Besides 9/11, what was your biggest shock from the bush years?

[Philosoraptor]

Nothing can match the shock I felt on that day, even after the shock of the longest election night in history and the shock of the supreme court anointing w king.

Then a never ending line of shocks and assaults after nine eleven, jaw dropping stunners, lobotomy inducing blunders and fuck ups, stunning, mind blowing policies and agendas. Shock after shock until one becomes numb and in a literal state of shock.

I guess for me it was the way the majority of the nation was hoaxed, raped, robbed, insulted and manipulated so easily, on and on, tyranny after tyranny, dead soldier after dead soldier, until just last week, when they suddenly seemed to awaken from a coma.

And he still has two more whole years to shock us!

[radfringe]

1. that he was (s)elected...... TWICE

[wryter2000]

2. Shock and Awe

I still have a hard time getting my mind around the fact that my country did that.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Katrina. nt.

[meldroc]

14. Yep, Katrina.

Seeing thousands of people at the Superdome and elsewhere in New Orleans suffering and dying because FEMA and the rest of the government didn't have their shit together just made my blood boil. The governments (Federal, State and local) couldn't muster the money or political will to maintain the levies and upgrade them to be able to handle storms such as Katrina. They couldn't organize well enough to evacuate thousands of poor residents who did not have their own transportation out of the city - there were pictures of thousands of school busses that were destroyed by the hurricane in their depots, when they could have been used in the evacuation. They couldn't get food, or water, or medical supplies to thousands of people in the Superdome and elsewhere because of petty bureaucratic pissing contests. They shoved them aside and into trailers that were shoddily built, contaminated with formaldehyde, and in complexes reminiscent of concentration camps.

Most of the city is still destroyed. Most of its poorer residents are still displaced, and the government still can't get a useful amount of aid to the city and its residents so they can rebuild.

Absolutely disgraceful.

[phylny]

38. Katrina nt

[BlueIris]

40. Yep.

No words.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Me too, to a letter. The apathy, let alone the outright adoration by some,

towards a bumbling criminal.

[Frustratedlady]

5. The in-your-face corruption and how widely it invaded the party.

On the positive side, I was amazed that in nearly 6 years, the only GOOD thing he has done was the Do Not Call bill on telemarketing.

[Philosoraptor]

10. OK boys, grab all the money you can, it's all ours

[Philosoraptor]

6. The torture speech from a few months back was a wonderful moment

[pissedoffprogressive]

7. Him lying us into a war and so far getting away with it!

[Totally Committed]

8. That he managed to get "elected" (???) in 2004, and this Party did nothing

in response, also known as Kerry's speedy concession. No matter how I looked at it, I was shocked, appalled, and more angry every day.

TC

[free_spirit82]

9. For me and the hubby....

When they declared him the winner of the 2004 election over Kerry. We were so sure and so hopeful that it was all coming to an end....that the evil little wanna-be emperor was not going to be allowed to screw this country up anymore than he already had.

[Philosoraptor]

11. a low point no doubt

escpecially after those debates with the ape

[Nay]

34. 2004 election for me too. I was depressed for 6 months.

Then, I guess Katrina would be the next teeth-gnashing horror.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

12. Katrina

While I disagreed with Iraq, at least I understood it as an act of revenge.

But Katrina made no sense. The supplies were ready to go, the Red Cross was ready to go in. But no....

Still boggles my mind that this happened five hours from me, in my country. Dead people in the streets, left there for days.

[IWantAChange]

13. That good, honest Americans would tolerate this BOZO after the

lies, Katrina, disregard for the Constitution and making America the largest debtor nation on Earth.

[lutefisk]

15. The biggest shock was Junior's re-election in 2004

The re-election shocked me with the realization that either the election process had become corrupted at the highest level or that my fellow citizens had become fascist supporting fools and a danger to those of us who supported Democracy. Either way, that election was the biggest shock. Iraq, Katrina, 9/11 are tragic crimes- but they are all connected to Junior and his criminal associates.

[MotorCityMan]

16. Good question, where to start...

There have been so many, one after the other, that every time you think this country has hit rock-bottom, ** and Co. proved you wrong.

I'd have to say my biggest shocks, though, were the shock and awe of Iraq and displaying the bodies of Sadaam's two sons like trophies. I have never been more ashamed of being an American than at these two events.

