United America

While many are going on and on about how we need to bring America and Americans back together again, recent evidence suggests that most American’s are united about a few things. Recent (and not so recent) polls show that nearly two-thirds (and sometimes many more) of Americans agree about the following . . .

1. Bush is a lousy president

2. Cheney is a lousy vice-president.

3. Congress is pretty lousy too.

4. The Iraq war sucks, and we should get troops out of Iraq right away.

5. The economy also sucks, and America is in a reccesion.

6. Oil prices are too high and are affecting American’s bottom line, and America needs to reduce it’s dependence on oil.

7. The world needs to lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the air.

8. Americans would like to see a decrease in the number of illegal immigrants entering America.

9. The health care system in America needs revision.

10. FEMA could be doing more to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

That’s right TWO-THIRDS of American’s agree on the above things! Two-thirds is a landslide mandate in American politics these days. America seems rather united to me, despite what you see going on in the debates in both houses of congress.

(poll data source: pollingreport.com)

The Co$t of War

In USD: $3,845 per second!

Cha-ching! And this was supposed to be “the self-financing war”.

POTUUSOI?

George W. Bush, President of The Un-united States of Iraq

Apparently Bush cares more about the citizens of Iraq than America. His record shows he continues to divert American tax dollars toward improving the lives of Iraqi citizens, while cutting funding and proposals to increase funding of domestic programs geared toward improving the lives of American citizens. I personally applaud the U.S. Senate for recently stepping in to circumvent this behavior. On Thursday night, during the Democratic party’s debate held on CNN, we heard Joe Biden say that his father used to say (paraphrasing), “You don’t need to tell me what your values are, show me your budget and I’ll figure out what your values are on my own.” Bush scores low when held to this metric, hypocrisy revealed.

All evidence of recent history indicates that no amount of U.S. money and military will bring the Iraqi people and its government to ever develop the desire to create a better Iraqi nation. The U.S. cannot force its will upon the unwilling. There is neither a military solution nor a political solution to the troubles that Iraq faces. There is simply no external solution for Iraq’s problems. Change will only come from within, if at all. Iraq is destined for a horrific and protracted period of collapse and failure that is the only path that may lead it to a better state.