One Nation Under Bush

August

Junior Member
Messages
146
One Nation Under Bush

I could not find this article discussed in any of the forums, and I thought it so strange and so disturbing It requires its own thread.

One Nation Under Bush
At a campaign rally, Republicans recite the \"Bush Pledge.\"
By Chris Suellentrop
Updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004, at 10:44 PM PT


PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.?\"I want you to stand, raise your right hands,\" and recite \"the Bush Pledge,\" said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: \"I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States.\"

I know the Bush-Cheney campaign occasionally requires the people who attend its events to sign loyalty oaths, but this was the first time I have ever seen an audience actually stand and utter one. Maybe they've replaced the written oath with a verbal one.

This may be the first and only time the \"Bush Pledge\" has been taken at an event I've attended (or any event for that matter), but I'm not the best witness. One of the unfortunate drawbacks of traveling with a presidential candidate is that you arrive at a political rally when he does, which means you arrive right before he speaks. Neither President Bush nor John Kerry spends a lot of time waiting backstage while the warm-up acts address the crowd. Those speakers are timed to end when the candidate arrives (although, given that Kerry is habitually late, I wonder if they tell the introductory speakers to go long), so the traveling press typically misses their remarks.

Because I've been traveling \"outside the bubble\" of the campaign planes for the past week, I arrived at a Thursday rally for Laura Bush before it began, and I sat with the local press. For only the second time, I witnessed a Bush campaign event in full. It wasn't a particularly notable experience, except for the fact that it opened with that weird pledge of fealty, reminiscent of the cultlike cheer that Wal-Mart forces its employees to perform. There were a few good lines, such as this one from Florida state Sen. Mike Haridopolos: \"Our president likes to sign the front of your check. His opponent likes to sign the back of your check.\" But the second-most memorable event was a remarkably mendacious speech given by U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican from Florida's 16th District.

Foley had the gall to condemn Kerry for his \"reckless disregard for the facts\" in a speech in which the least of his errors came when he sloppily claimed that John Edwards has served in the U.S. Senate for four years, rather than six. The main target of Foley's attack was Kerry's criticism of the president for allowing the al-Qaqaa weapons dump to be looted, presumably by terrorists, during a war that was designed precisely to prevent such an event from occurring. \"The senator from Massachusetts immediately grabbed onto that without doing any checking, any fact-checking. He didn't even call Dan Rather,\" Foley said. But \"NBC News followed up saying, oh-ho, not so fast. We don't have all the facts yet. Yet he went on national TV and announced, with reckless disregard for the facts, that somehow during George Bush's administration, these weapons were stolen.\" Foley's right in one sense, that we still don't have all the facts. But here's a fact that emerged after Foley's speech: Former weapons inspector David Kay said on CNN after viewing the footage of the site filmed by ABC News, \"There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called Pottery Barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.\"

Foley continued, \"Well, folks, one thing it does prove: There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before we went there.\" Well, um, there were weapons. The explosives weren't biological, chemical, or nuclear. And they were locked up by the international weapons inspectors derided by the administration, and they were \"liberated\" by the president's war. But instead of concluding that the war was a mistake, or at least that it should have been conducted differently, Foley declared, \"The other thing it proves is that Saddam Hussein was the most important weapon of mass destruction to remove, and this president took him down.\" If we invaded North Korea and that country's nuclear weapons ended up in the hands of al-Qaida, would that prove that the invasion was a success?

But if you don't believe the Iraq invasion was justified, you can still vote for President Bush because he hugs little girls and, most important of all, he threw a baseball. After telling the audience of his personal experience of Sept. 11, Foley revisited the story of Bush throwing out the first pitch of the World Series in 2001, which received a hilariously somber treatment in a video narrated by Fred Thompson at the Republican convention. Like any tall tale, the story has become more and more embroidered with time. In Foley's version, the president boldly strode to the mound \"without a bulletproof vest.\" But the entire point of the convention video was that throwing the ball from the mound was so difficult because Bush's arms were restricted by a bulletproof vest.

