I think I’ve had three people that don’t really speak to each other about talk how the Bush years were actually worse than the current years with the “with-us-or-against-us“ thing. With Trump, it’s a small, if loud and shrill group, but in those years it seemed like the damn nation thought people against the Iraq war were purely evil traitors.
Freedom fries. You didn’t even have to be explicitly against the war, just being okay with the concept of France was enough to justify a boot in your ass.
There’s a Boston Legal episode about an Edwin Starr impersonator who’s not allowed to sing “War” (huh, what is it good for…) because it could be construed as anti troops/bush/government. It’s a very realistic plot.
I know I say this a lot but anyone too young to remember the Bush years should watch that show, it’s a very good example of the sorts of insane shit that people were arguing about back then.
Yeah. Trump may be worse (and the Republican Party may be crazier/more openly awful), but Trump doesn’t have Dick Cheney. Or anyone half as competent/evil.
Knock on wood.
Does anyone remember Trent Reznor not going to the… vmas one year I think it was, because he wanted to perform “Capital G”, a song criticizing the government, in front of a picture of Bush and they told him he couldn’t? And he was like fuck you then and just didn’t show?
If y’all wonder why older tumblerians get twitchy about censorship that shit is why.
Hell, one day when I was in grad school I was walking around and said something like “I hate Bush” to the person I was with and they shushed me in obvious fear.
If you wonder why I think free speech is an idea, not just the letter of a law… there you go.
The Bush years were awful.
Something that I just realized that younger tumblrites or folks outside of the US might not get:
“Doing X is letting the terrorists win” has become a hyperbolic meme but people were fucking serious about that.
I was just a wee baby high schooler for discussions about the patriot act and libraries handing over information and the government tracking searches, but I knew I didn’t like it, I knew that it was a bad idea and said so.
“What, do you want the terrorists to win? We’re just going to let everyone buy explosives with no oversight because you wanna read fanfic at the library? What if your mom had been on those planes, how would you feel about it then? We have to do this to keep everyone safe, what is wrong with you that you don’t want to stop this from happening again?”
In early 2002 I was a wee baby high schooler at an airport for a school conference. I’d left my boarding pass at the security station and ran back to get it once I’d realized it was lost. When I stumbled up to the metal detector (which seems so quaint in this era of full body scans) two national guardsmen in full BDUs with helmets and armor turned and pointed their M4s at me. “Are you Allison?” one barked and I unfroze long enough to nod. He handed me my boarding pass. “Be more careful!” When I got back to my group I was bawling and having what I didn’t realize at the time was a panic attack (having guns pointed at you is extremely scary).
“Well what did you think, you can’t just go running around an airport! They’ve gotta keep everyone safe – of course they’ve got military guns at the terminal, what, you think terrorists should just be able to waltz onto an airplane whenever they please?”
(Sidenote, I don’t check bags anymore because they always get opened and examined for “random” searches and I get pulled aside and patted down more than anyone else I know and I’m 100% convinced that’s because of this one mislaid boarding pass when I was 15)
Don’t want people tortured in prison? You’re letting the terrorists win. Questioning the validity of invading Iraq? You’re anti-american and letting the terrorists win. Sitting for the pledge of allegiance? You hate this country, which is what the terrorists want and you are therefore letting the terrorists win.
Saying “if we change our whole way of life and stop protecting people’s rights and freedoms then the terrorists HAVE won and we’re sacrificing liberty for security which is exactly the kind of thing you assholes say we shouldn’t do” to your political science professor in college? Oh my god maybe you are a terrorist.
