The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

[GeckoGeek]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

But it just goes to show how uneven our immigration policies are. If these people already had visas approved before, and if they are trying to renew their visas legally, why not just extend their stays legally instead of letting them slip through the cracks? It would be harder to extricate them if they stayed here illegally and had American kids.

I'm not sure as I understand the ideas behind our policy. If it's only good for a few years, then it's probably designed for things like students and what not. They come, do their thing, and leave. Coming to the country to stay is a different set of criteria.

However, our enforcement has been lax and there's been a lot of political pressure to "reform" immigration policy by non-enforcement. A tactic I consider unacceptable.

[kamuelakea]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

IIn Hawaii, people have immigrated from many countries. They remain proud of their heritage. And yet they have assimilated into one society.

That did not happen overnight. Japanese, for example, all planned to return to their country. Half of the Japanese who came to Hawaii actually went home. The ones who stayed ordered mail order brides from Japan only, obviously to remain Japanese. Then they set up their own schools. There were dozens of Japanese language schools in Hawaii in the early 1900s. They set up their own churches. They established their own communities. Patronized their own Japanese owned businesses. They continued to mostly marry only Japanese.

Took an entire generation and a half before Japanese in Hawaii decided to assimilate. Interestingly, they only decided to assimilate (maybe since the 70s?) once they achieved statehood (1959) and took over political and economic control of Hawaii.

Hispanics are doing anything even close to what the Japanese did in Hawaii in terms of failing to assimilate.

Ultimately, I believe it will happen. U.S. culture is too strong, with TV, movies etc. The hispanic kids will grow up english speaking Americans and that will be that. No worry.

[MixedPlateBroker]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

Dubya can add "troll" to his resume. It seems he finally struck back at Nelson Mandela for making this prophetic outburst in '03:

"What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Bush's tortuously bad analogy referencing Mr. Mandela was meant to explain away Iraq's deficiencies at a press conference yesterday. Instead, it initially gave the impression that the still very vital Nobel Peace Laureate was killed by Saddam Hussein and resulted in some of the most twisted black comedy excreted from the White House in recent memory.

Video here.

[cynsaligia]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

from reuters:

During his first presidential campaign, Bush -- who promised to be the "education president" -- once asked: "Is our children learning?"

yes, they is learnin'!

and here's washington post's take on it all.

[glossyp]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

from
yes, they is learnin'!
and here's washington post's take on it all.

A good article which managed to avoid focusing entirely on the worn meme that Bush-is-stupid (which I am as tired of as I was the Clinton-is-a-pervert) and look at the NCLB act a few years on. I believe I read somewhere that Hawaii students have improved in math and English in the last round of testing.

[waioli kai]

not to be confUSed for real democracy, cheneybUShism

. not to be confUSed

\quote==Mahi Waina= ' I noticed that the 'Bush Watch' (Chapter 2) thread has been closed ... we are not yet out of the woods with the global corporate fascists.

A CIA assessment finds no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Cheney has discounted the assessment, adding that "would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option in Iran." http://truthout.org/docs_2006/111906Z.shtml ' /quote

"...out of the woods with the global corporate fascists"?

Not "the woods" perhaps. More like, we, as a whole, are in our self-made desert virtually run out of rhetorical fixes, spins and spans, pathetic excuses all, for our, humanity's, being helpless to change the murderoUSnest$ absolute darkness with only the sound of bUSh$ to guide us, humanity, into a world of void of militarism and void of all of the militarist economy/ideology that goes with genocides (even the relatively less bloodily murderoUS genocides as what USness is doing to Hawai`i) and the maintenace their addiction to imperialistically-derived wealth of which two capitalUSt-funded genocidal centuries resulted in the virtual extermination of the indigenous peoples and cultures of Mesonorthamerica and Hawai`i.

Unfortunately, a president sworn in to take the helm of such a hyper-inflated militarUSt bureaucrUSy as is that which is hellbent selling ours and other's childrens' futures short for maximum possible capitalUSt corporatUSt gain, becomes a president who must serve militarUSt corporatUSt$' best interests; help steer zionUS nest$ toward a real Holocaust, a real Armageddon! all in the name of zionUSts in Palestine.; serve the best interests of the party and benefactors which made (not to be confUSed to mean elected) him or her president; ...and then, what compassion and understanding remains in the president, is rationed out to the multitudes who are not themselves heavily ve$ted in militarist, capitalist, corporatist, zionist, globali$t crusades for justUSnest$.

[AlohaKine]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

Love him or hate him you kind of know what to expect from Bush. He's a fixed personality and it shows. You support or resist the man for what he stands for, not because he is so potent himself. When he gets caught off guard, you can see the mental gears are turning kind of slow. Anyhow, I think he is ok because he hates taxes and beats up bullies ( like Saddam with a new neck tie ) , even though he gets it wrong sometimes.

[Miulang]

I lied for my bosses

Scott McClelland, the affable former Press Secretary for George Bush, is penning his memoirs of his tenure in the White House.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Patrick Fitzgerald, are you taking notes?

Miulang

[Menehune Man]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

Our leadership has lost "Honor".
Sad, so sad...

[Leo Lakio]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

Our leadership has lost "Honor".

You assume they had it to begin with. And I am not limiting that just to the current den of thieves.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

Mean-spirited, yet...

WARNING: NSFW!

[glossyp]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 3

A fascinating article by Bob Geldof on his recent tour of Africa with Pres. Bush. It is a fairly wide ranging piece. One of the interesting quotes was input Geldof got from Tony Blair about what he should know about Bush and it referenced that Bush doesn't see color (as in race). He also examines how Bush's Iraq policy has hamstrung our ability to act unilaterally in Darfur. He also notes that the UN isn't doing what it should either. Much, much more in the article which is well worth reading.

Geldof and Bush: Diary from the Road.