I'm not sure which is crazier, thinking that al-Qaqaa proves that the Iraq war was justified, or that President Bush stood on the mound at Yankee Stadium less than two months after 9/11 without wearing a flak jacket. Based on his speech, Mark Foley is either delusional or he has a serious problem telling the truth. But you can't blame him. He's probably angling for a job in a second Bush administration.


Granted there is a lot of partisanship in this article. But that pledge....that pledge...
 

TimeWizardCosmo

Senior Member
Zenith
Messages
2,936
One Nation Under Bush

Dude, that's creepy. Creepy.... But effective. Hmmm, I should write a TTF/Hoytroid pledge.

Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks.... Wait I think that's already taken. Seriously though, that really creeps me out. Liking Bush is one thing, having a freakin' pledge for that whacko is another.
 

August

Junior Member
Messages
146
One Nation Under Bush

The Heggy,

I'm glad I am not alone here. I thought one of the best things about my country is that we do not devote ourselves to the support of any one man, but we devote ourselves to the protection of a living, breathing document of laws.

I know that some total nut job made up this pledge. Every party has its fair share of nut jobs, but this is yet another step down the dark hall of tyranny, no? Actually, Monarchies descend to Tyranny; Democracies descend to Anarchy.

Ok, Heggy help me out with this. We need to put together an emergency reading list. I have just nominated myself the head of "The Department of Informed Civilian Readers" Before this gets anymore out of control, I want everyone to read these works:

Lord of the Flies
1984
Essay on Civil Disobedience
Notes from the Underground
Everything written by John Adams
The Federalist Papers

Phew! Now get to work!
 

CaryP

Senior Member
Messages
1,432
One Nation Under Bush

August,

Thanks for the article. You're right, that pledge is creepy. The article also said that the rally attendees "dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt". WTF! Arms aloft? Were they doing the "Zeig heil" salute? Or were they just raising their hands like they were taking an oath, with the right hand straight up, but just shoulder high? Either way it smacks of blind allegiance and blind faith to a man rather than commitment and respect for a republic form of govt. The oath with the "arms aloft" thing combo is really creepy. Will the Bush pledge become mandatory at sporting events, or required along with the Pledge of Allegiance in schools? I ain't liking this crap one bit. I also ain't taking no pledge to some guy from the ruling elite who could give a rat's ass about all us peons. Whoa, this ain't Kansas no more Toto.

Cary
 

PyRo99

Active Member
Messages
567
One Nation Under Bush

The pledge isn't required. If they make this pledge required, I won't say it, or I'll create other lyrics. @);-
 

scififan28

Junior Member
Messages
26
One Nation Under Bush

what the hell...that's really creepy. BTW, Redskins lost, so by the myth Kerry is going to win :-/

Trick or Treat anyone? ;)
 

Darkwolf

Active Member
Messages
713
One Nation Under Bush

The republic is dead and an empire born, HEIL CESAR.


Ok, Heggy help me out with this. We need to put together an emergency reading list. I have just nominated myself the head of \"The Department of Informed Civilian Readers\" Before this gets anymore out of control, I want everyone to read these works:

Lord of the Flies
1984
Essay on Civil Disobedience
Notes from the Underground
Everything written by John Adams
The Federalist Papers


Since you are on this subject, I'd like to make a couple of additions.
The constitution, read the whole thing untill you are dreaming about it chasing you around the room.
The Prince, Machiveli
Brave new world, Huxley (somma, I mean prosac anyone?)
The art of war, Tsun Tsu
Will, G. Gorden Liddy
When I was a kid this was a free country, G Gorden Liddy.
Unintended consiquences, John Ross.
Patriots, (surviving the coming collapse) James Wesely Rawles (Cary, if you haven't read this one, you'll like it I think)
Life after doomsday, Forgot the author's name, will post later.


I have a few more, but can't think of them right now.
Phil
 

August

Junior Member
Messages
146
One Nation Under Bush

Darkwolf,

Excellent additions to the list--very exciting titles as well. Thanks!

August
 

KiraSjon

Member
Messages
172
One Nation Under Bush

I'd like to add Fahrenheit 451 to that reading list if y'all don't mind. It's truly scarey what we can potentially lose.
 

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