Bush responsible for more American deaths than Bin Laden

Everyone knows you can quote statistics how you like to make your point. So it was with a very skeptical mind that I examined the following thought when it occurred to me:

Osama Bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans needlessly on 9/11. George W. Bush killed over 4,050 Americans needlessly in Iraq. Therefore, Bush is more dangerous to Americans.

Living in the USA my whole life, I've been taught from a young age that the president is someone to be respected, admired, nearly worshipped. As an adult, I'm not so swayed by the trappings of royalty, the bluster of the wealthy class, or the traditions of admiring the emperor's clothes. Even so, some remnant part of my grade school mind recoiled at the fact.

Is it possible? Is it so that Bin Laden, the sworn enemy of the USA, is actually LESS deadly for Americans than The President? Though President Bush certainly doesn't deserve the mental acrobatics, I tried to punch a hole in what was implied by the cold data.

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Bush just wanted to make the world a better place.
This argument vaporizes. So did Bin Laden. So did Hitler. So did The Crusaders. Wherever there are lots of people dying, the one who caused it is safe far away, claiming it's all to make the world a better place.

Bush did not intend to kill Americans.
This has some merit. Bin Laden intended to kill Americans. Bush would have been fine (one hopes) if, as his goon squad predicted, American troops were greeted in Iraq as liberators, but do intentions mean anything? Actions and results are what matter. Believe if you choose that Bush doesn't want to kill Americans, but Americans end up dead when he's in charge, more than when someone is specifically trying to kill them.

What about financial damage?
Numbers on the internet are all over the place (sites can't even agree on how many zeroes constitute a billion.) Regardless, Bush's War in Iraq is always listed higher, as much as five times higher. 9/11 was terribly damaging financially, but it was a one-day event. Compare that to a five year-plus war. Like the death count, the financial cost of Bush's War in Iraq keeps growing.

What if you could live next door to Bush or Bin Laden?
What is this thought doing here? Anyway, I would choose neither. I distrust anyone who manipulates others for their goals. I conjured up several other what-if questions like this one. For example: Would you rather have Bin Laden as president instead of Bush? Who cares? This is all theoretical; it doesn't change the actual body count.

Civilians versus Armed Forces
Bin Laden killed primarily American civilians, Bush has killed primarily American military personnel. True, but I'm personally reluctant to imply that military lives mean less. Their families grieve just the same. Their families still wish that an influential man had not put them in harm's way for his own ambitions.

Bush's War in Iraq was necessary
If that is what you believe, then the comparison between Bush and Bin Laden means little, unless maybe you're the family of one of those 4,050-plus, then maybe (but not necessarily) you might have hard feelings toward Bush. What convinces me that Bush's War in Iraq was desired and not needed was all the deception. The Bush Administration went to great lengths to make the war in Iraq happen. They committed treason by exposing a CIA agent when her husband went against their plans, they used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to attack Iraq, they lied about weapons in Iraq. The list goes on and on. If the war was so necessary, the case for it could have been made without such antics.

What about other presidents who led the nation to war that resulted in millions of casualties? Could they be said to be as dangerous as Bin Laden? Isn't being dangerous a side-effect of being powerful?
Not a bad point, but we can't do anything about the past. War should be avoided as much as possible, but that's rarely the case (not matter what words deny it.) Regardless of what happened then, I can only speak out about now. Bush's War in Iraq was started ostensibly as a result of the actions of an evil man named Bin Laden. I think they were more the result of an evil man named Bush. I would agree lots of wars were unnecessary, though. World War I and Vietnam come immediately to mind.

* * *

This all brings us to the common pro-war justification: "It's better to fight them there than here." No. Actually, it's not. The really dangerous enemy is the one that is close to you, that knows you and your home. Seeing the confrontation the US military has endured from the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan, a better offense against terrorism would be a strong defense. In short, it would be better to fight "them" here with more secure infrastructure, better airport security, relevant surveillance and a civilian population supportive of such efforts. Plus, the military wouldn't be fulfilling Bin Laden's dreams of uniting the Arab world against the USA.

Stroll through the graveyard or check the bills and it's shockingly clear: George W. Bush is more dangerous to Americans than Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's actions began and climaxed with 9/11. Bush probably grew more dangerous (was responsible for more American deaths) as you read this.

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.

John McCain the Serial Killer who is also a Transsexual

A lot of con(artist)servatives, when mentioning Barack Obama, make certain to quote his full name: Barack Hussein Obama*. Their apparent goal is to play on people's racism, as if by mentioning his Arabic middle name, "Hussein" they are uncovering a terrible secret or illuminating a frightening fact.

I guess this means complete idiots don't read Shakespeare! Otherwise they would know names don't mean much: "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

The full-name quoters instead count on this reaction: "Good heavens! Obama has a middle name identical to the last name of Saddam Hussein, who once was the BFF of the Bush Criminal Regime but is sooo not popular anymore!"

