Welcome To "The Crazy Years".

[athelind]

Darkwulf: New LiveJournal entry. I think maybe it's time to move to Canada.

Athelind: They can't have my country.
Gods, I hate living in bad sci fi.

Darkwulf: Yeah, I know.

The world hates us and nobody cares. A friend and I got into a debate about "how right" the war was. I asked him what right we had to run the world. He answered "someone has to".

Athelind: Well, frankly, as I said to Raffy last night -- the idea of the US strutting around toppling tyrants and oppressors doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that we're so selective about WHICH tyrants and oppressors we topple.

And... in response to your friend... brrrrr. That attitude is EXACTLY the problem.

So, if it had been the Soviet Union making these moves after WE'D collapsed in the early '90s, it would be okay, because "someone has to"?

Darkwulf: I'm incensed at how "Operation remove Saddam from power because he's hidingchemical weapons and we think he's funding terrorists" became "Operation Iraqui Freedom". They didn't say a thing about "Iraqui Freedom" in the days leading up.

Athelind: Yep.

Suddenly, the fact that we could prove neither diddly nor squat about his Weapons Violations didn't matter, because it was All About Liberation.

Just like before that, the fact that we could prove neither diddly nor squat about his Connections To 9/11 didn't matter, because it was All About His Weapons Violations.

Darkwulf: Oh, and in response to my question about when we'd officially withdraw from the UN, he replied, "Who cares? It's outdated anyway. The UN hasn't accomplished anything in how many years?" I hope he's not Joe Six-Pack.

Athelind: What incenses ME is the attitude of "Well, I opposed it before, but now we're doing it, so it must be right."

Darkwulf: I support our troops. They're doing their job; wrong orders aren't necessarily illegal.

(Though I still maintain that the war is. But that's another argument.)

Athelind: Um, wasn't it the UN who was coordinating the GENUINE peace-keeping efforts in Bosnia?

And hasn't it occurred to him OR ANY OF THESE FUCKING LOSERS that the UN just MIGHT accomplish something if its MOST POWERFUL ECONOMIC MEMBER MIGHT ACTUALLY BACK IT UP NOW AND THEN?

Darkwulf: Yeah, but the US is the strong-arm of the UN, and nobody else actually enforces anything. Right? :p

Athelind: Know why I got out of the Coast Guard back in 1990?
I took an oath to "Obey the orders of the President" AND "To defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC."

I couldn't reconcile the two when Bush Senior was in office.

Much as I want to support our troops, and as much sympathy as I have for them in this situation, there's still a part of me that doesn't have a lot of sympathy for those who can accomplish the doublethink with Bush Junior.

Darkwulf: Our foreign policy blows. We have to be the ones in control.

Athelind: Yes. Blow it does.

Darkwulf: I don't know if it's because I "understand" politics better now or what, but Bush Junior seems really...random and erratic? More so than anyone I remember.

At the beginning of his administration, I was impressed by the fact he had enough sense to gather people who were good at what he wasn't. Now I'm wondering what the hell happened.

Athelind: Bush's handlers are as sociopathic as he is, if not moreso. I mean, look at Cheney.

Darkwulf: Powell seemed like a good guy. But in the UN hearings, he seemed rather...well...rabid.

Athelind: They've got something on Powell. They've threatened his family or something. He just made too dramatic a 180.

Darkwulf: And France and Germany and all those are such jerks. How dare they use the checks-and-balances system set up in the UN for just the purpose we demonstrated? :p

Athelind: Oh, much less the commies here in THIS country who want to use the checks and balances in that Constitution thing.

Darkwulf: If they put me in charge, I'd be assassinated within a week. There are just too many people who seem to have gone off the deep end.

Athelind: Welcome to "The Crazy Years".

Darkwulf:
"Mr. President, we need to attack these people."
"What have they done?"
"Well, they need to be put in their place. Look at them!"
"Uhhh...yeah..."

Where did these people come from?

And how did the general public decide that they're RIGHT??

Comments

It's not just the US

[hedgegoth.livejournal.com]

The UN is also guilty of picking and choosing - the UN knew that genocide was about to happen in Rwanda and pulled all the peacekeepers out (at the urging of the US) before it happened.

The UN turned a blind eye to the atrocities the Taliban committed, as did the entire world, objecting only when they blew up some historical statues of Buddha.

It's the crazy years all right, but the US isn't the only demon.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

This is just a swing, they occur in more or less everything that is human. Things swing back and forth in waves, the stock market, the economy in general and political stances of countries. The country swang this way back when Reagan was around and then it swang back left with Clinton.

Now it's swinging right again, it won't likely last long, because there's no prime candidate to take over even if GW wins in 04'. Cheney can't run for obvious reasons and if he did, it'd be a slaughter.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

   Myself I tend to look at it as the Typical Overreaction America Has To A Suddenly Perceived Threat. Let's look at the last hundred years for a few examples. The persecution of those of German and Italian descent around the time of WWI (BTW, for those of you who know my real-life name, my surname is an anglicized version of a German name- a change made around that time period to avoid 'trouble.' Even though that branch of my family had lived in Pennsylvania since the late 1700's...). The internment of those of Japanese descent during WWII. The persecution of anyone even remotely suspected to be a Communist during the years immediately following the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb.
   These things just tend to happen in our country's history, and now the new bogeyman is the terrorist. And just like then, today we have a cadre of ne'er-do-wells ready to whip the crowd into a riotous frenzy. This period, like all others before it, will pass. But the question of how bad it will get before the pendulum begins to drift back toward the center. With John Ashcroft (whom I feel embodies the worst aspects of J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy) around, I think that might well be "pretty darn bad." Remember that it's terribly hard to get any government to relinquish powers it's given itself. The drive to make permanent the powers of surveilance and arrest granted temporarily is already happening, as has already been discussed. Whether that happens or not, this won't be the end of the fight- Patriot II is on the horizon.
   I have to remind folks often of something that I think should be obvious. Osama Bin Laden cannot destroy this country. Not even if he gets one or more nuclear bombs and uses them. Saddam Hussein could not have destroyed this country, even if he had ten times the WMD we accused him of having. Kim Jong Il cannot destroy this country, even if Yongbyon runs at full capacity until the end of time. These people (and others) may pose a danger in terms of the destruction of lives and property, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be dealt with and dealt with harshly. But none of them is even remotely capable of destroying the United States. Only its own citizens can do that. And they can do it by sacrificing their liberties in exchange for some token amount of "security." They can do it by listening to people who tell them that it's a fair trade. They can do it by not speaking out against those who would ask them to make that trade. And that is what seems to be happening right now.
   My biggest problem with current 'leadership' isn't even with their policies. It's the way they present them as The Only Right Way and mark any dissenting view- or even any attempt at REASONABLE DEBATE- as Unpatriotic. What upsets me more is the way almost everyone is willing to go along with it... I don't necessarily expect everyone to agree with every side of any issue, but when even having a dissenting view or (heaven forbid!) daring to EXPRESS it becomes a social crime, then something's not right. And this is happening from Main Street cafes all the way up to Congress itself. You know you're in trouble when the only acceptable form of patriotism is the blind kind.