[blm]

17. To learn that it ALL could've been prevented if Clinton hadn't closed the books

for BushInc in 1993 and throughout his terms in office.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2741678&mesg_id=2741678

[Philosoraptor]

18. Abu Ghraib shattered my soul a tiny bit

[no_hypocrisy]

19. PATRIOT Act, Military Commissions Act, wiretapping n/t

[MorningGlow]

20. Hands down--Katrina

The sheer audacity on display, the hubris, that made them think it was fine to allow hundreds of Americans to die and thousands more to suffer--right here, our own citizens, in "the greatest country on Earth"--and it could have been prevented, and whatever aftermath occurred, handled a thousand times better than they did (which was not at all). (And then, of course, for them to say that "nobody could have predicted the breach of the levees"--when that's all EVERYbody has talked about for years.) I remain thoroughly disgusted by the whole debacle.

[Neecy]

21. I wish I could pick just one.

So many atrocities, such mind-boggling corruption, the lies, the packing of the Supreme Court with fascists, Katrina, the 2000/2004 elections, Shock & Awe, Cheney and Halliburton, torture rendition killing maiming war crimes. Where to start? This entire 6+ years has been a very long nightmare.

[Beelzebud]

22. Katrina aftermath, for me, was more shocking than 9/11.

I didn't honestly think our government was that inept.

9/11 made me wonder, and Katrina sealed the deal.

[SutaUvaca]

23. The second election. Unbelieveable

Also, I was greatly struck upon reading about Halliburton's construction of detention centers around the country. Adding that news to the lost personal civil protections at chumpster's urging, and I was tipped into seriously frightened at that point.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. 12/12/2000, a day that will live in infamy. nt

[earth mom]

25. 911 & Katrina were the 2 biggies-because they were intentionally done to US residents/citizens.

That some around here on DU want to excuse the criminals responsible by not impeaching them for the sake of "playing politics" is the very definition of aiding and abetting criminals-aka ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT-criminals who think nothing of killing innocent people here in the United States and abroad. Who's next? :puke:

[VOX]

26. Outrage after outrage for 6 years, and nobody really stood up to BushCo...

And I mean *really* stood up to BushCo. There were some exceptions, of course -- Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and some other Democrats (but they were marginalized by the media), the usual voices of Air America (again, marginalized), etc. All welcome, but no big surprises.

Until Keith Olbermann cranked things up after Katrina, there were no strong coordinated objections to be heard in the press, the mainstream media or from middle-of-the-road Americans.

I thought that after the 2004 election, the anger from sensible Americans would boil over. But all was pretty quiet.

Finally -- finally -- after six long years of the most criminal, most incompetent, most let-'em-eat-cake government Americans have suffered, the tide finally began to turn.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. when he was re elected. my opinion of americans fell dramatically.

for all those who think it was a stolen election..it may or may not have been...he was still polling neck and neck with keryy and i thought that too was unacceptable

[BuyingThyme]

28. The majority of Democratic Congresspeople signing on to fascism

as if they were ignorant little children being bullied by the more ignorant rich kid up the block.

I still don't get it.

[vireo]

29. The PATRIOT Act

and the lack of resistance to it. After that, I was pretty much inured to it all.

[seafan]

30. December 12, 2000, when the coup overtook America.

People who steal elections do not intend to relinquish power. EVER.


They, like other dictatorial powers, will likely be removed from power in one of two ways. In handcuffs or feet first.



As Paul Krugman wrote in the NY Times, on November 6, 2006, the day before the midterm election:

The Constitution says that Congress and the White House are co-equal
branches of government, but Mr. Bush and his people aren't big on
constitutional niceties. Even with a docile Republican majority
controlling Congress, Mr. Bush has been in the habit of declaring that
he has the right to disobey the law he has just signed, whether it's
a law prohibiting torture or a law requiring that he hire qualified
people to run FEMA.

Just imagine, then, what he'll do if faced with demands for
information from, say, Congressional Democrats investigating war
profiteering, which seems to have been rampant. Actually, we don't
have to imagine: a White House strategist has already told Time
magazine that the administration plans a "cataclysmic fight to the
death" if Democrats in Congress try to exercise their right to issue
subpoenas - which is one heck of a metaphor, given Mr. Bush's
history of getting American service members trapped in cataclysmic
fights where the deaths are anything but metaphors.

