The Self-Perpetuating Machine

If we needed reminding of how symbiotically necessary Bushco and terrorism are to each other, today's bomb blasts in London serve as refresher. Regardless of who is responsible for the bombings (the presumption being Al-Q, of course), we'll see a reifying of Hard Right "realism" (which may, in many instances, be honorable) and, of course, a cynical exploitation of the dead and damaged by Bushco for political gain. Both will argue for increased vigilance (which translates as less civil rights) and more military action (which translates as more occupation of Arab lands). The first reduces for us those very freedoms our rhetoric says those who are not us deserve, the second creates ever more terrorists ever more determined to attack us.

Honorable Realists argue that war is the nature of humans and the world, that history is a self-perpetuating machine, and that it's better to wield the whip than be whipped. Some days, like today, it's harder to disagree with them than others. This is how most of us felt after 911.

But I don't feel after London like I did after 911, and it's not because it happened in Britain instead of the US. I was asked by an aunt at the family 4th why I hate George Bush so much. Here's why: he is making these attacks more likely than unlikely; he will use this attack to push un-American policies against American citizens and will use this attack to push military policies more likely to engender more of theses attacks; he will use these attacks to divert attention from his failure as President and the corruption of his administration. He will, through deliberate intentions and/or inadvertent imcompetence, guarantee that this will happen again. And again. And again.