In The Shadow of Bush

Ok many of you still blame Bush for everything. But about the campaign contributors, lobbyists, policy makers, intelligensia and other influential parties (like other world leadrers) who also have direct influence on Bush's decision making? Don't you think that his hands are tight and he was forced to make most of the decision? Why put the blame on Bush alone? He may just be a puppet for a group of people!

Since we are commemorating Dr. King, let???s see how Bush and his wanna be successors measure up to Dr.King???s view on leadership.
???Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And the expedience comes along ad asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question is it popular? Conscience asks the question - is it right?..There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. (From ???Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution.???)
Rather than showing leadership, the GOP panders to fear and hatred. Right now they are busy smearing each other - Once a candidate is chosen, they???ll smear their opponents.
In reviewing what Dr King believed, I can???t help thinking that Bush and his cronies are really pathetic excuses for human beings. The same applies for all his wannabe successors. While various GOP contenders may quote Dr. King, they have no interest in really implementing Dr. King???s dream. I also firmly believe that if we made Dr. King???s ideals the basis of our society, we wouldn???t need to worry about fighting terrorism. The would-be terrorists would want to be like us. We really need a revolution in this country - the revolution of values as described by Dr. Martin Luther KIng.

Since we are celebrating Martin Luther King???s birthday, let???s compare what the Republicans believe with what Martin Luther King said about working people:
??? America, the richest and most powerful nation in the word, can
well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing to prevent us from paying adequate wages to schoolteachers, social workers, and other servants of the public to ensure that we have the best available personnel in these positions which are charged with the responsibility of guiding our future generations. There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker. laundry worker, maid, or day laborer. There is nothing except short- sightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum - and liveable - income to every American family. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from remodeling a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into brotherhood. (From ???Where do we go from here????)
Is there any similarity with what Bush has implement and what Dr. King described? Hardly. Nor has any one in the GOP even addressed these issues

Both Bush and the GOP are full of chatter about the wonders of the global economy. Since today is Martin Luther King Day, we should examine what Dr King was particularly prescient about globalization:
???A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs with reduced incomes as a result of automation while the profits of employers remain intact, and say ???This is not just.??? It will look across the oceans and see individual capitalist of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of these countries and say,???This is not just.???
... A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war,???This way of settling differences is not just.???
While GOP's financial supporters love trade deals with Third World Countries, they seem to care little about the impact of these trade deals on the Third World. Perhaps they should.

A large part of the GOP???s core supporeters seems fixed on the final judgment which supposedly is near at hand. Since today is Martin Luther King Day, they should heed what Dr. King said about the way God will our nation.
???One Day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we have done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic building to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate the oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.
It seems to me I hear the God of history saying, ???That was not enough! But I was hungry and ye fed me not. I was naked and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it to the least of these, my brethren, ye do it until me.??? That???s the question facing America today. (From the speech, ???Remaining Awake through a Social Revolution.???)
Does any one in the GOP care about these core values?

Religion is a constant political issue. In fact, the Republicans affixed the cross of Jesus to the speaker???s podium at the 2004 Republican convention to show what faith they favored. Let???s see how Republican practices square with what Martin Luther King had to say.
???Dives didn???t go to Hell because he was rich; Dives didn???t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother, Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he passed by Lazarus every day and never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty. (From ???Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution.???)
The Republicans have turned the war against poverty into a war against the poor. For all their religiosity, do they honestly believe that their policies are endorsed by Jesus?

The prevailing political attitude of the GOP is the glorification of greed and selfishness. Since today is Martin Luther King Day, let???s see what Martin Luther King had to say about that attitude;
???All life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality: tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no many can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made. (Sermon.. ???The American Dream.???)
There???s nothing in Republican rhetoric that says anything about these ideals.

Since today is Martin Luther King Day, let???s compare Bush and his current crop of wanna-be successors with the words of Dr. King. Here???s one of my favorites/
??? I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other centered men can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the alters of God and be crowned triumphant over war and blood shed, and nonviolent redemptive good will shall proclaim the rule of the land..??? (From the ??? Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.???)
Does any one in the GOP plan to implement this idea. I don???t think so.

Comparing Bush to Buchanan is an insult to Buchanan.

tc125231,

Your response is a perfect example of why our country is so fratured right now. On the whole, this article was very balanced - the authors were actually quite critical of Bush and ended the piece with a negative comment about him. Instead of focuing on the balanced aspects of this article, or the call for the elimination of the partisanship that is poisoning Washington, you jump all over the one positive thing the authors said about Bush. Our country will never heal if people are so focused on their hatred for people on the other side that they ignore pleas for unity and working together.

The idea that W. has experienced great personal growth unreported in the press is absurd. Would that be from his proactive handling of the mortgage meltdown? His brilliant Middle East trip which clearly moved the Israel-Palestinian peace accord forward by negative five feet? His grasp that our standard of living is dependent on our skills, in a country without manufacturing, and 60% of our children don't graduate from college? How about an actual plan to get us off foreign oil?

None of these? Did you mean some other Bush --or perhaps you were referring to improvements in his mountain biking?

Pathetic.

From the very beginning I didn't approve of the war. I thought it was a big mistake do to the history of the middle east. As a responsible citizen I now stand behind the president in his choice not to pull our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be an embarrasment to the whole country. The hatred that has prompted the terrorrist to such evil attacks against the U.S. as not disappeared. In fact it has intensified. They are not going to go away anytime soon. Putting a new president in office who feels that stopping the war is the best thing we can do for our country, would be a bigger mistake. We would not only endanger our people but would also leave Afghanistan and Iraq in a very defenseless state with no chance to stand against the people who oppress them.

I find it amusing when ever any one mentions the Clintons it always comes down to the affair that rocked the White House. Oh My! He had an affair! He is the only man alive to do that! For sure, the only President to do that! Come on people, if that is the best you can come up with you need better material. Why is it that people are so frightened of a women becoming President. Afraid she might do a better job? Hillary deserves the opportunity to do a better job.

It's was not merely George W. Bush's arrogance that is "hurting" the Republican hegemony. It is the lock-step, unwavering partisan manner by which Republicans suppored every misguided and disastrous policy of GWB! This Administration has left NO sphere of public policy undamaged - not to mention the damange to our Constitution and the rule of law! - and he was able to achieve this dubious distinction ONLY with the blind loyalty of Republican legislators. The Republican hegemony achieved a narrowing of the parameters of the possible, reducing the country to helplessly watching as they sold us out to every special interest, lied us into a bloody and unending war, and they actually institutionalized the practice of torure! - and demeaned such basics as habeas corpus. A pox on your house. You deserve to go into exile until you learn that your ONLY purpose is to serve the American people - BEFORE your party, and absolutely before "your" President!