Friday, April 21, 2006

Can I have a little salt on my sanctimony?

That poor dumb bastard, president Bush. He keeps painting himself into these tight corners with no door or window to climb out of to escape. I can just hear Molly Ivins in my head saying in her pleasant Texas drawl, "Poor George, he cain't hep it!"

But sadly, the truth is, Bush can help it. If he'd just stop being such a sanctimonious ass, he wouldn't embarrass himself publicly by revealing what a hypocritical fool he is.

Take yesterday's meeting with China's President, Hu Jintao. As they went outside to address the media, president Bush took the opportunity to chide President Hu on China's need for improvement of civil liberties.

“I'll continue to discuss with President Hu the importance of human rights, and freedoms of the chinese people. China has become successful because the Chinese people have experienced the freedom to buy and to sell and to produce. China can be even more successful when the chinese people have the freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship" Bush said.

Keep in mind, this comes from our leader who tortures people and denies it. Who, in a public ceremony, signs a bill eliminating torture then, after the media are gone, adds a signing statement to the bill saying his signature on the bill he just signed doesn't mean anything if he deems torture is needed, he will torture despite the bill he just swore to uphold with his signature.

When it comes to human rights, Bush then demonstrated he's mostly hot air. That's because, when President Hu began to speak, he was harrassed by a protestor in the crowd denouncing China's suppression of the spiritual movement Falon Gong.

The protestor, Wenyi Wang, pleaded over Hu, "President Bush, stop him from killing. Stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong." Wang's harrassment of Hu lasted nearly three minutes, according to Reuters, until being taken away by the secret service.

It was at that point Bush apologized to President Hu. Let me just repeat that: Bush apologized for the demonstration of free speech he had so gloriously promoted just moments earlier.

Of course, video of the incident was edited from Chinese television and Wang faces charges here in this country, indicating when it comes to human rights that Bush is so fond of castigating the Chinese about, he and Hu really aren't that far apart.

10 comments:

Nina said...

You ever heard the term unitary executive? Google it, and the first link down describes it in flying colors.

I can believe the secret service dragging Wang away, but he's facing charges for it? what kind of bullshit is that? Maybe the poor man will get tortured to see if he's stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in his apartment.

This level of repression and hypocrity shocks me, even after all that I have read about our beloved leader.

Nina said...

Oh, by the way, Dada, this link doesn't thave anything to do with this particular post, but I found it and thought it was interesting.

http://www.central.edu/philrel/sullivan.html

Anonymous said...

Dada, the funny/sad thing is I don't think Bush saw anything hypocritical in his remarks. "China needs to improve civil liberties" = yes, for heaven's sake improve your civil liberties over there in China but don't be bringing them back here to us. Y'all keep spreading that freedom around in Asia behind the red curtain where we can't actually see it. (sigh ... whatever happened to leading by example?)

Nina, I believe Dr. Wang is a woman, as improbable as that sounds. And one of my favorite googles is the word failure. First item up is George W. Bush. I check it regularly figuring I'll know when big brother has finally arrived if that link is purged. D.K.

Anonymous said...

Hey Nina, love your new peace avatar & took special notice of the figure 8 background. I know it usually symbolizes infinity or eternity, but just found out in an irish book I'm reading that it's also recognized as a double celtic knot. To the ancient celts, it was a powerful protection against evil, a sacred riddle of substantial mathematical sophistication (2 closed loops). I found that so interesting, I had to pass it on. D.K.

Dada said...

Nina: Let me just endorse DK's compliment on your new avatar. (And thanks, DK, for giving it meaning that would have escaped me!)

It's obvious to me Nina, you're going to have a rough go of it in life. Here's my prognosis for you. It's going to be extremely frustrating for you, being among a small minority of your species who are really lucid while those in power are hell bent on destroying the freakin' planet.

But I'm sure you'll represent the Earth well in the apocalyptic battle between good and evil. Obviously, you've got the metal required to carry the battle forward.

Dada said...

Nina:

I went to your link and read it. (Well, not all of it, at least half of it.) Up to the point where Bill Bennett makes his contribution.

First of all, let me say Andrew Sullivan's treatise was very well thought out. He offered up challenges Bennett was obviously not up to responding to. I guess that's why he deflected the debate with something like,

"Why on earth would Sullivan exclude from marriage a bisexual who wants to marry two other people? "

It was at that point I quit reading. The point where he had to Tucker Carlsonize the argument.

But thanks, I enjoyed the first half.

Dada said...

DK: Yes, you're right. Bush is prime example of skunk who can't smell his own stink. (And my apologies to all humble, just trying-to-make-an-honest living skunks out there.)

Yes, Wang is a woman. Oh, and the part of Bush's "Chinese people have experienced the freedom to buy and to sell and to produce" doesn't reconcile with my made by Chinese in prisons and slave labor camp images. Of course, that would seem to be exactly what Bush is trying to create here for all (former) middle class Americans. So maybe there's no irony in his statement after all.

Nina said...

DK:

Thanks for the explanation. When you broght up the infinity symbol, I had to go back and look at the av agian, because I didn't even notice it in the background.

Nina said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nina said...

Dada:

That was about as far as I got before I had to go throw up my lunch.

Speaking of which (not the puking), I wrote an essay on friday for an english class about why gay marriage should be legal, and as I was writing, I suddenly had a blinding epiphony. The war against gay marriage isn't about the marriage at all. It's about the replubicans' need to be correct in all things, and their insufferable attitude for something they say isn't proper or right or good.

Gay marriage doesn't affect them at all. If they let gays get married, the only pain they would feel would be in their egos. It's only about "I don't like what you're doing, so you'd better stop, or I'll whip it out and piss in your eye." If evreyone wasn't so concerned with being right, they wouldn't even CARE.