"Throw the Bums Out"

Rarely has there been a more simple and fitting statement regarding the Bush administration. I can heartily say that I am one of the proud Americans who has agreed with "rabidrobot" here.

I pride myself on having held these opinions since the day Bush took office. I never trusted him. I felt he was at best incompetent and later, at worst, completely malevolent, as stated in the article below. I thought he was riding "Daddy's coattails." After we began the misbegotten war with Iraq, and the Patriot Act was passed, I took down my American flag off my wall, folded it carefully, and put it away in my closet, not even sure when it would come back out.

Reality Relentless in Bashing Bush
Admin spokesperson says, "We were never big fans of reality to begin with."
By rabidrobot
Posted Wednesday, July 04, 2007 on rabidrobot XTreme!
Discussion: US Domestic

Have you ever bought prescription pills sold from obvious spam, poorly worded and spelled and clearly bogus? Me either. But someone does, that's why spammers continue to try and find new, ever more insidious ways to simply get their message viewed; that is the way spam works, you send out such a wide net that the odds are that you'll catch enough suckers to pay the bills plus some.

What about the Nigerian 419 scam? You ever think that by giving someone your bank account, that they will then take that information in good faith? That they will not rob you blind, but instead fill your account with tax free millions? I never fell for that. No one I know fell for that. But I have seen people on TV, and read online about people who have. People who are so stupid, ignorant, and greedy that they keep the con men in business, milk, and honey.

Another popular spam technique is the "pump and dump". I find this one particularly fascinating, because it depends on people taking stock market investment tips from ever more doubtful and incredulous, anonymous, gif-making tipsters. What would posess someone with enough capital to be making investments in random stocks to risk that money on an obvious scam? I mean, this is an OBVIOUS scam, not a legitimate stock tip, and still many people are sufficiently greedy to try and cash in on it. The canny spammer, in control of the timing, makes away with all the loot. This just blows my mind. It is a relative pain in the ass, as far as I can tell, for the spammer himself, and depends on a coincidence of wealth and idiocy and incompetence and timing that seems very unlikely.

Nevertheless, pump and dumps are big business. Now, my point here, is that as much as I despise the spammers, I am also aware that without the idiots who buy bogus pills, send cash to anonymous Africans, and act on stock tips out of the ether, without these morons the spammers would not exist. Spammers are conniving, manipulating deceivers, yes, but the people who support them are also part of the problem.

Now, I'll just say this once, because I can't contain it, and I hope that you will continue reading afterward. I told you so. When it came to the Bush administration, and I don't claim to be alone, I had these assholes pegged all along.

But I can understand how one might have trusted them, wanted their cheap snake oil jingoist panacea. The $300 tax rebate for every citizen that was a bait and switch to give ludicrous tax breaks to huge corporations. I mean, he gave me $300, he must be on my side. If this is tax cuts Bush style, bring it on. But, like the Nigerian scammer, Bush took that trust and twisted it to achieve his own agenda, eventually taking each of us for much, much more. Just in dollars, setting aside actual lives affected, Bush gave us each $300, but then ran our debt up to $20,000 apiece. Now, I can see how one might have liked how it sounded at first, but now, now we are all justified in wondering if our trust was misplaced.

And the pump and dump of a mushroom cloud, the Weapons of Mass Destruction that made investment in invasion seem positively genius. There too, in a comedy of timing and errors, Bush and company played us all for suckers, lying the country into supporting an aggressive invasion of a country, despicable or not, that posed no threat. And not only that, but it has been FUBAR ever since. The analogy plays here too, because it is this series of shotgun lies and misstatements and misdirections that to me was CLEARLY bullshit, but so many people were buying into it because they wanted to believe--just boggled my mind.

But today is a new day. We can all look at each other as Americans. We can look at each other united in patriotism. We can stand together as one and say, “No More! I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!” I don't have to tell you how this series of con-jobs on the American people has come to a head with the administration holding itself above the law, unaccountable, and unrepentant for SCREWING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US. A royal Cheney-style, "Go Fuck Yourself" is what they are trying to sell us now.

And, even though the administration is obviously ignorant, incompetent, or malevolent, we must also consider each other. Because without people to buy this Snake Oil, they wouldn't be in business. And at this point, like people dumb enough to support spammers, people dumb enough to continue to fall for this Administration's baloney are also part of the problem.

Let's make ourselves proud again; be part of a solution. Repent our misdeeds, and make atonement. Make the United States of America again represent the best humanity has to offer, a beacon of freedom, equality, and recognition of inalienable rights. The pinnacle of civilization we deserve and desire to be. On this Fourth of July, we should reflect on the standards of decency, honesty and democracy that the United States used to, and still can, stand for. Lets us do this together, and put these dark days behind us.

Throw the Bums Out.

Well said, sir.