George "W"

[minnow]

well...just so long as this doesn't deteriorate into nothing but personal attacks and name calling *L*

[Më£ïñÐa]

some people are absolutely perfect at doing just that!!!!

[Cindy Belle]

..*Lights a smoke and reads on*....*L [img]cool.gif[/img]

[Moby]

Don't worry hon...the population of France is not only on your side, but is experiencing the same bullshit you are...you won't come to the party...so they just throw mud.

let's disuss the topic in hand...if you can


News Analysis: In God he trusts - how George Bush infused the White House with a religious spirit
Cabinet meetings start with prayers while speeches demonstrate the President's faith, but is all this adding to divisions with Europe?
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
21 February 2003

But for Christ, George Bush likes to tell churchy visitors, he might be found today in a bar rather than the Oval Office. As it is, the man who may soon take the world to war over Iraq heads the most overtly religious US administration in memory, where cabinet meetings start with prayers and where no presidential speech is complete without some statement of Christian faith.

The tale of Bush's transformation is well known, but no less remarkable for that: the feckless near-alcoholic who rediscovered his Christianity after a long conversation with the evangelist Billy Graham in 1986, and went on to become a teetotaller , the Governor of Texas, and finally one of the most relentlessly disciplined presidents in history.

At one level, Bush's conversion should not surprise. America is far and away the most religious country in the developed world. More than 90 per cent of Americans believe in God, according to recent polls and 80 per cent believe in miracles – indeed four out of 10 say they "personally experienced or witnessed" one.

Almost half of the population attend church on a weekly basis – a higher proportion than before the Second World War – and 53 per cent say religion is very important in their lives, compared with just 16 per cent in Britain, 14 per cent in France and 13 per cent in Germany. The reasons are many, stretching back to the pilgrim origins of the country. America is still relatively young and still steeped in idealism. Yes, the US has experienced calamities: 11 September; Pearl Harbor; and a civil war that took 600,000 lives. But it has not suffered the catastrophes that test national faith: mass famine; plague; sustained wartime bombardment; or occupation of its territory by a foreign foe. Indeed, America's very success, its emergence as unchallenged master of the planet, only heightens a sense that the Almighty has singled it out for special favours.

Every recent president has been a practising Christian. Good East Coast gentleman that he was, the elder Bush was an Episcopalian. Bill Clinton was raised a southern Baptist, though as President he attended his wife's Methodist church in Washington.

None was more devout than Jimmy Carter. His victorious 1976 campaign had a strong evangelical strain and to this day Carter remains a church deacon and Sunday school teacher – even though he left the southern Baptist denomination three years ago because of its conservative stance. But once in office, he rarely advertised his Christianity.

Not so Bush and the men around him. In The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W Bush, the former Bush speechwriter David Frum tells of how virtually the first words he heard were: "Missed you at Bible study." The remark, it should be said, was not addressed to Frum, who is Jewish, but to the chief speechwriter Michael Gerson.

Gerson, who comes from a modest Midwestern background, is by any standards a marvellous wordsmith, responsible for a host of eloquent setpiece speeches by a notably ineloquent President. He is also a theology graduate, comfortable with religious imagery and allusion – which suits Bush perfectly.

Tracing the origin of the phrase that stole the show in the 2002 State of the Union, Frum claims he lumped together Iraq, North Korea and Iran in an "axis of hatred". It was Gerson who altered this to the more biblical "axis of evil", picking up on the President's description of al-Qa'ida and the 9/11 hijackers as "evildoers" – a word that incidentally appears in Psalm 27, of which Bush is particularly fond.

These days, as threat and disaster crowd in, Bush's turn of phrase is growing, if anything, more religious. In this year's address to Congress, he spoke of "the loving hand of God behind all of life". The shuttle disaster drew a quotation from Isaiah. If war does come, Bush's speech to the nation will invoke the protecting hand of God.

But there are less obvious references, which suggest that Bush has more earthly, political motives for wearing his faith on his sleeve. The State of the Union, for instance, also spoke of the "wonder-working powers" of the "goodness and idealism and faith of the American people". For the uninitiated, "wonder-working powers" sounds like a speech-writer has gone over the top. But a Christian activist would understand at once the borrowing from the evangelical hymn, "There Is Power in the Blood", and its resounding refrain, "There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb..." And to appeal to the Christian right, one of Bush's key political constituencies, makes perfect electoral sense.

