Terrorists For Bush

I know the right-wingers are still probably all in a huff saying that Osama Bin Laden is endorsing Kerry, and it's hopeless to persuade them with reason; but let me leave you with some thoughts before Lynn picks me up from work and we drown ourselves in Aqua Teen Hunger Force for some comparative reason and sanity during the election's theoretical climax.

Even if Bin Laden endorsing Kerry was true (it's not), then Bin Laden would have only done it to push the easy buttons (all radicals have them on their foreheads) and try to push Bush in again. And even without a so-called endorsement, he still might have tipped the scales in some states, says the cynic in I. And if Bush wins, Bin Laden won't be pissing his pants but instead laughing his ass off.

If there's one thing his culture and ours have in common, it's a need for enemies. It's easy to go with the radical belief that Bush wanted and needed Bin Laden free because Bin Laden needs G.W. in the oval office just as much.

Kerry will be more of the same, but Bush is something special, the one who will take the Good vs. Evil bait because he probably believes it more than any conservative, including Reagan and his father, ever did. An example that proves Chomsky's assertion that America is at least as fundamental as Iran, if not more. Proof that even in the 21st century there are still some people who are too much of a "crusade junkie" and would crumble if there wasn't the equivalent of 1984's Goldman to put up on posters and TV screens.

In some way, Bin Laden may even be more sane than Bush, given that he doesn't seem to be fundamental and extreme enough to refuse his family's assistance or money, a lot of which comes from us. I see him as more of a player than a true believer of his own rhetoric. If he wasn't, he would have shunned his family altogether, and he'd probably be just as dead as the Afghani civilians from the first month of bombing in October 2001.

Bin Laden may be more of a bullshitter than Bush, but he'd be even scarier if I thought he believed half of what he says to rile up fellow Muslims. Bush is also a manipulator, but he seems to do so for a higher cause that he seemed to take up to fill the void of alcohol abuse and drug abuse years ago. That makes him just as dangerous as any other junkie who needs a fix and goes to get what he wants through force.

If all that rambling wasn't enough to persuade you to either vote for Kerry or (more realistically at this hour) regret that you voted for Bush, then let me say this: Just as 9/11 was the end result of Reagan's initial manipulations (a position, I think, that will be almost non-debatable generations down the road), a day of reckoning will come for us a decade from now for what has happened over the last four years. It's not likely that we'll completely or even partially avert it, no matter how much of a prison state we become. But Bush will certainly make it come quicker, and it will be far larger in scale the longer he stays. Only with a change in guard can there be some hope for the guns pointing towards the ground for the sake of sanity.