(my thanks to “The Onion” for the inspiration for this post – see below)
Siiiiigh. I’ve been outraged at this administration so long, I’m starting to forget all the reasons…. Outrage is really hard to maintain, and I have to hand it to Team Incompetent/Team Evil (not sure what they want to be known by) for doing such a great job at being so GIVING during their occupancy of the White House. But despite their best efforts, I find that rage, pain, and fear are very difficult emotions for me to hold onto & sometimes I’m reduced to just the random unfocused expletive. Worse still, I’m starting to lose track of the bounty of outrages this administration has bequeathed us in their largesse, & thus I’ll start writing them down….
So let’s focus on outrages. By “outrages” I don’t mean really bad or even evil policy decisions, I mean things that are so beyond the pale as to defy belief or challenge the very foundations of our government or what we as a nation stand for. You know, things like giving the rich vast tax breaks or undermining the EPA don’t count because, well, they’re just evil but not EVIL. So let’s take a stroll down Affronts Against All Notions of Decency Lane…. together. I find singing the Smurf song as you do this helps (la la la-LAL LA laa lalalla la la… la la la-LAL LA laa lalalla la la):
PLEASE HELP BY ADDING YOUR FAVES TO THE COMMENTS & I’LL INTEGRATE THEM as long as I was honestly aware of them at the time & truly outraged… Also, if you have any good news stories for me to link to as examples, please send ’em on.
- The War on the Geneva Conventions (Round 37) – please “clarify” them – in fact let every country in the world “clarify” as needed
- The Presidential signing orders to circumvent THE LEGISLATIVE Third of our government
- Illegal Wiretapping is fun!
- Well, I don’t like the FISA Act spelling out the LAWS on this matter, so I’ll ignore them
- Well, we’re just tapping a few phone calls abroad – not inside the country. Oh. Never mind. We’re doing that too. Well – umm… … Look a terrorist! Boo!
- Katrina & the ridiculous Federal response (Brownie you’re doing a heckuva job)
- Dick Cheney’s Heroic Fight To Save Torture. Ahhh the Vice President of the United States of America, waging a massive campaign to save our right to torture people.
- Keeping People Indefinitely At Guantanamo – rule of law? Schmool of law!
- Sending our prisoners to other countries to because they torture better than we do. Great.
- The lack of accountability after Abu Ghraib
- Abu Ghraib
- Invading Iraq under false pretenses – pick your favorite false pretense:
- Saddam’s nonexistent links to Al Qaeda
- Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction
- To bring democracy to the Middle East, at the end of an M16… what? Oil? Here? You don’t say… I had no idea!
- Invading Iraq despite the idea of the rule of law that America is supposed to stand for.
- Opening Guantanamo for the express purpose of holding prisoners without having to apply U.S. Laws
- Leaving Afghanistan before we finished the job
- Passing the USA Patriot Act. Yes Civil Liberties are important… but… Look! A Terrorist! boo!
Damn – see here is where my outrage begins to fade & I KNOW I was SERIOUSLY PISSED BEFORE THAT – any help? I’ll try to remember – but I better get this post published before the NEXT outrage…..
Nostalgia outrage – ahh I remember being “outraged” back in 2001 – before 9/11 – before I really knew the meaning of the word…. you know about cute things like Cheney meeting with energy companies to formulate energy policy, or the EPA trying to loosen Arsenic in Drinking Water standards… ahhh
La la la-LAL LA laa lalalla la la… la la la-LAL LA laa lalalla la la.
‘deep
*The title of this post comes from a hysterical but now quaint article from The Onion: Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue from July of 2004! hah! We had only really warmed up the outrage!
Yes, so many! A good source is Rep. Henry Waxman’s site:
http://www.house.gov/waxman/issues.htm
Look under “Government Use of Propaganda” and “Politics and Science” for more outrages aplenty that you haven’t included yet on your list!
I read an article recently in New York Magazine that told the story of how Bush called in the Executive Editor and Publisher of the New York Times to the white house to try and convince or bully them into not publishing the story on the wiretaps they were doing without court approval. When the paper published anyway the administration has started a smear campaign against the paper calling them unpatriotic even raising the issue of charging them with espionage.
the environment. shall we say clear skies, healthy forests — cleverly named bills that masked the true intent of the bills which was to do the opposite. the overwriting of just about every clinton era environmental regulation — rules published on friday afternoons to avoid the press.
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/
energy plans that just give more money to big oil
the appointment of pro-industry hacks to just about every federal agency.
the appointment of the all right wing judges
this all in the face of his frequent proclamations of “I’m a uniter not a divider”
Don’t forget the tax cuts for the richest Americans and the shameful attempt to remove even the very modest estate taxes. Never mind that we had one of the biggest economic booms in history in the 90’s after they *raised* taxes. Why? Because reduced borrowing reduced the interest rates.
And while were at it, how about coming into office with the largest surplus in history and turning it into one of the largest deficits. Would someone save us from those fiscally responsible Republicans!!
nearly $200 million spent every day–much of it going to the admin’s corporate buddies–to screw up iraq beyond repair. there’s got to be a cheaper way to destroy a country.
private army of 85,000 “security contractors” in iraq accountable to absolutely nobody
secret gulag of cia torture prisons all over the world
giving nuclear technology to india as a reward for also flouting international treaties
being on the receiving end of the largest coordinated protest in human history–30 million people in the streets worldwide in the days before the invasion of iraq–and dismissing it all by saying ‘i don’t listen to focus groups’
then, governing by focus-on-the-family groups
and i know you think it’s just cute, old-school outrage with a small “o” but the nation’s energy policy being written in secret for the vice president by venal (and since convicted and possibly murdered) oil executives, and then the whole thing being covered up by the vp’s hunting buddy on the supreme court (sadly no buckshot to the face on that trip) still makes my blood boil. the supreme court that, come to think of it, appointed the administration in the first place.
legalizing, and probably undertaking, secret disappearances
using the full weight of the government in an attempt to bring on armageddon, so religious fanatics will be “saved” by the second coming of Jesus.
i can’t wait to see these %W$#%@wads in the dock at the Hague…
Swift-boating Kerry
Push-polling McCain
Outing Valerie Plame
My favorite was the wholesale, surreptitious effort to reclassify previously declassified documents. It’s got all the signature Bush features: an obsession with secrecy, creepy Orwellian overtones, and abject incompetence.
Oh! I thought of another one! Remember that time GWB criticized a reporter for asking the president of France a question in French?
sounds like you’re in desperate need of one of these:
http://www.impeachbushgame.com/
Trying to get an amendment to the constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Meanwhile education, health-care, the environment and so many other things that *actually* provide a foundation for the true security of the country are crushed time after time. Hell, just back it up to evangelism vs. reason and corporate interests vs. individual interests.