Posted on 05/05/2003 6:36:09 AM PDT by dead
Howdy. Oops ... I did it again. I'm supposed to be greeting you with "G'day". Well, you can give me some leeway, can't you? I've only been in Australia for three weeks.
Anyway, I'd like to tell you something about myself, while we're getting acquainted: I am from Texas. I was born there. I was raised there. I lived there for the first 23 and a half of my 24 years, leaving only to pursue a Master's degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. In fact, if you really want to get technical about it, my family has lived in Texas for as long as there has been a Texas. When Texas became a republic by divorcing itself from Mexico in 1836, one of my direct ancestors, Collin McKinney, signed the (Texas) Declaration of Independence.
I am not boasting. I am merely establishing my credentials so you will know it is a true Texan, one who loves and cherishes his Lone Star State heritage, who makes this statement, on the record for all to read: I am ashamed that George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, calls my home state his own.
As you probably well know, another Texan, the eminently outspoken and often hilarious Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, told a London audience the same thing in early March. Ms. Maines later apologised, no doubt conscious of the effect such a comment would have on her group's record sales in the States, but I will not. Ever.
No matter what. Even if US federal agents spirit me away and try to torture a retraction out of me - which, with this administration, is a distinct possibility.
Why are you hearing this from me? Well, some of you may have watched Bush address the world from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln last week. If so, you heard him crow about the success of the invasion of Iraq, thank the coalition troops, and close by speaking poetically of liberty, deeming it "America's tradition" while invoking the names of former American Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan.
And over the weekend, of course, Bush also had John Howard flown to his ranch in Crawford for a cloying lovefest during which he actually referred to Howard as a "man of steel" and said he regarded the PM as "kinda like a Texan".
I'm betting some of you were disgusted by the jingoism of the Lincoln speech and have misgivings about Howard aligning himself too closely with Bush, feelings stemming from the widely held beliefs that the war in Iraq was mostly about oil and defence contracts, that Bush and company don't always mean what they say, and that more military action is to come.
Well, you're right to feel that way. This administration, for all its shrouding itself in the language of democracy and freedom, clearly has but one agenda: making a few rich Americans richer.
When he assumed my country's highest executive office - a post to which he was not actually elected - in January of 2001, Bush inherited the largest federal budget surplus in history (estimated at $US5.6 trillion over ten years) and a healthy economy. Two years later, the US. economy is in shambles, the surplus all but gone. The workforce has lost more than 2 million jobs. The federal government is running record annual budget deficits.
Is Bush entirely responsible? Maybe, maybe not. But a $US1.3 trillion tax cut aimed almost entirely at the very wealthy, a cut so ill-advised it was questioned even by many supply-side economists, certainly did not help.
If only it ended there. The worst damage Bush has done to America - and this is saying something - has been on the international stage, where his shirking of simple diplomacy in favour of rabid militarism has left much of the world looking over its shoulder at the United States, proclaiming it (quite justifiably) a rogue nation and a threat to global stability.
So to recap, a nation in ruins, the rest of the world understandably terrified, and nearly two years to go. But I come not simply to rail against George W. Bush; I come to plead for understanding for myself and my Texas brethren. If you should meet a Texan, please do not automatically assume that he or she cheers at executions or advocates the invasion of sovereign nations for questionable motives. Bush is famous for being a Texan, but he is not the face of Texas.
Leo McKinney is an American journalist on an internship at The Sydney Morning Herald.
An American journalist! No wonder he knows so much!
</sarcasm>
blah, blah, blah . . .
5.6 Trillion Projected Surplus minus 1.3 Trillion Tax Cut for the Wealthy = Projected Deficit
5.6
- 1.3
4.3 ? No?
Oh, I see. When it's a republican there are different rules? Oh, OK.
Maybe if we emphasised the word "projected" we would have a better understanding?
Totally wrong, fella. No one gives a rats a... about you.
Can you imagine the childish ego of a 24-year-old goofball arriving in a nation on the other side of the world and feeling the need to announce his misguided opinions to the whole country, as if they give a sh*t?
How people like this manage to get published is beyond me.
They know the political battle for national security has been won by Bush and the GOP, so they're praying that the economy becomes the premiere issue.
After 911, that ain't going to happen. Besides, the economy has a year and a half to go up, and where the hell else is it going to go?
How people like this manage to get published is beyond me.
It’s a liberal Aussie paper that was beating the “the war in Iraq will be a hellish quaqmire that will leave the US and Australia devasted” pre-war drum beat.
They were wrong on just about everything before the war, so they’re just thrilled to find a dopey American 24-year-old journalism intern who will tell and their readers them how right they were all along.
Any port in a storm, I guess.
6.5 trillion of money that was never in the government's pocket.
But a $US1.3 trillion tax cut aimed almost entirely at the very wealthy, a cut so ill-advised it was questioned even by many supply-side economists, certainly did not help...
Money that has never been paid from the government's pocket.
I am from Texas. I was born there. I was raised there. I lived there for the first 23 and a half of my 24 years, leaving only to pursue a Master's degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois
Leo McKinney is an American journalist on an internship at The Sydney Morning Herald. What is he? An intern or someone persuing their master's degree? He has been out of Texas for 6 months but is in Australia? Huh? What about Chicago and school?
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