One of the sadder aspects to all this
Of all the disgusting things that this outlaw administration has done, one of the things that touches me the most is something they haven’t done- honor their promise to help end the plague of AIDS in Africa.
Reading this story in Rolling Stone highlights how hollow that promise of Bush’s was. His insistence in promoting religious doctrine in the mask of “prevention” (namely abstience, which does not work. It kills people. ) has crippled existing programs and squandered tax dollars on new ones that push moral doctrine to a dying people. It is shameful.
But not that many tax dollars. He has underfunded the effort, nothing near the 15 billion his lying ass promised during the campaign, and has actually resisted attempts by his own party-controlled Congress to increase the fund levels. I am of two minds about this. I am a libertarian, and as such, I don’t think my tax dollars should be going to cure diseases in other countries, or any other sort of charity or welfare. It’s not what our Constitution gave them the right to do.
But on the other hand, I am the son of a man who died of AIDS. 5 minutes in a newspaper or on the internet can show you a dozen examples of our government pissing away money it has stolen from its citizens at the point of a gun on the most incoherant political policy in the history of our civilization. It is almost as if they want to commit long painful suicide…hmm.
But I digress.
My father passed away after a year and a half in a Veterans hospital. I was grateful that resource was there, since he had so few others. I wish that in those days before he got sick evil people such as Reagan hadn’t referred to AIDS as “gay cancer” and instead had funded research. It wouldn’t have saved my dads life, but it might be saving someones now. Who knows?
So when I see our country, in the person of George Bush, this imposter to the throne, saying “screw you” to millions of horribly dying people, while rewarding butchers such as Halliburton, a company who has literally killed our children in Iraq, I am saddened. Saddened that as a nation we have been led so far down such a cold, empty path that such action- or more correctly, inaction- doesn’t cause world-wide outrage. It would, if so many other wretched acts didn’t take more of the spotlight.
But deeper still, it saddens me that people can actually support this. I have a friend that most of you have heard me speak of, who is a rabid Bush fan. Which, don’t forget, is the root of “fanatic”. I haven’t asked him pointblank on it, but I imagine that he would defend Bush in this, he has in literally everything else except for underfunding the Army, and that is largely due to him having a son that served over there. That saddens me. That someone in my life could give a nudge and a wink while his hero lies to the world about something so basic as saving lives. Yes, aid to Africa and other places is difficult. So fix it, don’t ignore it, or worse, promise something you have no intention of delivering.
Shameful. Or worse yet-
Inhuman.