Karl Rove, the key adviser plotting Bush's re-election campaign next year, argues that in 2000, four million evangelical Christians, all natural Bush supporters, did not bother to go to the polls. Energising this base and persuading even one million of them to do so could make all the difference for a President who lost the popular vote last time.

But that's only part of it. Bush's born-again Christianity cannot be questioned. Indeed, it dovetails with his widely attested lack of intellectual curiosity, his seemingly utter certainty of his convictions and with the difficulty of persuading him to change a mind already made up. Few mortals can compete with God for his ear. But the approach carries dangers. At home, many worry that Bush is chipping at the wall – not too strong at the best of times – between Church and State. At the very least it creates unease among Americans who do not share his faith. Abroad, where America's popularity is falling by the day, the risks are greater still. Church leaders in Britain have spoken out against the war, but their views are unlikely to influence policy.

Mr Bush's Christian fervour only confirms suspicions that the looming war with Iraq is indeed a "crusade" against Muslims, exactly as Osama bin Laden suggests. For world-weary Europe the presidential language evokes mirth and queasiness in equal measure. A European leader who spoke in such terms would be laughed off the stage. An American one who speaks this way only increases the fear that simplicities of faith, and a habit of seeing a hideously complicated world in a black-and-white, good or evil fashion, are a recipe for disaster.

Chapter and Verse: Bush and the Bible

"Our prayer tonight is that God will see us through and keep us worthy. Hope still lights our way, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it."

Speech on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, 11 September 2002

"We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence. Yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. May he guide us now."

State of the Union address, 28 January 2003

"In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'Lift your eyes and look to the heavens.'"

Address to the nation after the shuttle 'Columbia' disaster, 1 February 2003

"It is the greatest gift you can give anybody, to pray on their behalf."

At National Prayer Breakfast, 7 February 2003

"I welcome faith to solve the nation's deepest problems ... We're being challenged. We're meeting those challenges because of our faith ... We carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer."

Speech to National Convention of Religious Broadcasters, 10 February 2003, referring to the 11 September terrorist attacks


also.....

President Bush underlined his determination to confront the Iraqi President with a speech in which he declared that the liberation of Iraq would deliver "the Almighty's gift of freedom" to the world.

It's a Muslim country.....talk about shoving your ideologies down people's throats.

[minnow]

WARNING: STRONG OPINIONS AND STATEMENTS WHICH SOME MAY FIND OFFENSIVE HERE

Well on this point, Moby, I could not agree with you more. I am quite often offended and disgusted with Bush's overtly Christian spin on everything! And generally I don't speak for Jake, but as someone from a different country/culture he has been seen quite often staring with his mouth agape while Bush is speaking on television. So much for seperation of church and state!! I adamantly support our president's right to his religious beliefs but I am quite sick of having his beliefs crammed down my throat. I don't share his religious beliefs.

Bush has a TERRIBLE track record on sensitivity to muslim people and it's the number ONE reason I didn't vote for him. This is a bit off topic, but several years ago when Bush was governor of Texas there was a case in his state of a muslim family whose children had been taken away from the mother and father for suspected child abuse because the father was seen patting his pre-teen daughter's bum at a high school basketball game or some such event. The whole thing escalated and even after many people including an anthropologist who was an expert in mid-eastern culture testified that such acts simply were NOT an indication of child abuse in mid-eastern/muslim culture, (tho perhaps different from our own customs,) these children remained seperated from their parents.

The father ended up having to sell three businesses that he had built from the bottom up (he immigrated here with barely a dime in his pocket) to afford attorney's fees...to no avail. The children were not returned.

Eventually the children were put up for adoption to TWO devoutly christian families (the children were even seperated from each other) where they were forbidden to pray as they had been taught by their Muslim parents and required to eat pork, etc. Just for one minute imagine if this were you and your children. It still just makes me sick to my stomach.

A year after 20/20 did an expose on the family and the incredibly outrageous treatment of the parents and the children, they still were not returned to their parents.

The last I heard about this, the son turned 18 and was finally free to see his parents again.

George W. Bush could have ended all of this with one stroke of a pen. He refused to do it, even tho the evidence that the parents were not abusing their children was overwhelming!

I personally find him to be a detestable man with a blatant anti-muslim agenda. I don't believe for one minute that his motives for going into the middle east are strictly to protect the american people or even our oil interests there. I firmly belive the man is deeply biased against anyone who does not think as he does.

