azurelunatic | The "Anybody But Bush" Party (ramble)

Current Mood: awake, no energy

The "Anybody But Bush" Party (ramble)

First, a poll, to start things off...

[Poll #197428]

Very unscientific, but the larger the sample size on that, the better. [Edit: Also, the more diverse the sample, the better. This isn't one I want to throw by having only those who are known to dislike Bush voting in. I made it viewable to none for a reason. I'm not going to come to your house at midnight and put you to the question if you vote for him.]

At any rate, I'm seeing a large number of people remarking, saying, declaring, and even ranting that they'll be voting for anyone but Bush. It seems that as more of his activities are drawn out into the light of day, fewer and fewer people actually support him. Even the things that he's done right have been done haphazardly and for the wrong reasons.

vidicon is better at preparing well-researched rants than I am. Go ask him about it.

(Yes, Saddam Hussein and his gang were and are awful, awful people. Bush still did not handle the situation at all well. Osama bin Laden can suck my nuts too.)

I'm wondering what is going to happen to Bush's support at this rate. His administration, from what I've been reading around (here, there, and especially in

sos_usa) depends on smoke and mirrors, dark corners and the undersides of rocks, to keep itself alive. When opponents and concerned citizens come in with ventilation fans, spotlights, levers, and big smashy objects to uncover the truths and reasons behind some of the actions, Bush is going to be looking worse and worse.

But, supposing at the nadir of his popularity, Bush found Saddam or bin Laden? Wouldn't everyone want to vote for the man who brought those great evildoers to justice? Wouldn't anyone want to know how he'd managed to pull them out of his ass just in time to get himself re-elected?

I'm telling you this: if Bush produces any notable Bad Guy at the 11th hour before the vote, I'm not voting for him. I feel he's a cheap-labor conservative who's bungled this administration enough so that any accidental successes he has in worthy areas are more than balanced out by all his previous errors. The man has managed to sink the country deeper into debt with what should have been a booming wartime economy. He is a religious fanatic without the wisdom to appreciate the viewpoints of religions other than his. He has managed to erase the sympathy of other nations that was caused by the terrorist attacks, by being the very picture of the bully-boy American. With all that against him, I don't care if he manages to get the endorsement of the Christ Himself (note lack of in-vain here; I'm saying this as someone who's had distinct religious experiences involving that particular deity), I'm still not voting for the fellow!

Smoke, mirrors, dark corners, and the undersides of rocks. Those are places that no honest politician has a place being. With that in mind, consider: Could we possibly elect someone worse than Bush?

sithjawa and I discussed it. I proposed Donald Duck as a worse president. "No," she said. "We've had a figurehead President before." It just matters what interests are controlling the figurehead President, and more importantly, what their methods are.

Any President, party, or special interest that depends on the concealment, spin-doctoring, obfuscation, manipulation, et cetera, of information, is not one to be trusted. Let loose the papers and tapes! Share the dirty laundry with the world! The only exception I could see fit to make for concealing information would be things such as not revealing the identities of covert operatives. And gee, what did the Bush administration just have happen? (Ideally, of course, one would not need anonymous observers about, but that's not going to happen any time soon.)

[Edit: After I wrote this, I rambled about the various types of concealing information that people could do, and which forms were acceptable.]

Read

sos_usa. Read

metaphorge. Read

vidicon. And never trust anything that thinks for itself unless you can see where it keeps its brain.

[Edit: from a comment to

elysianmusings, who kindly pimped this: See, what I'm doing here is comparable to the sort of sermon one would give to the converted. Most of us have seen or heard news articles to back my points, so one's brain can fill in the backing to my points, and you'll be nodding knowledgeably at what I have to say, and not notice that I'm never actually supporting what I say.

If this were to be an article intended to sway someone who's sitting on the fence, or convince a supporter of his to defect to at least a more neutral camp, I would have to include properly cited sources to back up everything I say. Which

metaphorge and

vidicon are much, much better at. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Right on. And thank you for the kind words. :)

You're welcome.

I can't be the only one worrying about what he's going to attempt next. I figure, the more cunning schemes people are anticipating, the better-armed we are.

And this is flying off the deep end on my part, because when he said it I flew into a rage that has yet to disperse. That would be his comment that, "Witchcraft isn't a religion."

Pompus ass.

I'm still waiting for the rebirth of the witch trials. But I digress, that's being excessive.

Well, I'd agree that /witchcraft/ isn't really a religion, but not for the same reasons that he said it. ;o)

Now, saying that 'Wicca' or 'Paganism' wasn't a religion would be a different matter. I doubt he'd recognise the difference, though.

Witchcraft is associated with any number of religions. Paganism is any number of religions.

I still wanna be a Jedi.