Do I really need to say that we should base our judgments of people on their actions, rather than the collection of letters that make up their name? Apparently.

Anyway, for those that are so concerned that Obama's middle name is Hussein, I need to alert them to a far more terrifying fact: John Sidney McCain not only has a girl's name for a middle name, but also shares a first name with serial killer John Wayne Gacy!

Delving into this meaningful issue even further, we should note that "Jack" is a nickname for John. Therefore, "Jack" the Ripper was actually John the Ripper. That makes TWO serial killers (two AT LEAST!) with a name IDENTICAL to John Sidney McCain. Yikes! I'm not giving my vote to a transsexual serial killer!

*I try to provide a link to the claims I make, to back them up with fact. In this case I am not because I refuse to help any of these moronic websites get traffic. Look it up in your favorite search engine. You'll find it.

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.

The (updated) Rite of Spring: Gas prices up again? Golly gee, why?

No matter how hard humanity tries, our pagan nature stays with us. I'm referring to the traditions that occur at certain seasonal points of the year. In this case, at this time of year, it's The Rite of Spring.

Culture-snobs everywhere will know that "The Rite of Spring" (in French: "Le Sacre du printemps") is the name of a ballet symphony by Igor Stravinsky. In this gory tale, a bunch of pagans get this maiden (an old-school p.c. term for "female virgin") to dance herself to death. Actually, maybe they kill her as a group.

Anyway, she ends up dead, and by her dying, Spring is celebrated. Don't ask why. That's just how our whacky pagan nature goes. I guess we humans think if we don't do something, Spring will never come, or we think a being powerful enough to create the universe is petty enough to need our thanks. Either way it always results in a periodically occurring bizarre societal non-sequitur, as in: "Spring is here! Yay! Let's kill a virgin!"

Okay, but the title of this article included the phrase "gas prices." What the hell does a maiden dancing herself to death in an ancient pagan ritual have to do with gas prices? The point I'm making is that we might appear on the surface to have ditched silly seasonal rituals, but we so totally have not.

For example, it’s Spring time again and Summer is closing fast. So what does that mean? Time to get out your warm-weather clothes? Time to install the air conditioners? Time to head for the beach? Sure. But even more regular than those traditions is the call to the seasonal dance by our modern criers, the news media. It goes like this:

Gas prices are up, and golly gee, no one seems to know exactly why.

Having heard the call, the traditional parties gather for the ritual. Those parties include Congress and oil company executives. The media narrates the play, and in keeping with lame stories world-wide, includes a prophecy at the start that gives away the ending:

Congress will be getting a committee to find out if there is any wrongdoing or price-gouging by the oil companies. Chances are, it’s just supply and demand because people are traveling more in the summer, so they want gas more, and the increased demand raises the price.

Everyone knows their part. Everyone says their lines from memory. Sometimes those who play Congress will even bring in the oil company CEOs to testify. Then comes the only real variation in this yearly tradition: will Congress angrily demand answers?

The pagan circle is filled with mock theatrical tension! (Open-OH-mouths covered with hands, eyes wide open!)

On a whim as random as the Spring winds, Congress chooses to demand answers or not.

If it doesn't, it's because Congress decided there was no wrongdoing so nothing happens. If it does happen, the CEOs deny any wrongdoing, Congress believes them and then nothing happens. Except, Spring is here! Summer is coming!

Then that’s the last we’ll hear of that, until next Spring. The question of why gas prices are so high while at the same time oil company profits are higher then previously will fade away, preempted by another summer news tradition: Boy is it HOT!

So once again, despite record profits, endless oil wars, an economy under pressure, screaming consumers and a faux-enraged Congress, the oil company CEOs shrug and say, "It's just our luck! There's no shady dealings here!" Life goes on as if nothing changed, because nothing did. Oil companies got rich again, their executives, the media and Congress did their obligatory dance to commemorate the arrival of Spring and the coming of Summer, and the earth kept on spinning.

(Here's some sample news stories, Rites of Spring across the last few years: 2008 . 2007 . 2006 . 2005 . 2004: You get the idea.)

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.

Wal-Mart pulls a Darth Vader

Wal-Mart has decided not to take money from a brain-damaged woman!

It doesn't sound as great when put like that, but I think it's still cause for a micro-mini celebration. It shows that someone at Wal-Mart had a heart. Or more likely, at least they realized their massive P.R. blunder. But hey, P.R. blunders don't happen unless a lot of people get mad at an injustice, so, major ups to all who raised a stink about this!

See Wal-Mart, even a union-busting, mom-and-pop store demolishing behemoth like you can do the right thing when you try. Now let's see what else you can do to stop being a force of undemocratic oppression. Keep going in this positive direction.

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Larry Nocella is the award-winning author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available at Amazon and Xlibris and other fine online book stores. Where Did This Come From? is also available as an eBook. For more info, visit Larry Nocella's website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.