After watching a special on PBS last night, I feel more assured than ever that even his own administration is appalled by some of his outrageous behavior, as if being a christian american is the ONLY acceptable choice. (Does this sound vaguely familiar to anyone or am I just overly sensitive to nazi behavior because I'm Jewish?!? *L*)

Apparently people are starting to figure it out here too. According to the most recent opinion polls about whether or not Americans think Bush has the respect of other world leaders? 55% say NO...down 30 percentage points from just a few months ago. He certainly does not have my respect.

He is determined to enter into an illegal war tho he claims Saddam will stop at nothing. Pot calling the kettle black in my view.

Frustrated UN weapons inspectors have now been quoted in the press as saying that US leads about Iraq's manufactuing of weapons of mass destruction have turned up nothing and one reporter said last night an inspector was quoted as saying the "intelligence" the US supplied them was nothing more than s**t!

I don't deny that Saddam is a threat, simply because he's ruthless and most likely a psychopath who really does not value huamn life at all. Clinton recognized this and was preparing to go in and attempt to remove Saddam when the whole Monika Lewinski thing blew up. Shame we as a nation weren't more interested in Saddam then, cos tho I have complaints about Clinton as well, at least he had a CLUE about foriegn policy.

Bush just scares the hell out of me. Any man who says to the american people...hey don't worry...cos if the Iraqis respond with chemical or biological warfare...we're gonna nuke them...and expects this to be REASSURING or COMFORTING to his people is absolutely fucking INSANE in my opinion!

I imagine little George W. playing in his room as a child saying to his playmates "when I grow up and become president of the united states, I'm gonna have a WAR!"

I want something done about the situation in Iraq, but if it were up to me, Bush wouldn't be allowed to have any part in it. Sadly, that is just my own little fantasy.

[Australis]

Fuck... *L* where to start... *L* well just to set the record straight... I have said all along that i was interested in what people thought about the topic itself... and that hasn't changed... unfortunately in order to respond to those people who want to make it personal, i myself have had to get off topic... i hope it can get back on topic though... i was interested to read your comments minnow... it gives yet another perspective and yet more information that confirms a few other things i've read about george w... it also begs the question, "why didn't the children taken from their parents get placed with a muslim family?" surely there would have been a muslim family willing to take them in... I also agree with you rotten about "god" or whatever you want to call it, being on noone's side...i personally believe that religion has no place in politics... but then i'm an atheist... so i would say that... *L* *S*
i have to add that in asking for opinions about george w i didn't expect people to then assume i also wanted their opinions of myself and i'm not quite sure how this topic became more about what an "anti-american, all-knowing, perfect bitch" i am but if anyone can honestly say that they wouldn't defend themself when those sort of things are said then they must be a saint... something i'm not... i'm not perfect either and never claimed i was (read the post) my life IS... and for that i'm extremely grateful... my only point there btw was that anna seems convinced that i have some obsession with her... *L* to which i can only say... that's ridiculous... only a person that isn't happy with their life "obsesses" about such trivial things like what someone online thinks... that's not to say that i don't care about what some online friends think... and that is why i felt i had to clear up the matter of being called anti-american... after all... i do know a few people that post here (most of them american) and i would hate for them to think that those comments were in fact true...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> I am wondering though why mobys wife or whatever she is has such a problem with annabelle. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> Your points on annabelles dates were fair enough but you've seemed to attack her since you heard she went to meet scott. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

to answer your question rotten and hopefully finally clear up that matter... i don't really have a problem with her.. i have an opinion of her, based purely on her own comments on this board... just as she no doubt has one of me... just as you no doubt have one of probably every person you talk to online... but to set the record straight... i say yet again... UNTIL she made a smartass comment to myself on THIS thread i had NOTHING to say to her... and even then i at first declined to comment on the fact that i believed she had lied about her participation in the gulf war in her first post on this thread, even though i picked up on the fact that she contradicted her veteran status by stating her approximate age in another thread (again... read the posts) And another thing... at least anna and red know where they stand with me... if i like someone i'll tell em... if i don't i'll tell em... i don't kiss anyones ass just cos other people like them and then go and bitch about them behind their back. And i don't want to be a reg in a "mutual brown-nose society" either... i'd rather people did what anna and red did and tell me if they don't like me... you always know who your friends are that way.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> When a person has to tell a board full of people she doesn't even know. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

