Ol' Shrub's poll numbers keep plummeting, all the way down to a 26% approval rating in the latest Newsweek survey. Needless to say, three-dollar gas and ongoing headlines like "12 U.S. troops killed in Iraq in 48 hours" can't be helping him. And his recent decision, once again, to put pandering to his Christian Right base before science and veto the latest stem-cell research bill that an overwhelming majority of Americans support are only knocking him lower.
But things aren't all rosy for the Democrats either. Congress's approval rating is only at 25%, with even 60% of Democratic voters disdaining the job they're doing. And I'm one of them. These folks were voted back in charge of both the House and Senate in 2006 on the expectation that they'd stand up to this cretinous, renegade administration and force some accountability into the picture. Instead, they're back to their old business of caving in with little fight, sending him a pathetic "compromise" bill on Iraq that doesn't do anything so irritating as set a time limit for troop withdrawal. The Republicans may be theocratic scum, but fuck — the Dems are just pathetic in the extreme. To paraphrase Scalzi: here's Bush, the least popular and least competent president in our nation's entire history, and the Democrats, for nearly eight years, have consistently found themselves politically flummoxed and outmaneuvered by him at every turn.
If only Canada didn't get so golddarn cold...
I think it's kind of what PZ Myers pointed out, Republicans are the evil stupid party and Democrats are the neutral stupid party. One is clearly preferable to the other, but what we really need is a smart good party, and there isn't one.
ReplyDeleteLook, there are signs that the party is inclined to do the right thing, between the investigations into Gonzales, torture prisons, and bad hospital conditions, but there's no question that actual results are proceeding too slowly for most people's taste. It's also clear that they are afraid to play hardball, since they flinch every time the administration says "Boo! Why do you hate our troops?"
I'm as frustrated as you are, and I hope a long term solution will be to note which ones are more chicken than others, and replace them with tougher challengers at the local level next time.
We'd probably be better off, if we just got rid of the government altogether, until some people come along who actually care about this country.
ReplyDeleteLove the first paragraph!
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday they showed a graphic on the news of Bush as they were talking about his stance on not funding research that uses stem cells from human embryos(that will be discarded ANYWAY).
My immediate connection was very similar to your own, I connected Iraq. In my head it went something like this:
Embryo = a handful of cells that some religious adherents labels a human.
Soldier = a human (as defined by everyone)
I understand that in a country this large, everyone is going to have some of their tax dollars go to support things they might not agree with.
But I find it nuts and frustrating that my tax money IS going to Iraq to kill _humans_ (both Iraqis and US troops), whether I like it or not; because the president says so (and congress allows this).
While at the same time, my tax dollars CANNOT go to one of the most promising research areas in order to seek cures for diseases that are killing humans, because a faction of a religious group considers an embryo (destined to be discarded ANYWAY) as a human.
There's something really unreasonable with using my money to kill promising young men and women, and withholding my money from helping humans in need, in order to "protect" a mass of cells that's going in a trash bin at the end of the day whether stem cells are removed or not...?
I am really in favor of having a ballot to send in with my tax money allowing me to allocate my money to specific areas--much like some charitable groups now do with donation funds. If citizens don't support a war enough to fund it--then maybe the leadership needs to examine (a) whether the war should be happening or (b) whether they've communicated the need for the war clear enough to the public.
And at least this way SOME federal funding could get to research! And those who don't want to support it on religious grounds, wouldn't have to.
Just some thoughts.