Also tumblr kiddos – read up on the Dixie Chicks:
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the Dixie Chicks performed in concert in London on March 10, 2003, at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire theatre in England. This concert kicked off their Top of the World Tour. During the introduction to their song “Travelin’ Soldier”, Natalie Maines, who along with Robison and Maguire is also a native of Texas, said:
“Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want
this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the
United States is from Texas.”[41][…]Maines’s remark sparked intense criticism;[44]
media commentators claimed that she should not criticize Bush on
foreign soil. Maines responded, “I said it there ‘cause that’s where I
was.”[45][…] Maines attempted to clarify matters on March 12 by
saying, “I feel the President is ignoring the opinions of many in the
U.S. and alienating the rest of the world.”[47]The statement failed to appease her critics, and Maines issued an
apology on March 14: “As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to
President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever
holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect. We are
currently in Europe and witnessing a huge anti-American sentiment as a
result of the perceived rush to war. While war may remain a viable
option, as a mother, I just want to see every possible alternative
exhausted before children and American soldiers’ lives are lost. I love
my country. I am a proud American.”[48][49]In wake of the statement against Bush, many supporters of the group
dropped their support. […] In one
famous anti-Dixie Chicks display, former fans were encouraged to bring
their CDs to a demonstration at which they would be crushed by a bulldozer. […] Bruce Springsteen and Madonna
both felt compelled to come out in support of the right of the band to
express their opinions freely; however, Madonna herself postponed and
then altered the April 1 release of her “American Life” video in which she threw a hand grenade toward a Bush look-alike, after witnessing the backlash against the Chicks.[51][52]Colorado radio station KKCS suspended two of its disc jockeys on May 6 for playing music by the Dixie Chicks.[60] On May 22, at the Academy of Country Music awards ceremony in Las Vegas, there were boos when the band’s nomination for Entertainer of the Year award was announced. However, the broadcast’s host, Vince Gill, reminded the audience that everyone is entitled to freedom of speech. The academy gave the award to Toby Keith, who had been engaged in a public feud with Maines ever since she had denounced his number one hit “Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)” as “ignorant” the year before.
That Toby Keith song was the one I kind of obliquely referenced in my post up there, the one with the lyrics:
Justice will be served and the battle will rage
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass
It’s the American wayThe hyper-militarization of the police, invasive overreach and surveillance of our digital lives by the NSA, the jingoism and mandatory patriotism that have transmuted into virulent nationalism, and the longest war in US history are relics of Bush.
*Fuck* Bush and the awful, imposing, frothing all-or-nothing patriotism that so many people were expressing at that time.
Ofextremelycourse fuck Trump and his nationalist, paternalist, misogynist supporters too.
Reblogging because I was literally talking to @lireavue about this just yesterday.
Remember the protests against the Iraq war? Remember the largest anti-war rally in history?
The local Independent Media Center produced a short video claiming to show inappropriate and violent police behavior, including backing horses into demonstrators, shoving people into the metal barricades, spraying a toxic substance at penned-in demonstrators, using abusive language, and raising nightsticks against some who couldn’t move. However, NYPD spokesman Michael O’Looney denied the charges claiming that the tape was “filled with special effects” and that it did not prove the police had not been provoked.[57]
This was long before everyone had a video-camera in their phone, so it was very difficult to prove fuck all. But I knew people who’d been there, and the violence was pretty extensive.
In Colorado Springs, 4,000 protesters were dispersed with pepper spray, tear gas, stun guns and batons. 34 were arrested on failure to disperse and other charges[21] and at least two protesters had to have hospital treatment.[61]
It did little, as far as US action was concerned (although it probably – thank gods – convinced Harper that he should stay the fuck away).
The unprecedented size of the demonstrations was widely taken to indicate that the majority of people across the world opposed the war. However, the potential effect of the protests was generally dismissed by pro-war politicians. The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, claimed that the protests were not representative of public opinion, saying “I don’t know that you can measure public opinion just by the number of people that turn up at demonstrations.” In the United States, the then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was reported as saying that the protests would “not affect [the administration’s] determination to confront Saddam Hussein and help the Iraqi people”.[22]
The Obama Administration was far from perfect, and I am not going to claim it was but I swear to god, people younger than ~27-30 do not actually grasp quite how Fucking Awful the Shrub was and how astonishingly united the opposition to the Cheeto is. And how fucking bad the Cheeto has in fact proved to be at PR-and-shit since the election.
(And very arguably, most people under ~40+ do not grasp how different the world is from, say, Nixon’s era. After all, Nixon got away with using the National Guard to fire on college students – this is the 70s, this is mostly white, affluent kids here, aka those MOST PROTECTED by privilege – and killing four of them. And that wasn’t even what came close to getting him into Deep Shit.)
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