Political Rant

So, what do I have to say? OK, let me start talking about politics that I can talk about, the ones regarding the United States. All things considered, I hope Barack Obama gets that coveted victory. I have been going with him from Day 1, when the people who believed really thought he had a chance. I am so excited to have him as my President.

Not only am I excited, but many Burkinabe are excited as well. One little guy in my village, don’t know his name, loves the fact that an African-American can become the President of the United States. But that one little guy pales in comparison with respect to sheer numbers. Africans all around are going for Barack Obama. I want that to be known. His campaign has energized my colleagues and the villagers that I live with. You could say that a whole continent loves their son, a son of Africa. I think it is wonderful. But not only does he represent Africa, he represents the whole world in my eyes. He is different (read: not white). He can bring a sort of credibility to what we thought was a too-long dominated “strictly white” position of office. Therefore, people in the Comoros, Lucknow, Colombo, Singapore, Sucre, Port-au-Prince, Havana, amongst so many other places can actually feel like they have a brother in the White House. Not some dopey oil-rich, legacy-title holder.

Speaking of that guy, it’s also about time for change of direction. I mean, don’t mistake me, I never voted for him once! What a bad decision, huh? I hope a lot of people are kicking themselves (and hard!) for voting for him, even once! I mean, what the fuck? Where have we gone? Where are we now? September 11 was a terrible thing, but the Republican strategy of scaring has left so many people freaked out. I’ll tell you what, Bush has done a good job targeting terrorism. He has instituted many safeguards, security and otherwise, that will help make us more safe. Forensic accounting for tracking terror money, counterintelligence (which hopefully has gotten better), amongst other things. Homeland Security Office, a joke. He has done some good things, but let’s move on to the wrong ones.

Number 1: Iraq. He created a lawless state, helped in its young days by Paul Bremer, that walking piece of human excressence. Just do it, chuck all the Baath Party out into the street, let’s see what happens? Wow, the genius, taking an indigenous population that was integrated, now take their jobs, give them nothing, and try and start from scratch. Heh, funny joke on the Iraqi people… And it makes the American people look so stupid.

I can’t even start to scratch the surface on Iraq. Opaque accounting, security outsourcing to the private sector (see Blackwater and soldiers-of-fortune whom the administration wanted to grant impunity), Abu Ghraib, etc. I could fill a page. The administration sexed up data and intelligence, granted credence to the LIE that Sadaam and Osama were in bed together. News Flash: I guarantee you that Osama bin Laden hated Sadam Hussein. You wanna know how? Sadam Hussein was a tyrant, but he was a self-proclaimed liberalizing-tyrant. What I mean is Sadaam ruled with a secular style. You think Osama bin Laden wants to be engaged with secular governments or their populations? Osama bin Laden wants you to be riding camels, making sure all women are covered from head to toe, only their eyes showing. He wants your kids to play with dolls that don’t have faces. He wants a purely Wahabbi Islamic state, replete with the legal doctrine of Shari’a. He wants basically the worst possible system I could think of. And he would get along with a leader in Arabia who wants to rule in a secular manner? Stop deluding yourselves.

Back to the US. Bush limited habeas corpus to the detriment of everyone. X-Ray at Guantanamo is a terrible topic, as is tapping everybody’s phone. Does anyone remember the moon base establishment he wanted to put into the State of the Union address one year? We need to build a moon base and put him on it! But, let’s be reasonable, let’s not put him in a position of any kind of authority. Something would surely go wrong.

So, I liken Bush to a drunk driver. We’ve been in this car all along, which, of course, represents the USA, and he pushed the other chauffeur out, the guy who actually won the popular vote. We had only been driving for a little while and then we got hit by another car, going in the ideologically different direction. Well, at first the car did OK, it actually gained speed after a few miles of spinning it’s tires. But then, after another few hundred miles, the driver threw his cigarette out the window and started a fire. Well, that fire has raged on, but we drove so far from it. In fact, Americans can’t even see it really, except for all the tax payer money that gets lost (how many times over could we have fixed Social Security?) and the bodybags that fill up and come home. The people that really see it are the Iraqis and American soldiers. And the rest of the world (minus Persia and the other Arabian states plus Turkey: they feel the effects of conflict on their borders ) gets to see our idiocy. Now, finally, we’re almost to where the drunk driver gets out of the car. Except, the car is now on fire. Barack has his work cut out for him.

Sorry, where did that all come from. Just my shout out to Barack Obama. It just turned into a Bush tragicomedy. A list of grievances. Too bad I’ll never see shit from it.