um... i do know people who post here...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> Telling people shit and insulting everyone. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

i gave my opinion (something i guess you never did when you first started posting here then??) and i never insulted ANYONE until i was insulted first, and i have thus far been called:
anti-american, moronic, naive, holier than thou, narrow minded, biased, imbecilic,
arrogant asshole, all knowing bitch, bitch of all, ridiculous and obsessive,
a belittling anti American bitch and finally... nasty, bitchy and close-minded.
would you not comment if you were called those things???
And another thing... show me where in ANY of my posts did i say I was perfect or always right??? *L*
in fact i said this:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> I certainly am not saying that i'm always right either </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> My prior comment on her or her country needing the US in the future for help, wasn't meant as she'd tried to twist it. I simply meant, you want to sit back and put down my country now, list all of its faults, how horrible we are etc, I just think if we're truly as horrible as she tries to paint us all, I'd hope she look else where for military help in the future, if we're all that bad, she'd certainly not want us on her side supporting her now would she? </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

and can someone point out to me where i apparently put down america and listed it's faults??? cos i couldn't find it... *L*

And finally.. now completely off topic and confused as to what the fuck it has to do with george w.. *L*

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="times new roman">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#00003C"><font size=2 face="times new roman"> Correct me if im wrong but didnt you and moby meet here? Didnt moby move to another country to be with you?

anyway.. just curious

</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

yes rotten... moby and i met online... not here though... yes he did move to another country to be with me... i am assuming (and i could be wrong) that you are implying that moby & i have a problem with anna over the scott thing, even though moby and i met online?? am i right?? if that's the case then i can assure you neither moby or myself have a problem with anyone meeting online... that would be hypocritical wouldn't it? *L* neither of us have EVER posted anything to that effect... the comments i believe you are referring to were about people going to meet someone online without a backup plan if things go wrong or you generally just don't get along... moby and i met for the first time as friends... not potential lovers... we had no expectations other than getting together to have a few celebratory drinks for my birthday and a good laugh... and then mobes was planning on backpacking around the country for a few months... he wasn't relying on me for anything and didn't need financial assistance either... the fact that we hit it off and are now married has little to do with the original topic here and so that's all i will say on the matter.

[rotten]

aurora.. good points..

and i think im so immune to those types of insults.. so dont really notice them.. I guess i expect them anyway when redhead responds to a post where you dare to "insult" her country by questioning issues.

Its actually kinda weird how narrow minded some people are..

<font color="#0000FF" size="1">[ February 22, 2003 03:25 AM: Message edited by: rotten ]</font>

[rotten]

Once again ill probably read everything people put here tomorrow.. any serious subject that gets me thinking of bush is just a buzz kill.

[rotten]

I didnt read all of that cus im buzzed and serious stuff that bothers me will make me lose it..


but i honestly cringe (have i already said this?) when i hear bush say "god is on our side" or.. makes it into a good vs evil thing in biblical terms. I for one think that the higher beings.. whatever you believe in are not out there rooting for a certain side to win. The thought of that to me is just so incredibly stupid. I wont go into my religious views but give me a break. You're right he's very very outright christian. I also agree Saddam should be killed (mostly in order to save lives in the long run) but its actually an international crime to assasinate another leader of a country so war is better...apparently. Of course we've tried to kill Saddamm seriously though if we offered 100 million for his head.. im sure someone would do it. Some dirt poor person with nothing to lose.. but thats illegal.

[heidi!]

Everyone has a right to their opinion without being shot for it....Or their tongues cut out as is done in Iraq when anyone dares go against Sadam...This is a man that rapes, kills and uses chemical weapons on his own people..There's no doubt he needs to be dealt with.....All I have seen is people suggesting war isnt the answer and Im not certain it is either...But what is the alternative....I mean there's always an alternative isnt there
Are the American people /goverment willing to put Iraq back together again..As promised by Bush..He said he will build the country back up....After war....A promise that will take millions of dollars and many many years of the Americans tax dollars ..military citizens spending their time there ..Are people really looking at the long term or the immediate fear?
Im a practicing Catholic...I believe in God...but I agree ....religion has no place in politics

Bush to me is "old school"...his way of thinking it stone age ....What scares me the most about him though is his view that the people can have their say but it wont matter to him...These the people he was elected to respect and protect now have no say that matters in a subject that could very well change their world as they know it.