If there is one moment that defines the Bush presidency, it is one that almost no American has heard of... unless he or she lives in Thailand.
Flash back to the APEC Summit in Bangkok where all the leaders of countries which touch the Pacific ocean went to talk trade. Thailand was so proud. The news coverage was constant. There was even a special english channel broadcasting round-the-clock CSPAN-type coverage.
Big dinner at the Grand Palace. Cocktails beforehand. Twenty or thirty world leaders hobnobbing with other dignitaries. Live TV. Every person in Thailand ready to burst with pride.
Then, the big event: The procession. Japan, Phillippines, Korea, China, Mexico, Chile, Australia, Indonesia, Canada, America! All the great leaders make their way from the grand hall to the dining hall, passing by the royal family, who are the hosts, and are standing in a line greeting all the guests. Yes: The king on live TV. Truly a special moment for Thailand.
"President Vincente Fox of Mexico, and his wife," intoned the announcer in English, "now being greated by his majesty." Vincente Fox does a handsome half-bow before the king.
"Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, and his wife. Chatting a little there. His majesty speaks excellent English."
"Please note no one will shake the king's hand as it goes against Thai culture to touch the king. All of the dignitaries have been repeatedly told this very important rule."
"President George Bush of... oh MY."
You could feel an entire country gasp as George Bush's hand shot from his side like he was unholstering it. The king actually grew an inch taller, spine straightening in surprise. Then, like he was remembering from his college days, gently put his hand forward. President Bush grabbed that hand, and with the other hand, grabbed the king's wrist, and gave it a hearty campaign-trail how-ya-doin shake.
So do Thai people like President Bush? What do you think?
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2 comments:
Fortunatly the thai's have a forgiving attitude that foreigners don't know all of their customs. It seems we are looked at as strange people indeed. But, for Bush to be told prior on the customs towards a leader who's greatness will be legendary, is so wierd. What a dummy. He has ruined the already fragile social image of American's abroad. The term 'the ugly american' isn't just because most of american women are 20-80 kilos overweight!
Alas, shaking the King's hand...how sorry Bush is. Cowboys suck and nobody from Texas should be in a position of power. The saying "everything's bigger in Texas" should be followed by 'yea, including the egos.'
Let me know if you like this:1. Despite Bush’s endless assurances that "Americans are safer," he’s done astonishingly little to protect the continental U.S. from terrorist attacks. His administration spends more in Iraq in four days than they’ve spent protecting our ports in four years, and Bush has blocked mandatory safety and security requirements at nuclear/chemical facilities (such requirements are unpopular with his corporate buds), leaving these facilities perilously vulnerable.
2. While there’s no established connection between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11, there are established connections between Sept. 11 and Saudi-government officials, who not only provided funds to the hijackers (15 out of 19 of which were Saudis), but also supported front groups that funneled millions in aid to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Say what you will about Michael Moore sometimes getting screwy with the facts, but his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 does raise serious questions that the major media should have at least asked about the special treatment given numerous Saudis—including Bush’s longtime family friends the bin Ladens—to fly out of the U.S. in the days after Sept. 11.
3. Bush often reminds us we should be grateful to our soldiers, but in 2003, he proposed closing seven veterans hospitals, cutting combat bonus pay 33 percent, cutting assistance to soldiers’ families by 60 percent and cutting $1.3 billion in veterans’ health care. So far, Bush has not attended the funeral of a single soldier killed in Iraq.
4. Native Alaskan villages are being destroyed as sea ice melts and huge waves pound the coastline. El Niño caused China’s Yangtze River to overflow, killing more than 3,000 people and leaving 230 million homeless. Despite this and substantial evidence that global warming is real and man-made, for four years, Bush has misrepresented science in order to avoid passing measures that could annoy his campaign supporters in the fossil-fuel and auto industries. Bush has allowed companies to set their own targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and surprise, they set themselves very unchallenging goals.
5. Bush has his sights set on eliminating Social Security and is pushing for a system in which individuals’ contributions go into private accounts. This is a fine way to prepare for your dotage . . . as long as you’re not, y’know, one of those yucky poor people.
6. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have elevated conflict of interest to an art form. Before he joined the administration, Cheney was CEO of the giant energy company Halliburton, and he still receives deferred payments from the company. Halliburton’s a major contributor to the Bush administration, and Bush has paid them back in many sweet, sexy ways. In January, he announced we’re going to Mars, and an industry official told the Washington Post, "Halliburton would benefit considerably." Bush allowed hydraulic fracturing--an oil-and-gas-exploration technique pioneered and primarily used by Halliburton--even though studies showed the technique could leave toxic chemicals in drinking water. And then there’s Iraq. The Energy Task Force Cheney headed to develop a long-range plan to meet U.S. energy requirements naturally ignored ideas for reducing oil consumption and in March 2001 submitted a report containing a map of Iraqi oilfields, refineries, pipelines and terminals, along with two charts outlining Iraqi oil and gas projects. In 2003, without competitive bidding, the Pentagon hired Halliburton to rebuild Iraq and restore the Iraqi oil industry. After the company overcharged the government $61 million, the White House removed a provision from the $87 billion Iraq spending bill that would’ve held Halliburton accountable.
7. In Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, you can see for yourself what a useless lump Bush was on the morning of Sept. 11 as he sat in that classroom, staring into space while kids read My Pet Goat. This time, Moore’s actually hired some decent factcheckers, and for a line-by-line, factual backup of many of the film’s most damning claims against Bush, citing a variety of sources, visit www.michaelmoore.com/warroom/f911notes/.
8. Even now, Bush laughably points to Afghanistan as one of the successes of his administration. Although military and intelligence officials believe we had bin Laden surrounded in the caves of Tora Bora, Bush pulled out our troops, sent them to Iraq and left the bin Laden hunt to Afghan warlords. Bin Laden’s still at large, and since August 2003, more than 1,000 people have been killed in violence linked to a resurgent Taliban.
9. Fossil fuels will be gone within your lifetime, and while Bush’s administration has been touting hydrogen as a potential replacement for oil, it takes more energy to create hydrogen than we’ll ever get from the stuff. Unless we get serious about alternative fuels--and pronto--expect ever-skyrocketing oil costs, bloody wars over resources and economic collapse.
10. Bush’s campaign has cleverly turned many of Democratic nominee John Kerry’s seemingly irrefutable virtues against him. Problem: Bush supported the Vietnam War but stayed home and partied, while Kerry, who was against the war, went off to fight courageously, won medals and came home to tell America of the horrors he’d witnessed. Solution: Swift Boat with a dash of ribbon-gate. Problem: Bush is an inarticulate ignoramus, while Kerry is well-spoken and sophisticated. Solution: portray Kerry as a French-talking, out-of-touch egghead (and make lots of jokes about him being rich, even if your guy comes from big money, too). Problem: Bush is small and graceless, while Kerry is imposing and athletic. Solution: use the footage of Kerry snowboarding and windsurfing to make ads about him "changing direction," impugn his masculinity wherever possible, and joke about his tan. Problem: Bush is mindlessly set on a suicidal, unpopular course in Iraq, while Kerry’s position evolved, like most Americans, from pro to a firm con. Solution: flip-flopper! Hey, this stuff writes itself. Well, actually, horrid little men write it in darkened rooms, and Bush sneakily benefits while publicly deploring the sorry state of modern campaigning.
11. Last March, members of Congress hosted a peculiar ritual for South Korean cult leader/ex-con/multibillionaire Sun Myung Moon, who was given a jeweled crown and pronounced the "King of Peace." Moon has declared that gays are "dung-eating dogs," American women are "prostitutes" and Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by betraying Jesus. He did time in the 1980s for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, and there are extensive reports he’s allowed followers to be tortured. Nevertheless, he’s enjoyed a long relationship with the Bushes, and a Bush Sr. spokesman told the Washington Post, "[Moon’s] group is about strengthening the family and that’s what President and Mrs. Bush are deeply focused on." Various Moon VIPs have scored peachy government gigs, and under W’s Faith Based Initiative, the federal government has given Moon grants supporting school programs focused on Moon’s anti-sex teachings. Makes you long for Jerry Falwell.
