19 votes

You can't rehabilitate George W. Bush

7 comments

  1. [5]
    Diet_Coke
    Link
    "Your friend that votes differently than yourself is probably not a war criminal. Bush. Is." I found this video to be cathartic, even though IMO this kind of content is usually better as a written...

    "Your friend that votes differently than yourself is probably not a war criminal. Bush. Is."

    I found this video to be cathartic, even though IMO this kind of content is usually better as a written piece. I also appreciated the footage of drone bombings mixed in with Ellen's gladhanding of this guy. Notably, even this piece can't cover all of GWB's crimes against humanity. Deepwater Horizon anyone? Inaction in the face of global financial collapse caused by American investment banks? Entering the Presidency with a $125B budget surplus and leaving office with something approaching a trillion dollar budget deficit?

    I actually broke up with a girl following this because she could not admit GWB is a war criminal and still a piece of shit. That kind of amoral naivete is just too much to handle.

    15 votes
    1. [3]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. [2]
        smoontjes
        Link Parent
        Slightly off-topic, sorry. But how come this subreddit is quarantined?

        /r/ChapoTrapHouse

        Slightly off-topic, sorry. But how come this subreddit is quarantined?

        1. Sand
          Link Parent
          For encouraging violence and "tampering with the report button" is the official reason.

          For encouraging violence and "tampering with the report button" is the official reason.

          3 votes
    2. [2]
      pallas
      Link Parent
      It would be useful to clarify what you mean by these, because they do not have immediately obvious links to GWB to the unfamiliar reader: the Deepwater Horizon explosion was in 2010, and most of...

      Deepwater Horizon anyone? Inaction in the face of global financial collapse caused by American investment banks?

      It would be useful to clarify what you mean by these, because they do not have immediately obvious links to GWB to the unfamiliar reader: the Deepwater Horizon explosion was in 2010, and most of the approvals of the drilling that resulted in the explosion took place in 2009, to my understanding. Are you referring to loosening of regulations in 2008, as referenced here?

      Similarly, Bush arguably did a bad, and overly slow, job of handling the unfolding financial crisis at the end of his term, before being replaced by Obama. However, to what extent GWB's policies put in place the circumstances that allowed the crisis, as opposed to the wider deregulation movements, quantification, and securitization of the prior two decades, is unclear to me. His tax policies made a mess of surpluses and deficits as well, but to describe this as a crime against humanity does not seem reasonable.

      All this contrasts with Iraq, which cannot be argued to be inaction, or poor handling, but was outright unlawful, was enormously disreputable, was built on very specific lies and claims that turned out to have no evidence to back them, didn't really even serve wider US political interests in a cynical way, and was horrific.

      2 votes
      1. Diet_Coke
        Link Parent
        GWB wrecked the Mineral Management Safety bureau, so badly that Obama's admin basically dismantled and renamed it. Safety inspections were a joke, with too few inspectors having far too many oil...

        It would be useful to clarify what you mean by these, because they do not have immediately obvious links to GWB to the unfamiliar reader: the Deepwater Horizon explosion was in 2010, and most of the approvals of the drilling that resulted in the explosion took place in 2009, to my understanding. Are you referring to loosening of regulations in 2008, as referenced here?

        GWB wrecked the Mineral Management Safety bureau, so badly that Obama's admin basically dismantled and renamed it. Safety inspections were a joke, with too few inspectors having far too many oil rigs to inspect. Basically the oil companies would sign off on the inspection and the MMS inspector had to go with it.

        His tax policies made a mess of surpluses and deficits as well, but to describe this as a crime against humanity does not seem reasonable.

        We're trillions of dollars in the hole because we've been borrowing money to drop multi-million dollar bombs on mud huts for the last two decades. This chicken is still coming home to roost, we are nearing the point where a majority of the federal budget is going to be going to repaying interest. How much infrastructure could we have built? How many people could we have sent to college? What good could we have done with all that money?

        4 votes
  2. zara
    Link
    This was depressing to watch, but still necessary to do so. I was a young child during the Bush years and even then I knew his administration were doing some awful things. I want to be more...

    This was depressing to watch, but still necessary to do so. I was a young child during the Bush years and even then I knew his administration were doing some awful things.

    I want to be more informed on a topic like this, does anyone have some book recommendations? (besides the one I saw in the video)

    2 votes