Jack & Jill Politics

I’m with Digby. Bush’s speech put me to sleep. I actually fell asleep during his speech because the delusion, lies and blather are just so tedious at this point for me. Why isn’t anyone willing to stand up and call this guy a dangerous maniac who would blithely kill as many people and start as many wars as it takes just so he isn’t seen to be wrong? I am just glad the public isn’t buying his bull anymore. At least we’re finally past the point where people believe him or put faith in his loco ideas anymore. 12% support for this escalation actually gives me a little hope. It was a lot scarier when Bush would say crazy things like let’s invade Iraq or Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 and 70% of Americans would nod their heads.

The news is making me physically ill right now in away not since Bush was first elected and we faced down a real constitutional threat. The situation is sickening and scary, at least for me. To do what Bush appears to want to do which is expand the war and try to distract from the failure in Iraq and the re-surgence of Al-Qaeda — a draft will ultimately be necessary. We certainly don’t have enough troops at the moment to wage war in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia and hold Iraq at the same time. What people aren’t talking about is that black people, where they can, have opted out of Bush’s war.

The majority of African-Americans have never supported the war. Nowadays, to quote a Pew pollster:

“it would be hard to find a group where the war in Iraq is less popular.”

You can imagine what we’re thinking about Bush’s provocation of the Iranians: stupid, crazy and suicidal. And how exactly are we going to pay for World War III? Is the war-ballooned budget deficit already big enough to put our grandchildren potentially in the poorhouse? No one’s talking about that either.

Where are the troops to send off to battle? Part of the trouble with the low tide in the armed forces is that black people have stopped joining. From an old Nov 2005 USAToday article:

In the midst of the nation’s first prolonged war since Vietnam, the Army is having difficulty finding enough recruits. One of the main reasons: African-American enlistments, for decades a sure thing, have declined about 40% since 2000.

Five years ago, nearly one in four recruits was black, according to the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky. In fiscal 2005, a year in which the Army missed its goal of signing 80,000 recruits by nearly 7,000, the number of black enlistees fell to about one in seven.

Better believe this trend is accelerating. Call it passive resistance. Voting with your feet. I think that resistance might get more assertive a la Muhammad Ali and the Vietnam war if Bush tries to expand the war to Iran. Because it’s our kin that would be sent as cannon fodder. No one listened to us then when the war began. Now the 88% of Americans who are against escalation can get a sense of how some of us have felt for years now. Like the country is in the hands of a man who doesn’t care what you or anyone else with common sense thinks.

It’s time Bush is reined in or removed from office — and quickly.