Tuesday, February 22, 2005

By Request...

Popular demand has requested that I post more often. And by "popular demand" I mean Ben. Thus the title change.

Anyway, my thought of the day is this: does anyone actually believe Bush when he says he harbors no intentions of attacking Iran? Didn't he say that about Iraq too?

Also, why the HELL have we done nothing about Darfur so far? I would think that if there were any situation that called for unilateral military action, this is it. And yet, it seems to be rapidly vanishing from the front page of the paper. Given a choice between bullying Iran and stopping genocide, it's a no-brainer.

Also, Bush's budget. Poor people don't need health care anyway. Let's build more three-billion-dollar bombs. America: Fuck Yeah.

A budget rant will be forthcoming - just thought I'd get that one little bit off my chest.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to be cynical (wait, do I?) but America doesn't care about Darfur because we haven't been told to care about Darfur. Americans are generally nice people, and we'll care about things, but we have short attention spans and we're generally willing (nay, eager) to hand off our guilt and responsibility to someone else.

This administration was more or less able to capitalize on Saddam's "celebrity" as an enemy from Gulf War I, and our fervor following 9/11 to keep our attention on the situations (real and imagined) in 21st century Iraq. They may be hoping to pull off the same trick using Iran's similar celebrity from the 80s.

That idea is hampered by the fact that our terrorism furor has been tempered slightly by time, and that the new Iraq war has been so poorly executed. But it's aided by the idea of an Iranian nuclear weapons program being so much more plausible than the Iraqi one was. Also, since we're right there... two birds yada yada.

As for the budget, I'm totally with you. I hate unnecessary government spending as much as the next guy, but if we're going to overspend anyway we might as well overspend on people here, where they'll contribute it back into the economy, rather than put it all in a big pile and set fire to it.

Anonymous said...

You actually changed the name of your blog?!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!

Dear Lord....if I knew my whining could make such a difference I'd whine more often.

After watching the movie "Hotel Rwanda" which is, in part, about how the world turned its back on the Rwandan genocide....I started thinking "what's going on in Darfur? I don't even know. I haven't heard about it in a while so I assumed things must be getting better." How stupid is that?

- Ben

Jeff said...

Yeah, my interest in Darfur was kindled again by "Hotel Rwanda"... I think Pierce, sadly, is right. Unless those of us who care get pissed off and show it, nothing's gonna happen. And Ben - attacks are still going on, you just have to dig deep to find the news.

I remember what Joaquin Phoenix's character in "Hotel" said after his pictures were aired - something along the lines of "they'll say, 'My God, that's horrible,' and then go back to eating dinner."

Mike said...

The humor:

Darfur? Is that the city 30 miles outside of Cleveland?

I trust your use of the phrase "America. Fuck Yeah." means that you have seen "Team America: World Police", which for the many things it does wrong is entirely worth it for the "dicks, pussies, and assholes" speech, which basically sums up my philosophy on the world situation. If not, see it.

Also, I'm asking too. No, in fact, I'm demanding more opinions. (This from the guy who hasn't updated his blog in a month.)

And now, the serious part:

What Joaquin Phoenix's character said was rather poignant, but I think he was describing a survival mechanism. Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand what happens to people who get emotionally involved in all the troubles in the world. It leads to feelings of worthlessness, which in turn lead to tears, razorblades and Zoloft.

There's no easy solution to any problem facing our government today. Iraq complicates things, as does Iran and North Korea's development (possession?) of nukes. (And I poo-pooed the axis of evil speech... oh wait, I still do.) Nuclear weapons are obviously a threat to the international community. The problem with our stance is the inherent hypocrisy. We don't want the Iranians to build nuclear weapons, while we, as you say, "build more three-billion-dollar bombs". If the world isn't confused as hell right now, I certainly am.

And back to humor:

Um...eh, I got nothing.