A Dove In The Hand

[vze422fs at verizon.net]

on 1/29/03 11:10 AM, Eddie Bettano at eddiebettano at yahoo.com wrote:

> 
> --- Elainemmbell at aol.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> and yes, the idea of GWB attending to messages of
>> the Tao Te Ching is more
>> difficult to wrap the mind around than the effort is
>> worth.  
> 
> That is because you think he's stupid, not interested
> in ancient Chinese religion and politics, not
> intellectual enough to be President.
> 
> OK, lets agree that Bush is an idiot.
> 
> But how about the people in his administration? Surely
> you don't think that W is responsible for the US
> policies in the Middle East? Do you seriously think
> that W came up with the tear jerking aids package fro
> Africa? This is the man who can't find Sudan on a map
> of the world, the man who don't know nothing bout
> history, biology, diplomacy, chemistry, geology (well,
> he knows a little geoilgy)....and yet you blame him
> for leading the world down the toilet. Do you really
> believe that the members of the Bush administration,
> the Congress, the Military, the Business world, the
> Party, are so stupid and powerless that they would
> hand over the Nation to an idiot?



Nice point, Eddie. Obviously, you did manage to pick something up from me
during those sessions in 1974. But I don't recall seeing a place on my
ballot for "The Military Industrial Complex" for President. Granted, I
assumed that that was what a vote for Bush was, but I could have lived
without all of the posturing and bullshit about the character of the man.
The President is not supposed to have handlers. The President is supposed to
be the handler.

I remember Ronald Reagan ending press conferences by saying "They tell me I
have to go now." Who the hell was telling the leader of the free world that
he had to go now? Can you imagine Harry Truman putting up with that? It took
the Supreme Court and an enraged Congress to tell Richard Nixon that he had
to go now. Why doesn't the press rail about this crap?

Perhaps all of these wonderful, powerful, intelligent people who are
secretly running the executive branch could sit W down and at least teach
him to pronounce the word "nuclear". I lost count after seven utterances of
"nucular" last night. That's when I stopped shouting at my television and
went to Doyle's to watch the end of a Celtics game. Bush is an international
embarrassment. Every time he opens his mouth he reinforces the erroneous
image of Americans as pro-wrestling fans and self-centered yahoos. The State
of Florida owes the world an apology for opening the door to the china shop
for this dunderheaded bull.

Nice persona by the way. Very different from your usual polite self. I'm
flattered.

Joe


>No, you can't belive
> that. So, it's not W's attending  to the teachings of
> Lao Tzu that one could spend time wrapping heads
> about. It's American policy (the policy makers if you
> must put a face on it, but this always seems to divert
> attention away from policy and onto conspiratorial
> realtionships between individuals and character
> assassination propaganda). The State of the Union
> Address is not a good text to study in order to
> understand US policy. And W's illiteracy (his
> violating prescribed standards of speech) is not
> relevant. Some of what he said about America's bounty,
> her god given freedoms and its philathropic and
> security responsibilities in the world, his claims
> that inaction  is not an option and so forth tell us
> where to look to find the philosphy/religion/politics
> behind the policies  of this government (not W). This
> is where the use of a text like Lao Tzu becomes
> interesting. As a baby-boomer, certainly you know that
> Chinese philosophy (sorry, but I prefer to use the
> term philosophy) Confusionismm Taoism, Buddhism,
> others, provide insights into the world and human life
> that are perfectly relevant to our current problems
> and crisis. 
> Talking about W and W's oratory skills is a waste of
> wrapping head and head wrapping too.
> 
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