The Reality-Based Community
Damn! Al f---ing Gore should be President!
Yeah, yeah – I know what you’re thinking… “old news, pal” But that’s not why I say this. Let me explain… Yesterday morning I was working on my next Blog post, trying to sort out what, exactly, is wrong with the way the Bush administration sees the Universe. I got stuck – I knew what I wanted to say, but couldn’t figure out how to say it. So I let it sit for the rest of the day. Then, completely by accident, while channel-surfing just before bedtime, I ran across a re-broadcast of Al Gore’s full speech at Georgetown University yesterday (Monday October 18, 2004). I caught it about 25% of the way through. Fan-freakin’-tastic! He just SLAMMED the Bush presidency. Relentless, brutal even, loaded with facts and data, and all tied together with a clear explanation of the Bush world-view. And I must say, as a speech it was downright inspirational… it was smart and clear and detailed, yet delivered in a relentless, jack-hammer format that kept me riveted to the screen.
Just what I had been struggling to say – and with the extra bonus of being loaded to overflowing with fabulous talking points to pound your Republican friends with. So I killed that Post and will let Al do the talkin’.
Here’s the full text of that speech:
http://www.algore04.com/ or http://www.algoredemocrats.com/
If it get moved in the coming days Google for the following:
Transcript: The Failed Presidency of George W. Bush
Remarks as delivered by former Vice President Al Gore Gaston Hall at Georgetown UniversityMonday, October 18, 2004
I’ve picked out some choice cuts to wet your appetite. I've tried to stay with the flow of his core message. But if you put no effort into the election except to read ONE thing and then vote… READ HIS SPEECH.
Most of the problems President Bush has caused for this country stemmed not from his belief in God but his belief in the infallibility of the right-wing Republican ideology that exalts the interest of the wealthy, and of large corporations over and above the interests of the American people. It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency.
The essential cruelty of Bush's game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals, and then cloaks them with a phony moral authority, thus misleading many Americans who have a deep and genuine desire to do good in the world. And in the process he convinces them to lend unquestioning support for proposals that actually hurt their families and their communities.
Most disturbing of all: his contempt for the rule of reason and his early successes in persuading the nation that his ideologically based views accurately describe the world have now tempted him to the hubristic an genuinely dangerous illusion that reality is itself a commodity that can be created with clever public relations and propaganda skills; and, where specific controversies are concerned, simply purchased as a turnkey operation from the industries most affected.
George Orwell said, and I quote, "The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue. And then when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right." Intellectually it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time. The only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality -- usually on a battlefield.
He claimed that he was going to war in order to deal with an imminent threat to the United States. But again the evidence shows clearly that there was no such imminent threat, and that Bush knew that at the time -- or at least had been told that by those in the best position to know. He claims that gaining dominance of Iraqi oil fields for American producers was never part of his calculation. But we now know, from a document uncovered by the New Yorker magazine, and dated just two weeks to the day after Bush's inauguration, that his National Security Council was ordered to meld its review of operational policies toward rogue states with the secretive Cheney energy task force's, quote "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields," end quote. We also know from documents obtained in discovery proceedings against that Cheney task force, by the odd combination of Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club that one of the documents that was receiving scrutiny by the task force during that same time period was a highly detailed map of Iraq -- showing none of the cities, none of the places where people lived, but showing in great detail the location of every single oil deposit known to exist in the country, with dotted lines demarking blocks for promising exploration -- a map which in the words of a Canadian journalists resembled a butcher's drawing of a steer with the prime cuts delineated by dotted lines.
The same pattern that produced America's catastrophe in Iraq has also produced a catastrophe for our domestic economy. So President Bush's distinctive approach, and habit of mind, is clearly recognizable. He asserted over and over again that his massive tax cut would not primarily benefit the wealthy, would stimulate jobs, would increase economic growth. Now, we face the largest deficits in the history of our nation. Simultaneously we face the largest trade deficit and current account deficits in our history.
In yesterday's New York Times, Ron Suskind related a truly startling conversation with a White House official who was angry that he had written an article in 2002 that the White House didn't like. And this senior advisor to Bush told Suskind that reporters like him live, "in what we called the reality-based community." And he denigrated such people for believing that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. He went on to say, that's not the way the world really works anymore, when we act we create our own reality, and while you're studying that reality, judiciously as you will, we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, he said, and you, all of you will be left to just study what we do. By failing to adjust their policies to unexpected realities, they have made it difficult to carry out any of their policies competently. Indeed, this is the answer to what some have regarded as a mystery, how could a team so skilled in politics be so fumbling and incompetent when it comes to policy. The truth is that the same insularity and zeal that makes him effective at smash mouth politics, makes him terrible at governing. The Bush-Cheney administration is a rarity in American history, it is simultaneously dishonest and incompetent.
Its me again… and there you have it. What I was struggling to make clear. The Bush Presidency is a Faith-Based Presidency. Republicans live in a Faith-Based community – their World is one of Unquestioning Faith. They believe what they believe, and the facts on the ground are completely irrelevant. Problem is - they aren't irrelevant. Faith may be OK when its Faith in God, but last time I checked even George Bush and Dick Cheney haven't (YET) claimed their God. So let them Believe - you can't change the minds of people who think that Doubt is a Sin.
The rest of us apparently live in the "Reality-Based Community". To Republicans that's an INSULT, folks. THINK about that for a minute. Policy decisions for the real world require a President who can see that there IS a real world. And whatever you think of Kerry, at very least, he understands THAT.
