Bush: Beyond reason - DAMN good read! and f**king SCARY

[Clinton Crusader]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/101904.html

Robert Parry: 'Bush: Beyond reason'
Date: Tuesday, October 19

Journalist Ron Suskind relates a chilling conversation he had in 2002 with a senior aide to George W. Bush, who taunted Suskind for being a person from "what we call the reality-based community."

The Bush aide said this "reality-based community" consists of people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." Suskind nodded in agreement and muttered something favorable about the principles of the Enlightenment, only to be cut off by the aide.

"That's not the way the world really works anymore," the Bush aide told the journalist. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do."

In many ways, that quote - cited in Suskind's New York Times Magazine article about Bush's "faith-based presidency"-sums up the anti-rational arrogance that has become the hallmark of Bush's inner circle, a group that apparently thinks that its actions transcend both law and reason.

Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, quotes other Republicans who have concluded that Bush believes - or at least gives the impression he believes - that his judgments are directed by God.
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[Atman]

1. Jesus, you're right...that is scary

"That's not the way the world really works anymore," the Bush aide told the journalist. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

Like, say...vote theft? Election fraud? This sounds suspiciously like "the ends justify the means" talk to me. And I don't like it one bit.

[pretzel4gore]

7. the criminal philosophy summed up...in general.

hannibal lector is particular.....lol
the lawlessness of these guys may take them a long way yet if kerry doesn't isolate them by pointing out the obvious.

[hippiechick]

2. Gore spoke of that yesterday ...

.. it was a great speech, he nailed the BFEE on the head ...


They are trying to 'create a new reality' for America in which we don't even recognize our own best interests, rather, we blindly and gladly follow the bullshit they spew at us because of the twisted packages they wrap it in.


:hippie:

[highnooner]

3. The guy makes some very valid points

nm

[olddem43]

6. Similar to the idea that "perception is more important than reality"

I had a boss that said that all the time. Being in an engineering position, I hated it. However, over time, I realized that he was basically a politician (office politics) and it made sense to him. That's the way pure politicians think.

[cheshire]

4. There is so much more to this story of GW running for Pres. It's a family

trying to rule the world. See this.http://www.copvcia.org. Links to what has really been happening in America.

[EstimatedProphet]

5. This is an important paragraph

What appears to have happened is that a significant swath of the U.S. population has embraced a political mysticism which accepts Bush as a kind of cult leader. For these Bush supporters, it doesn’t matter that he has big gaps in his knowledge of the world or that he sometimes invents his own reality. They have come to see Bush as a messenger from God, an impression that Bush’s handlers – and Bush himself – have cultivated.

I think this is right on the money.
For almost a year now people (more and more every day too) have been stating that they can't believe that people still follow Bush so vehemently. That paragraph correctly explains the reason why:these people are cultists. "Drinking the kool-aid" is dead-on for their behavior. They literally are brainwashed. Unfortunately what this means is that, as far as this group of people is concerned, thye cannot be expected to act rationally. With a Kerry win, they will never give up on the attacks that Kerry is an agent of Satan, and that's the more placid among them. Brainwashed people are not predictable, and cannot have any behavior be ruled out for them-which includes rioting, group violence, and destruction on a mass scale. The potential for this situation to spiral out of control is very real.

[chookie]

9. His "faith" is all they require; there is no other test

Among hard-core religious wackos, and even among some people who kinda sorta buy into supernatural models for worldly events -- it doesn't matter HOW bad things get in Iraq, or if the war conflagrates out of control, or if there are tens of thousands of people killed in flu epidemics in the US, or financial catastrophe. Why? Because they believe we are living in The End Times. You know, war, and rumors of war, earthquakes and natural disasters, and deadly pestilence. Just go check the Rapture Index -- kinda like the Terra Alert levels but more carefully thought out.

They will never hold Bush accountable for any mess he creates, because they believe the messy destruction of the earth is inevitable and imminent.

So buckle your seat belts, friends -- we have an administration whose foreign policy is half Book of Revelation and half Kilkenney Cats, and draws its support from irrational people who disregard any empirical measures or evidence.

These wackos simply do not see what reality based folk are all worked up about -- all this shit was prophesized -- indeed, it must be borne in order to bring about the Coming/Return of the Messiah, etc. They think, they SAY, that we just don't get it. But I do get it -- and I utterly reject their beliefs and their government.

This is a government of religious wackos working alongside with the most coldly cynical opportunists you can conceive of -- all the time the world is going through its death throes, there are vast fortunes to be made, and if the world doesn't end after all, think of all the fun power all that pretty polly is going to provide them with.

The longer we take to expose these wackos and discredit them, the harder it will be, and the more painful price our country will have to pay.

[neomonkey]

10. Well-stated

Damnit, it is frightening. I think about this and I find myself doubting my sanity. Am I succumbing to paranoia? Am I making more of our modern troubles than actually exists?

Or, are my fears and suspicions well-founded? I feel like I'm one of the remaining surivors in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I have this nightmare I will awake one day and there will only be a handful other anti-Bush believers out there.

[calmblueocean]

11. Totally right.

My own religious family acknowledges that Bush has been a bad president, has screwed up Iraq, the economy, etc., but his God's Chosen President schtick has them in his thrall. It's like they don't care about anything so long as Bush tells them he's listening to "a higher father".

Bush is exactly the reason America has always had a seperation of church and state, and I hope if Democrats get back in they can do more to rebuild some of those walls that the Bush administration has torn down.

[calmblueocean]

8. So true.

We liberals have sat on the sidelines too long, assuming that the obvious rightness of our ideas would convince people for us. Now we've learned the hard way that we need to be teaching others why liberalism is smart, liberalism is important, liberalism is out to help the average American succeed while conservatism is out to make the average American fail.

If the Democrats retake the Senate, one of the first things we need to do is get rid of the electoral college. That makes it much more difficult for Republicans to compete (or steal another election).