12. In the 2000 debates, Bush promised he’d create millions of new jobs through his tax cuts. He promised he’d support allowing Americans to buy less expensive prescription drugs from Canada. He promised to end Washington’s partisan squabbling. He promised that if he sent American troops into combat, "the force must be strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished. And the exit strategy needs to be well-defined." If you want to predict the next four years, just assume Bush will do the exact opposite of what he promises in the 2004 debates.
13. On Aug. 24, a high-level, independent Pentagon panel found Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to effectively oversee detention policies at U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba, leading to the infamous rape and torture of men, women and children at Abu Ghraib. This torture was not simply a few hillbillies gone out of control; it was the direct result of this administration willfully flouting the Geneva Convention. Rumsfeld’s resignation is expected shortly after hell freezes over.
14. Bush’s Medicare Modernization Act is actually a devious way to gradually kill off Medicare altogether, splitting seniors into warring camps by adding a new, private Preferred Provider Organization option. More affluent seniors will pounce on this option, poorer seniors will stay with traditional Medicare, and the private competition will drive premiums ever higher as benefits for basic Medicare become ever worse. And as Medicare is dying, the healthier, wealthier seniors will have little incentive to fight for it. As taxpayers, we’re going to pay a hell of a lot for Medicare in our lives, but by the time we’re old enough for it, it won’t be there anymore.
15. The Patriot Act does little to defend you from terrorists but greatly increases the government’s power to get all up in your mess. Phone and Internet records can now be searched without warrants; police can see what books you’ve checked out of the library, but libraries are prohibited from informing you about the inquiry; your religious and political activities can be scrutinized even if the government doesn’t suspect criminal activity; you may be jailed without being charged, denied a lawyer or the chance to confront witnesses against you, and held indefinitely without a trial. Bush’s boys apparently still don’t feel they’ve dismantled civil liberties enough: they’re reportedly at work on the Patriot Act II.
16. On Sept. 24, The New York Times reported the Republican National Committee sent mass mailings to West Virginia and Arkansas warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. The mailings featured images of the Bible labeled "banned" and a gay-marriage proposal labeled "allowed." RNC spokescreature Christine Iverson was unapologetic: "When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same-sex marriage became an issue. . . . These same activist judges also want to remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance."
17. You know those tax cuts you’ve been getting during W’s term, the ones that didn’t quite take the sting out of getting laid off? On Sept. 23, Congress approved a $145.9 billion package to extend three cuts, despite an expected record $422 billion deficit this year. Democrats and moderate Republicans argued to extend the cuts one year and pay for them by closing corporate tax loopholes, but Bush held out for a plan extending the cuts five years while keeping his beloved corporate cats as fat as ever. Bush’s fiscal policy is not unlike his energy policy: we’ll relentlessly draw from a finite, diminishing pool, and by the time it runs dry, we’ll be dead and somebody else can clean up the mess.
18. During a commercial break on a 2000 Late Night With David Letterman appearance, the cameras caught Bush cleaning his glasses using the shirttails of Maria Pope, one of the show’s producers. Our president used a stranger as his Kleenex. (See the clip at www.bushflash.com/unb.html.)
19. With nuclear tensions escalating with Iran and North Korea, Bush is touting a $100 billion missile-defense program that wouldn’t stop a tetchy mosquito. On Oct. 3, the Associated Press quoted Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank in Washington: "In terms of operational realities, it is a very rudimentary system that requires much further testing and could not stop a substantial attack against the nation."
20. Bush’s administration is steadily chipping away at reproductive rights. Bush has appointed a host of anti-choice federal judges. He slashed funds to the United Nations Population Fund, a program supporting groups that educate the women of poor nations about their reproductive options. He signed a bill banning a late-term abortion procedure, a bill two federal judges found unconstitutional. Although laws already cover crimes against pregnant women, Bush signed the redundant Unborn Victims of Violence Act as a shout-out to pro-lifers. He’s suggested doubling the federal funds for abstinence-only sex-ed programs, even though graduates of such programs are statistically more likely to engage in unprotected sex. Sure, the majority of America is pro-choice, but since when has Bush let the will of the people affect his decisions?
21. "Sanctity of Marriage": pure crap.
Yup... good stuff there Franky.
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