Yeah, yeah – I know what you’re thinking… “old news, pal” But that’s not why I say this. Let me explain… Yesterday morning I was working on my next Blog post, trying to sort out what, exactly, is wrong with the way the Bush administration sees the Universe. I got stuck – I knew what I wanted to say, but couldn’t figure out how to say it. So I let it sit for the rest of the day. Then, completely by accident, while channel-surfing just before bedtime, I ran across a re-broadcast of Al Gore’s full speech at Georgetown University yesterday (Monday October 18, 2004). I caught it about 25% of the way through. Fan-freakin’-tastic! He just SLAMMED the Bush presidency. Relentless, brutal even, loaded with facts and data, and all tied together with a clear explanation of the Bush world-view. And I must say, as a speech it was downright inspirational… it was smart and clear and detailed, yet delivered in a relentless, jack-hammer format that kept me riveted to the screen.
Just what I had been struggling to say – and with the extra bonus of being loaded to overflowing with fabulous talking points to pound your Republican friends with. So I killed that Post and will let Al do the talkin’.
Here’s the full text of that speech:
http://www.algore04.com/ or http://www.algoredemocrats.com/
If it get moved in the coming days Google for the following:
Transcript: The Failed Presidency of George W. Bush
Remarks as delivered by former Vice President Al Gore Gaston Hall at Georgetown UniversityMonday, October 18, 2004
I’ve picked out some choice cuts to wet your appetite. I've tried to stay with the flow of his core message. But if you put no effort into the election except to read ONE thing and then vote… READ HIS SPEECH.
Most of the problems President Bush has caused for this country stemmed not from his belief in God but his belief in the infallibility of the right-wing Republican ideology that exalts the interest of the wealthy, and of large corporations over and above the interests of the American people. It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency.
The essential cruelty of Bush's game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals, and then cloaks them with a phony moral authority, thus misleading many Americans who have a deep and genuine desire to do good in the world. And in the process he convinces them to lend unquestioning support for proposals that actually hurt their families and their communities.
Most disturbing of all: his contempt for the rule of reason and his early successes in persuading the nation that his ideologically based views accurately describe the world have now tempted him to the hubristic an genuinely dangerous illusion that reality is itself a commodity that can be created with clever public relations and propaganda skills; and, where specific controversies are concerned, simply purchased as a turnkey operation from the industries most affected.
George Orwell said, and I quote, "The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue. And then when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right." Intellectually it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time. The only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality -- usually on a battlefield.
He claimed that he was going to war in order to deal with an imminent threat to the United States. But again the evidence shows clearly that there was no such imminent threat, and that Bush knew that at the time -- or at least had been told that by those in the best position to know. He claims that gaining dominance of Iraqi oil fields for American producers was never part of his calculation. But we now know, from a document uncovered by the New Yorker magazine, and dated just two weeks to the day after Bush's inauguration, that his National Security Council was ordered to meld its review of operational policies toward rogue states with the secretive Cheney energy task force's, quote "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields," end quote. We also know from documents obtained in discovery proceedings against that Cheney task force, by the odd combination of Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club that one of the documents that was receiving scrutiny by the task force during that same time period was a highly detailed map of Iraq -- showing none of the cities, none of the places where people lived, but showing in great detail the location of every single oil deposit known to exist in the country, with dotted lines demarking blocks for promising exploration -- a map which in the words of a Canadian journalists resembled a butcher's drawing of a steer with the prime cuts delineated by dotted lines.
The same pattern that produced America's catastrophe in Iraq has also produced a catastrophe for our domestic economy. So President Bush's distinctive approach, and habit of mind, is clearly recognizable. He asserted over and over again that his massive tax cut would not primarily benefit the wealthy, would stimulate jobs, would increase economic growth. Now, we face the largest deficits in the history of our nation. Simultaneously we face the largest trade deficit and current account deficits in our history.
In yesterday's New York Times, Ron Suskind related a truly startling conversation with a White House official who was angry that he had written an article in 2002 that the White House didn't like. And this senior advisor to Bush told Suskind that reporters like him live, "in what we called the reality-based community." And he denigrated such people for believing that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. He went on to say, that's not the way the world really works anymore, when we act we create our own reality, and while you're studying that reality, judiciously as you will, we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, he said, and you, all of you will be left to just study what we do. By failing to adjust their policies to unexpected realities, they have made it difficult to carry out any of their policies competently. Indeed, this is the answer to what some have regarded as a mystery, how could a team so skilled in politics be so fumbling and incompetent when it comes to policy. The truth is that the same insularity and zeal that makes him effective at smash mouth politics, makes him terrible at governing. The Bush-Cheney administration is a rarity in American history, it is simultaneously dishonest and incompetent.
Its me again… and there you have it. What I was struggling to make clear. The Bush Presidency is a Faith-Based Presidency. Republicans live in a Faith-Based community – their World is one of Unquestioning Faith. They believe what they believe, and the facts on the ground are completely irrelevant. Problem is - they aren't irrelevant. Faith may be OK when its Faith in God, but last time I checked even George Bush and Dick Cheney haven't (YET) claimed their God. So let them Believe - you can't change the minds of people who think that Doubt is a Sin.
The rest of us apparently live in the "Reality-Based Community". To Republicans that's an INSULT, folks. THINK about that for a minute. Policy decisions for the real world require a President who can see that there IS a real world. And whatever you think of Kerry, at very least, he understands THAT.
posted by pkshuff at
10/19/2004 09:50:00 AM
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