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Addicted to Bush

by Michael R. Burch

Musings inspired by the title of Paul Krugman's article “Addicted to Bush.”

Americans often become addicted to harmful things: TV, junk food, booze, drugs, pornography, warmongering, etc. So why be surprised that Americans became addicted ― first to Bush, then to his sexier doppelgänger, Palin? After all, the more dangerous and less wholesome something is, the better we like it. Americans especially love nutritionless foods — white bread, white sugar, etc. — and unwinnable wars. Our government acts like Evel Knievel riding a supercharged Harley along a tightrope strung across the Grand Canyon, blindfolded, without a parachute. Look, Ma, no hands!

First our government preaches “democracy,” “equal rights” and “justice” to the rest of the world. Then it colludes with the government of Israel to deny self-determination, equal rights and justice to millions of Palestinians for sixty years. Then when all hell breaks loose, in the form of 9-11, rather than admitting its mistakes and correcting them, our government — led by its icon of brilliance, morality and courage, Bush — proceeds to start blowing up Afghanistan. When “Wrongway” Rumsfeld realizes that we’re running out of “good” targets in Afghanistan, our so-called “government” decides to attack “target rich” Iraq on trumped-up premises. Look, Ma, no brains, no morals, nothing but alpha male machismo!

At no time did anyone in the Citadels of Power ever venture to ask if, perhaps, it would have been better not to cause innocent Muslim women and children to suffer and die prematurely, since causing the premature deaths of innocents is, in a word, murder. Why, pray tell, were Palestinian women and children being murdered with our money and weapons, and therefore the complicity of our government? That question has never been addressed publicly by any American president or senior diplomat, to my knowledge, even though Reza Aslan recently observed that 90% of the people in the State Department agree with Muslim imams who say our government was an accessory to 9-11.

So obviously some American politicians know facts from fiction, but so far none have been willing to stick so much as a toe in the great ocean called Truth. It’s far easier to become addicted to dangerous things than to admit we’ve been doing destructive things and change; therefore, one can only assume that our government will continue to act like the Crips & Bloods, while the American public cheers wildly from the sidelines. Look, Ma, no . . . Ooops!

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