But here's the thing: no matter how hard the Bush administration may
try to ignore the constitutional division of power, Mr. Bush's
ability to make deadly mistakes has rested in part on G.O.P. control of
Congress. That's why many Americans, myself included, will breathe a
lot easier if one-party rule ends tomorrow.

[HamdenRice]

31. Katrina -- and please don't call it incompetence

Katrina and the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans. I don't remember why, but I was home most of that week glued to the TV. I couldn't believe that the feds could not get food and water into the city.

Then I heard that icon of evil, Michael Chertoff, at a press conference around day 3, where, when asked why the feds had not gotten relief supplies into NO yet, said something like hold on, the people in New Orleans made bad choices and they have to pay the consequences.

After they bussed the residents to the four corners of the country, and after hearing interviews with survivors the following weekend on Pacifica and seeing Aaron Brussard break down in hysterical tears on Meet the Press, it was obvious that it was not incompetence but the use of a natural disaster to commit ethnic, economic and political cleaning of the blue dot of New Orleans from the red state of Louisiana.

Please don't call it incompetence. It was mass murder. And that understanding of Katrina, ie just what this cabal of criminals is capable of, puts a whole different spin on 9/11.

[Sequoia]

36. Sadly, you are correct.

All those bodies floating for days and bodies found months later. One of the Cowsills' body was found on a pier. I mean...horrid. I know he's a white guy but when you hear those old happy 60's songs they sung and look at him and think how he would never dream dying like that in the USA. All those people died, a few days before being with loved ones, friends, just living...bam gone in an instant or more likely lingering death and drowning, knowing no one would ever come to resuce you. Chertoff even made Brown stay away in his trailer in Baton Rouge.

The prison photos, and the phosferese (spell) bombs also.

[EnviroBat]

32. The Killing of Habeas Corpus

That's when the imminent doom really started to set in for me...

[Vinca]

33. It's not one thing, it's the totality of it all and the realization

that this is now a different country. I find myself looking back on earlier times and getting a lump in my throat because that world is gone. Innocence has been lost. Hope has been lost. Pride has been lost. Security has been lost. Will we find our way again? I don't know.

[porphyrian]

35. That people STILL defend him. - n/t

[Balbus]

37. The prices of which my houses sold for

as compared to the prices I paid for them. I'm sure Bush had nothing to do with it but that housing boom was just what the doctor ordered - for me, anyway.

[Philosoraptor]

39. ----------------

[HughBeaumont]

41. That he was selected AGAIN.

I seriously didn't think this country housed THAT many sub-moronic droolers. I mean, after a term of

- doing NOTHING right for the middle class and the poor and giving every advantage there is to the rich
- the worst terrorist attack on a president's watch
- soaring the national debt to almost the reciprocate amount of what our economy is worth
- re-starting the Cold War again just for the hell of it
- declaring enemies of the country within a year and implying they have some kind of alliance (that was a total WTF? moment for me)
- cutting monies for veterans
- two failed offensive attacks no one wanted except the rich, each one already it's own morgue filled with our depleted and demoralized military
- being an inarticulate dry-drunk teat for 4 years
- alienating our allies and creating new enemies
- "Outsourcing is GOOD for our economy." I mean, that ALONE should have killed him, but for some unbelieveable reason, it didn't.
- Closing the books on Poppy and Ray-Gone's evil and treason
- not ONE NET NEW JOB created in the first term, layoffs galore and CEOs making as much as 500 times their average worker's salary
- A general bleak outlook, unsafe feeling and prevealing meanness among the voting population

"But hey, overlooking ALL that and much . . . MUCH more . . . COME on! Can't switch horsemen in the middle of the apocalypse, right?? Besides, I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm a Hillary-supporting, Commie queer-lover, and Dummycrats will (cue scary Republican voice) RAISE MY TAXES!!"

I mean, why couldn't they just be honest, come right out and say they hate and fear non-whites, foreigners, homosexuals, Democrats and northern senators and they love down-home aw-shucks hicks they could have a beer and watch the game with!?11??? At least inject some modicum of honesty for your rationale behind fucking the country up.

[sandnsea]

42. 2004 SOTU - gay marriage amendment

This was the most naked, blatant abuse of human beings for pure political purposes that I have ever seen. I was absolutely appalled that he would knowingly rip this country apart and put so many lives in jeopardy, just to stay in power. It really remains one of the most shocking things he's done.