The technology isn't magic, we don't know how far we can go with things like widespread adoption of solar, geothermal, fuel cell and hybrid tech, because of an ideology that insists that any progress must come from the private sector, which may or may not be motivated to change much before things abruptly get much worse.
But if there was ever a circumstance where real federal leadership and money could transform this country for the better, I would say energy is it.
Originally posted by addabox
Here, fellows, you've hit on something that I truly do not understand.
Why can't we have a vigorous and forward looking federal energy policy? Why can't it be a point of national focus ala the space program in the 60's? Think of what those hundreds of billions of dollars disappearing down the drain hole of Iraq could do for a domestic "energy independence" crash program.
Upside: creation of a vibrant new industrial sector that could drive technological innovation for years to come and put America at the forefront of what will inevitably be one of the key global economic areas.
Create tens of thousands, if not millions of new jobs.
Decrease or eliminate dependance on foreign oil, increasing America's security.
Decrease pollution, increasing American's health.
Give Americans a sense of progress and focus, of actually building for the future for a change, instead of just going from talking point to talking point.
Down side: the economic influence of big oil extends into virtually every walk of life. These companies, and their amen corner amongst "free market" absolutists, can be counted on to fight tooth and nail against any emergent energy tech or distribution system that disrupts the centralized, profit heavy
model that has served them so well.
The vast installed infrastructure of our current model, from cars to highways to refineries to politics, will be very difficult to change, even incrementally and with backwards compatibility.
The technology isn't magic, we don't know how far we can go with things like widespread adoption of solar, geothermal, fuel cell and hybrid tech, because of an ideology that insists that any progress must come from the private sector, which may or may not be motivated to change much before things abruptly get much worse.
But if there was ever a circumstance where real federal leadership and money could transform this country for the better, I would say energy is it.
This is a wonderful wonderful post addabox.
If only we had real leadership which was not bought off.
Our politcs need change, our ways need changing.
Fellowship
Originally posted by Fellowship
Our politcs need change, our ways need changing.
don't worry, man, the revolution is brewing. you can smell it in the streets. the people, in the amounts i've seen, are quite unhappy with the administration, and aren't going to stand for more of it. i wouldn't be surprised if bush has significantly encouraged voter registration.
Originally posted by thuh Freak
don't worry, man, the revolution is brewing. you can smell it in the streets. the people, in the amounts i've seen, are quite unhappy with the administration, and aren't going to stand for more of it. i wouldn't be surprised if bush has significantly encouraged voter registration.
I was at my local secretary of state on Monday registering my car where I stood in line for 45 minutes. There was a drop box for voter registration forms so people didn't have to stand in the main line. That box had an almost continuous trickle of people dropping voter reg applications. Also, there were quite a few people in line in front of me talking about registering and actually voting this election cycle. I know it?s anecdotal, but to me it was quite telling. A lot of people feel very strongly one way or the other. My hunch is come November the other will be victorious and one way will be the ticket to Crawford.
A lot of Bush supporters don't want to recognize that Bush and Kerry are neck and neck (though we can't predict what will happen over the next 6 months). That is not a good position for an incumbent. Kerry has only been doing a stump speech or two a week with almost no TV ads. The American public don't know Kerry, they only know what Rove wants them to know about Kerry. And even then the Bush campaign against Kerry hasn't changed the minds of that many voters (if any). This election will be about each party energizing their bases. The Dems are doing a good job while the repubs have to convince people Bush is still the man.
I see new leadership come January.
Originally posted by thuh Freak
don't worry, man, the revolution is brewing. you can smell it in the streets. the people, in the amounts i've seen, are quite unhappy with the administration, and aren't going to stand for more of it. i wouldn't be surprised if bush has significantly encouraged voter registration.
Originally posted by addabox
Why can't we have a vigorous and forward looking federal energy policy?
Bush used to run an oil company.
Condolleezza Rice had a super tanker named after her.
Cheney used to run an oil company ...
... getting the picture?
At the same time, he has "dealt" with the huge shocks to the Airline industry, the indemnification industry, the generation of a whole new bureacracy, and massive military buildup---all a result of 9/11.
In reality, Gore might not have gone into Iraq, but he would have gone into Afgahnistan. Bases moved out of SA? Would Al Queda have been silenced? Pakistan made stable? Saddam and the UN would have just gone away? The no-fly zones shut down? Oil going out through Syria stopped? Wuold all the factors that make the ME unstable be worse or better?
On the oil-for-invasion thing, I thnk it is convenient, but not the reason we are there. Iraq is a Hail Mary pass---a last-ditch, good faith attempt to civilize the ME as the west sees fit. Maybe democracy isn't "those people's" cup of tea, but [some believe] this paradigm of goon governments "over there" is breeding things that maybe could be different if they had freedom. I actually think that is not the case, I just watched Osama the other night, and came away thinking that the situation is hopeless, short of waging total war on the populations---which is what will be demanded if another 9/11 happens. As for deciphering the war on terror, all was is based on deception, so good luck.
If we had "left it" with Afgahnistan, would all muslims love America and the porn lifestyle she exports? would all our problems vanish if we had not gone into Iraq?
...or would they just be different problems?
Originally posted by dmz
(I) came away thinking that the situation is hopeless, short of waging total war on the populations---which is what will be demanded if another 9/11 happens.
Just to be clear, by 'the populations' you include the women and children too?
... uh ... you see, there was the 'Jesus' bloke. You should check him out; had a bunch of messages about this kind of thing.
Well the list is large and grows larger every day.
Originally posted by shetline
By the way... is there any evidence you would accept that evolution is a valid scientific theory?
Yes, prove on paper, gene-by-gene, mutation-by-mutation there are viable, Darwin-proof, pathways between any two classes or orders.