America Deserves George Bush

That's right. America deserves George W. Bush the way people who jog through Central Park at two in the morning deserve to be mugged. You should know better, but you don't. Half of you plainly prefer George Bush to John Kerry. Not just prefer -- you actually like him. Even you disenfranchised, out-of-work, lower-middle class, blue-collar Joe Somebodys like George Bush because he's "tough on defense." He's convinced you that John Kerry wouldn't be able (or willing) to defend this country if it were attacked.

And there is the first lie and the biggest deception. Bush has successfully made Americans fear that we're constantly on the brink of being attacked. We're obsessed with it. Though we know that if it does happen, it will likely be the bombing of a train station or poisoning of a subway system, or something like that; it's not as though hoards of Arabs are going to be in Jersey or parachuting into Nebraska. What Americans forget is that this sort of thing happens almost every day in Israel. Not that it wouldn't be tragic. Hundreds of innocent people would likely be killed.

But if it did happen, what exactly would George Bush do about it that John Kerry wouldn't do? Invade another country? He might. Iran is ripe. And Bush is right about one thing: John Kerry would not start a war if there were a terrorist attack in this country. For one thing, Terrorism (yeah, with a capital T) has no country. Afghanistan didn't slam planes into the World Trade Towers on 9.11.2001. Osama bin-Laden did. The fact that he happened to be in Afghanistan -- and that the Taliban were bad people -- sort of justified the war there. I say "sort of." What I mean is that at least it was somewhat logical. But that's a whole other mess.

The point is, Bush has America believing that John Kerry would just stand idly by if we were attacked. But I ask again: if al-Qaeda slammed a Boeing 767 into the White House tomorrow, what exactly would we be able to do in response to that action? What country would Bush invade this time?

Bush makes a big deal of Kerry saying that Iraq is a diversion; that it has nothing to do with the war on Terror. And Bush says that it shows Kerry's misunderstanding of the challenge we're facing.

But Kerry has it exactly right. There were no Terrorists in Iraq until we invaded it. Oh, there were a few here and there. But Iraq was not the source of al-Qaeda or bin Laden. As awful as Saddam Hussein was, he was not a Terrorist. He ruled with terror, yes: but Iraq wasn't a Terrorist state -- it was a Stalinist state. And it was on the brink of self-destruction and -- we know now -- posed no threat to us whatsoever. But, Bush says, Saddam might have sold weapons to Terrorists. We still had to take him out. Well, so what? There are any number of countries not only selling weapons to Terrorists, but actively financing and sheltering them. Iraq just didn't happen to be one of those countries.

So yes: John Kerry would not rush to war if we were attacked. That's because there's no one to go to war with in the traditional sense. Kerry would do what Bush should be doing: concentrate on finding bin Laden and other Terrorist leaders. Kerry would concentrate on making our borders safer. He would improve our relations with other countries in the world whose help we need in hunting down what Terrorists we can find. Kerry would not send thousands of our young men and women to die and be maimed in a senseless war (which has also taken the lives of at least 20,000 other human beings who, being Iraqis, don't merit headline treatment).

The simple fact is that there really isn't a whole hell of a lot we can do to defend ourselves against a Terrorist attack. It's not like having missile-defense systems or Star Wars space defenses to keep us from being nuked. Terrorism works insidiously and randomly. It is practised by groups of individuals from myriad different countries. It flies no national flag and has no borders.

But you people don't stop to think about any of this. Half of you are caught up in a neo-nationalism that doesn't allow us to consider for a moment that our soldier's lives have been wasted. There has to be some high moral purpose. And so you kid yourselves into believing that George W. Bush's taking us into Iraq was the Right Thing. Even if Saddam wasn't responsible for 9.11, he was a Bad Man. Well, fine. Call it that. But it doesn't change the fact that this war was a mistake, that soldiers have died through-out the centuries for mistakes, and this isn't even the first mistake that our soldiers have had to die for. It doesn't lessen the honor of our soldier's deaths. Soldiers do what they do and they often die doing it. Mistake or no mistake, a soldier always dies with honor. But that doesn't mean that what he died for was the right thing or even worthwhile. It only means he did his duty and acted honorably. He did his job.

The other half of you are stupid. I don't mean stupid in a smart-ass, insulting sense. I mean sincerely that you are stupid people. And let me distinguish your stupidity from mere ignorance. Ignorant people lack knowledge through no fault of their own. They're simply not aware of certain bits of knowledge or were raised in a manner that precluded them from obtaining more information than they have. Ignorant people are willing to change their condition and better themselves. Stupid people choose to be stupid. They have no interest in knowing the facts. They tend to prefer to believe in certain false ideologies because it suits the way they and their family and their neighbors live. Stupid people have access to the proper facts, but refuse to even consider them. They choose to believe things based on what their parents, friends, and ministers tell them.

Stupid people make up about 35% of the American populace. You base your knowledge on what's popular or comfortable -- not on what's true. All the truth you need is in a little black book written 2000 years ago (even though most of you have never actually read it, and 11% of you can't read it). There is strength and comfort in numbers. You'll swallow any shit because, after all, a million flies can't be wrong. You're incapable of seeing through George W. Bush's lies because you lack not only the ability, but the ambition to reason. You're the heart of America's pioneer and puritan tradition, fly the flag, have yellow ribbons wrapped around your trees, NRA bumper-stickers on your pick-ups and minivans, and raise nice but dull kids who'll grow up to be even more stupid than you. In ancient Roman parliance, you are The Mob.

You're not worried about losing your civil liberties because you don't realize you have any.

So if George W. Bush gets re-elected President, then this country deserves whatever happens to it. Which will mostly be a reduction not only of jobs and personal freedom, but of our young people's lives as they go off to fight in support of our new Imperialist policies (that so far haven't made us the least bit safer from Terrorism).