I always think of witchcraft as a practical aspect of stuff that may, or may not, be linked to a religion.

Witchcraft is /doing stuff/. It's often combined with something else that is a religion, usually some variant of Wicca, but I'd separate the two.

Of course, when Bush said it, he meant 'all y'all are goin' ta hell now, ya hear?'

Heh. Some of my friends who are religiously Christian do things that are practically witchcraft.

*Aurora-sneeze*

Bush is undereducated and overpowered.

There's little that sounds more scornful than a sneeze from an uppity hen.

That's precisely the point. He wouldn't know the different. I would I could find the time he made the reference that paganism was witchcraft. It's the other way around, my dear president.

This household is a little concerned as well.

At least then there would be no question of his plans...

Oh, and did you catch the section on torture on NPR on Friday?

No I missed it. Any online linkys, by any chance?

Aha. Torture, discussed calmly on NPR.

Disregard previous reply.

Right.

sithjawa and I heard that in the taxi on the way back to her place. There was some hissing.

I'm hissing right now, actually.

Yeah.

...what got me is that he's so calm. There's not outrage. I mean, I understand myself that sometimes shit like this is the best possible solution. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

I went for 'other', since I don't have the option to vote.

If I did, I'd be torn between the 'anyone but Bush' vote, and writing 'you are all lying bastards' on the ballot paper.

*facepalm*

I'm too, too USA-centric.

It's understandable - possibly I shouldn't've responded to the poll at all, given that it /is/ /obviously/ about an American issue.

Having said that, I possibly am better informed about US politics than many of the people who /will/ be voting next year.

(And it's not like I'm /that/ well informed, either...)

Don't worry. That's symptom number #1 of being a US Citizen, "Thinking the whole world revolves around the country I live it . . . at the very least on the subconcious level."

Well, for a long time, the Internet revolved around the US, anyway.... =p

Bleh.

writing 'you are all lying bastards' on the ballot paper

Hell yeah! Of course, we don't have paper ballots anymore, at least in my area. (In fact, since I'm an election worker, I'm going to a training class on how the touchscreen systems work in under an hour.) The entire US has been required to get rid of punchcard systems in the next few years. Of course, Diebold has security holes you could drive a semi through, but no one cares about that.... (References available by request)

Well, here you put a cross on a piece of paper, and they're all counted by people. No automation that I'm aware of.

Which is good since it gives you a piece of paper you can write on, and you know that at least one human being will see it and possibly be amused by it. (More likely they'd just throw it on the 'invalid' pile, but you never know.)

*blink* How... practical. I worked punchcard elections before the changeover, and while there was a write-in section, in practice that was generally thrown away. Ballots were handled just enough to get them counted and all turned facing the same direction, and then were tallied by machine.

There's no 'write-in' section here, but we have different kinds of elections.

This method takes a lot of people counting - it's not unusual for high school and college kids to earn a bit of money counting ballot papers. I knew several people who did it when I was in school (around the time of the first Scottish Parliament elections).

You'd need more people counting, in a bigger country like the US. But given that the counting is done at a local level, it'd scale up really easily.

But it's not very /modern/, so I doubt anyone would consider it.

So far this year, I've worked a school district bond election and a state constitutional amendment election, and I'm getting ready for the general election (state and federal offices) next Tuesday.

Ballots are handled by county in Texas, then the results are sent to the state elections office if it's a larger issue. The state relays up to the federal level for Presidential elections, of course.

And I don't see how your method would be very hard, if they used a data entry approach.

I want to invent cloning or time-travel so I can vote against Bush multiple times...

Can't vote as not from the US, but if I could it would definitely not be for Bush! So that would be a hell no, if I had the option :P

I'm voting in my first election next year so that I can specifically vote that war-mongering moron out of office. I don't care if a week before the election, he drags Saddam and Osama out of his own ass and parades them through the streets of Washington before hanging them from the Washington Monument.

He should have caught and/or killed them ages ago. *grumble, grumble* Osama's like Tupac these days -- he keeps putting out audio recordings and damn it, he's not supposed to.

Yes. If there's anything I dislike more than a halfwitted moron doing something I'm morally uncertain about, it's a halfwitted moron doing so badly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The "Anybody But Bush" Party (ramble)

no subject

no subject

Well..

Re: Well..

Re: Well..

Re: Well..

Re: Well..

Sneezes

Re: Well..

Re: Well..

Re: Well..

Torture discussed calmly on National Public Radio

Re: Torture discussed calmly on National Public Radio

Re: Torture discussed calmly on National Public Radio

Re: Torture discussed calmly on National Public Radio

Re: Torture discussed calmly on National Public Radio

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: shrubby boy

no subject

no subject

no subject