The Bushies Stole Us Blind ... So, How Did You Like Your Beer?

[givemebackmycountry]

(edited to remove a slur)

Excellent article.
Have a beer and read.

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/120750/the_bushies_stole_us_blind_..._so%2C_how%27d_you_like_your_beer/?page=entire

And, where Washington was concerned, that meant that government was to become a vehicle to serve not the 300 million, but rather the 300 families at the top, who already owned the most but craved ever, ever more. It was a cash cow that could provide enormous riches to buccaneers who make the Somali pirates look like Campfire Girls in comparison. Social Security is not, from this perspective, a program to serve seniors and keep a roof over their heads during their final decades of life, but rather a pool of money which the government had been kind enough to already collect and centralize, just waiting for barons to come along and robber it. Deregulation is another important purpose of the federal government. Protecting the long-term integrity of the economic system from the exploitation of short-term Ponzi schemers with their derivatives and their garbage loans was so mid-20th century, you know? And then, chief among all purposes of government under Reaganism-Bushism, are the tax cuts for the wealthy, even if -- especially if -- they can be made more massive by borrowing from suckers' -- I mean, citizens' -- children in future generations.

(snip)

The simple fact of George W. Bush as two-term president of the United States and leader of the Free World -- as opposed instead to, say, the could-never-grow-up, could-never-stay-sober, 60-year-old-frat-boy-cheerleader, Midland-Texas-Elks-Club-secretary-treasurer-who-couldn't-actually-keep-the-minutes-or-balance-the-checkbook, local-car-crasher-extraordinaire -- will not exactly acquit us all very well in the history books. At least the Romans had the excuse of monarchy to explain Nero and Caligula. We don't. Nor can we plead ignorance. Our friendly neighbors in Europe dropped their collective jaws and looked on in astonishment from Day One.
"You guys chose what? Out of 300 million of you? You put a dude in charge of a planeticide-capable arsenal who can't even properly pronounce the word 'nuclear'? Are you freakin' kidding?"

(snip)

But my mistake was to conceive of an America characterized by rational thought and some rough approximation of deliberative democracy. It's so long ago now, and no doubt my memory is foggy, but it seems to me that's what we had in my younger days. Yep, even with Vietnam and Watergate, even with Nixon and McCarthy, we seemed so much closer then to the Enlightenment ideal of the country's founders. But something went desperately wrong -- beginning in the late 1970s or early 1980s and culminating with this reign of the American Caligula -- and it strikes me that there has been a paradigm shift in this country's cognitive architecture. Which is just a fancy way of saying we got ourselves real stupid, real fast. And real willfully, too.
We've been on a bender of exquisite proportions for 30 years now. We've done everything there is to do, to everyone there is to do it to, and more or less gotten away with it all. But now our creditors -- literal and figurative -- are lined up around the block, knives in their teeth, and they don't look happy.

(snip)

All I can say, America, is that I hope it was worth it.
I hope you enjoyed the free ride you took by offloading your woes on the rest of the world, including your own children.
I hope you feel good about yourself.
And I hope you liked your beer.

[Double T]

1. I wouldn't drink Busch with bush.

Imagine the mentality that would elect a President based on the desire to drink a beer with him.

At least 25% of the American people are total idiots like our former president.

[elocs]

2. Didn't read the article, but I must say my best friend who is like a father to me is a conservative

and he is not an asshole. He would lay his life down for me as I would for him. He doesn't ask people their politics before he helps them either or simply talks with them. He treats all people with respect. This is a reminder that many of us here have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, kin a friends who are conservatives that we do not think are assholes. It's this kind of attitude that makes me ashamed of DU. Based on your editorial comments I would not have a beer with you even if you paid (see, I base this on your words that I read and not simply on your political stance).

[givemebackmycountry]

3. OK - I'm a friendly guy and you have a vaild point. I'll edit.

Now read the article.

Still want to have a beer? :toast:

[elocs]

4. Thank you. You're a class act. But to be honest I don't really like beer.

I'll read the article though now.

[givemebackmycountry]

5. See this is why I like DU.

We are solutions orientated.

White wine?

I'm Irish, and I can't help the beer part.
It's genetic.

And your in Wisconsin.
Good food up there.
Sadly, most of it goes well with beer.

:hi:

[elocs]

6. Lots of beer here. My city even has a brewery. This is where they used to make Old Style.

I had given up drinking for almost 32 years until the summer of 2007 and then I found out that I really don't like the taste of alcohol, even most wines, but I do like the wine coolers that don't taste like alcohol at all. I'm Irish too, black Irish, although it was my dad who had the black hair and blue eyes.

[muntrv]

7. Dimson inspired many of us to drink hard liquor.