Life under GWB

[mrnoodle]

"Under GWB" doesn't mean something dirty. Wash your mouth out.

[Trilby]

I messed up. I wanted to check that my life had gone to hell under W and it was his fault. Somehow, suspiciously, the other thing got checked as my opinion. Weird. And, disconcerting.

[BigV]

My quality of life has deteriorated partly because of GWB's policies.

The reinforcement and expansion of the power of the executive branch is troublesome. The rollback, suspension and flouting of my civil liberties is frightening. The choices that have led to the dramatic expansion of our national debt were misguided and misleading and the results are going to be expensive and long lasting. Little things like his first Presidential directive forbidding doctors to discuss abortion and calling a rollback of emission standards the "Clear Skies Initiative" have corroded the bond between me and my government and eroded the trust between me and my government.

But mostly the greatly increased fear, distrust and uncertainty his policies, actions and words have spread through our society have sucked some of the life out of living.

GWB hasn't raised gas prices or made the hurricanes or cut me off in traffic. My quailty of life depends more on my attitude than on the quality leadership in the White House, thank God. But that very leadership concerns, frustrates and worries me--and that diminishes my quality of life.

We have lost civil liberties, environmental safeguards have been cut back or discarded completely, spending on the country's infra-structure has been disregarded in favor of spending on an unneccessary foreign war that takes more American and other human lives every day, fewer people have access to medical care, more children are homeless - the list goes on ad nauseum.

Junior's presidency has been a worse disaster for this country than 9/11 and Katrina combined.



PS Brianna, love your new sig!

[Griff]

I'm in the little or no relationship crowd. Most of the Bush problems are things that bite later. If we continue to destroy the dollar's value I could be screwed later, being a white Christian I won't suffer much from this homeland security nonsense right away, the destruction of the Bill of Rights was already well under way, a little adult leadership could help a lot but I'm gonna continue to try to live as if Washington doesn't exist. I'm not in the military so I guess Bush effects me not a bit.

[Clodfobble]

Mari, the question wasn't "we," the question was "my." How has your life been directly affected by the Bush administration?

[Clodfobble]

What I find interesting is the complete lack of people choosing the two "My quality of life has improved" options, but the large number of people choosing (like me) the "little or no relationship" option. If I were to guess, I'd say that all of the people in that category have had their situations improve in the last 5 years, they simply aren't attributing it to Bush.

Sounds like classic attribution bias: if something good happens to me, it's because I did it. If something bad happens, someone else must be to blame.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Mari, the question wasn't "we," the question was "my." How has your life been directly affected by the Bush administration?

My life is directly affected by the quality of the air I breathe and the water I drink. My life is directly affected by my ability to go to the beautiful places "where the wild things are" to replenish my soul. My life is directly affected when I must comfort a friend whose husband has orders for Iraq in a couple of weeks. My life is directly affected when my rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to due process are infringed upon. My life is directly affected when I see my fellow countrymen trapped without food or water or sanitation or medical care for 6 fucking days, and I turn off the TV feeling heartsick and powerless. My life is directly affected when the child who might have grown up to be a scientist who comes up with a cure for my fatal illness, instead recieves a sub quality education, sub standard medical care and ends up working all his days as a janitor as a result. My life is directly affected when I see a man with a sign reading "Homeless Vet, please help!"

We are all interconnected. We are all Americans. What happens to the least of us, happens also to me. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

if something good happens to me, it's because I did it. If something bad happens, someone else must be to blame.

Well, tcha!

[Tonchi]

...And then there is the dirty little secret hiding in the back closet, which Jr. has ignored more than anybody since the Civil Rights "revolution", namely that those have-nots and know-nots whose numbers are growing daily because of his policies or the lack thereof, will be coming out to get us who are secure now at some unknown future. If we don't take care of these people NOW, we will sure as hell be seeing them later. Either in the jails or in the streets, these people will come back to haunt us. That is US, not Jr. and his elitists, they will have bunkers and machine guns around their properties and their bank accounts. It is the rest of us who will pay for these horrible choices of his, both physically and financially. And THAT is going to change the quality of life for millions of us, including plenty of folks who used to never see anything wrong when they looked around them.

[Undertoad]

Without a doubt, I personally am more responsible for the state of my being than anyone else.

[Undertoad]

Well Tonch, I wish I had the identical Cellar post that Cerebus/Omigod posted about 12 years ago. Care to make a prediction for the Cellar Calendar?

[Tonchi]

Toad, it would be great if one of us could book this on a calandar, because I don't want Jr. and his family to be the only ones who have time to get out of the way. Obviously a lot of your original members have been planning for quite some time, and I confess that curiosity about what you were up to was part of why I was lurking around The Cellar a year ago. The thing that pisses me off the most is knowing that after all these years of study and cultural admiration, I might end up staring down the barrel of some drug-up Chicano's gun, frantically trying to persuade him "No soy tu enemiga, simpatizo completamente con ustedes, no me maten!"

Let me add one other thing. If our lives are not affected by those whom we choose to lead us (or those who grab power into their own hands), then why is democracy such a sacred ideal? Why bother to go out and vote if the outcome of the elections is meaningless to me and everyone else? A big rationale for the war in Iraq is that we are generously helping the Iraqi people rid themselves of an evil dictator and have free elections. I don't buy this excuse for one moment, but the fact that it is given and that so many people buy into it must mean that people feel the quality of their leadership impacts their lives, and that they have a right to say which individuals will be their leaders. So important is this principle, that people will give their lives for this ideal.

Certainly, we are all responsible for our own individual well-being and happiness, that is why we have the responsibility to uphold the principles of this democratic republic we call the United States of America. In order to ensure my own well being, it is a matter of integrity for me to speak out when I see this country's leadership ignore the democratic ideal for reasons of personal gain and power.

People who state that the government has no impact on their personal lives are being disingenious at best, fools who deserve the government that is coming for them, at worst.

[Undertoad]

If you think things are going to hell in a handbasket, maybe you don't remember - things are always going to hell in a handbasket. We have seen this before, and not only did we live through it, we got better.

For example, Iraq is now broadly considered another Vietnam, but Vietnam was in fact much worse. Many more soldiers died during it and those soliders were typically drafted. When you focus out on the big picture, you see things anew. As a threat to civil liberties, roving wiretaps just don't compete with people being taken off to war against their will. In these days, the civil liberties horror is that the protestors have to be in a certain special area. Back then, people were getting SHOT during protests.

If you focus and concentrate on the worst -- you can convince yourself that armageddon is near. But you are applying a filter to your vision of the world, and you are probably wrong.

The story of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer is repeated all the time. In all the years I've had my head out of the sand, I've heard the doomsayers making that same statement. By this time the rich should be shitting on golden toilets and the poor should have the distended bellies we see in famine Africa. But we aren't, because the doomy gloomy vision is a bad filter.