Is this a show, now that Bush knows his ratings are in the crapper?
Offline Not only is he dispised in most of the rest of the world, even his supporters at home are skeptical as to his abilities.
I am now watching a speech in Annapollis Md that has brought the Palistinian President together with the Isreali PM and leaders of the Arab nations surrounding.
Is this a case of "a little too late". Is Bush finally realizing that he cant play world dictator? Maybe his cabinate and military advisors and world embassodors are finally saying, |"listen you idiot, no one likes an arrogent prick".
Or is this merely a publicity stunt on his part to boost world opinion? I am not discounting that the Arab states may be using this as a photo op only later to be used as a "see, the Jews dont keep their word|".
I really want and hope this is not lip service. Screw Bush and the Palistinians and the Jews, I think above and beyond religion and politics, humans in that region should be getting tired of all the death on both sides.
I am quite sure that BOTH Muslim and Jewish parents and children get tired of seeing loved ones shot and blown up. When are both going to realize that the thousands of years of fighting has not solved anything. When are they both going to realize that neither is going anywhere?
I really hope that it sticks this time. Other presidents prior have tried and failed. Bush has failed at everything that he has tried so my skepticism remains. This however would be a case if successfull, I would atribute to the people around Bush wising up and verbally smacking him in the face.
No one likes a dictator and Bush may be finally realizing that it takes more than one person to run a goverment and that HE and his god claim is not the only one on the face of the planet.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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Brian, I wish I could feel optimism about this, but I can't. You see, about two years ago, I formulated a plan that I called:
"My Plan For Maintaining Rethuglican Control of the Government After the Next Presidential Election."
Basically, I spent a few days thinking like a Republican, and figuring out what the best long term strategy would be for maintaining as much power as possible with Bush in office, and then strengthening the party after the next presidential election. I'm not going to post it here because I don't like debating politics, but I did write it down and show it to several friends, so that if/when it happened, I could say, "I told you so!"
Long story short, this story fits into my plan perfectly. It's what I expected to start happening.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
This appears to be the new past time of lame duck presidents: make a desperate stab to acheive peace in the Middle East and redefine your legacy in one fell swoop. Like a drunk trying to blot out bad memories with yet more to drink - Monica, in Clinton's case, and now Bush and Iraq. Anything to stop the quacking, the constant quacking....
Bush might even get Israel and Fatah to agree to something, but now Gaza is in the mix and any chance of peace will simply cause Hamas to go batshit. Build a wall, Israel, build a wall.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
The well of George Bush's arrogance is infinitely deep.
Tilberian is right - trying to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only help the legacy of an outgoing president, even though the chances of success are small.
But for George Bush to even think that he can come close to solving the problem is ridiculous.
The United States will never be an effective peace broker between Israel and Palestine because the U.S. has unconditionally supported Israel practically since its founding in 1947. This support of Israel was at least one of the precipitating factors of the September 11th attack.
There are two countries in the Middle East that the U.S. cares about - Saudi Arabia, since they supply us with most of our oil, and Israel, because, well, they hate everybody else in the Middle East and everyone hates them. It's sort of a the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend situation.
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have behaved badly ever since the conflict started decades ago. Norway, a truly neutral country, came closest to resolving the conflict with the much-ballyhooed Oslo Accords in 1993, but both sides regressed to conflict again.
The fact that the U.S. supports Israel gives the Israelis no real incentive for peace, and gives the Palestinians even more reason to fight. Plus, add on to that the debacle of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The picture in the Middle East isn't very pretty. And the U.S. is to blame.
Here's what the next president of the United States (hopefully a Democrat) should do:
1) Complete a significant draw-down of U.S. forces in Iraq by the end of his/her first term;
2) Get re-elected on that accomplishment;
3) Soon after re-election, publicly withdraw all material support for Israel, and tell the Israelis and Palenstinians that we'll meet them back at the bargaining table in two years;
4) Take the last two years of the presidency to hammer out an agreement;
5) Go down in history as the president that solved the Middle East peace crisis.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
Here is the thing that foored me intoday's press confrence. Normaly, I see the "god bless" crap religated by our representitives aimed at an audiance pandering toward a Christian audiance. Bush when he ended his speach to the PM of Palistine and Isreal said, "God bless this process"
For someone who says they want peace I challenge both the Jews and Palistinains to define what side Bush's particular God is on.
I expected the Palistine PM to invoke prhase to Allah, but isnt that the hypoceracy they fear when Bush invokes the name of "God"? Out of all three leaders, the only speech that did not mention a sectarian god was the Isreali PM's speech.
The beef is the same in this conflict. BOTH claim that plot of land as divine intitlement and come hell and death to those who appose, thus is the will of "Allah/Yahwey".
Here is my challenge to the idiots on both sides.
What good is a burnt planet? If it holds no neutrition to any label that would include you as well.
The beef between the Muslims and Jews in the Middle east is akin to a jilted lover who caught their lover in bed with a rival. My point is SO THE FUCK WHAT? Is your seed so fucking important that you cant see the survival of the species as slightly more imporant than your own DNA.
This is not a conflict of right or wrong as much as it is vanity. If Muslims and Jews truely cared about human life they would not let their dickhead bosses named Yahwey and Allah fight it out while using the followers of either as pawns, they would fight it out themselves without humans.
The fact is this is not a fictional being calling itself all loving and all compasionate by any name. This is merely Jews and Muslims claiming a super hero that will only be kind to anyone as long as everyone submits to their fiction, rather than do the right thing and accept that the world nor it's politics is self centered or monocromatic as to summit blindly to one label.
Peace through sumission didnt work with the founders. Peace through sumbission didnt work through the slaves. Peace through occupation wont work either, anymore than British Colonialism worked in India.
Name me one person on the face of the planet that doesnt find at least one thing absurd that even their closest neighbor(not just on the issue of theism) they find dissagreement on?
If I blew up everything I found absurd I would be arrested on my first attempt. I dont blow things up that I dissagree with, I merely give it the ridicule it diserves.
Here is my challenge to theists and atheists. If the worst in life you have to go through is ridicule, that is far better than genocide and extinction. GROW UP! That Is my point, we all bitch and we all dont always get allong, but we dont have to kill over trival things.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog