Clarification for this morning's earlier post: criminals, not idiots

In my flurry of typing to try and finish this morning's post before the bus arrived, I realized I left some huge assumptions on the table that need to be clarified.

I do not consider the Bush Team (tm) to be idiots. Folks love joking about how "dumb" Bush Jr. is, but I take a different perspective. Yes, he's a dancing monkey for a team, but it is the team that is important, deadly important. That team is patient, ruthless, criminal and genius.

Yes, I called the Bush Team genius. Who but geniuses could pull off such a solid, sweeping conversion of a constitutional government in such a short time. Who but geniuses could set the whole country up to fall, through a now-short series of steps, into an executive-led fascist state? Continual war, enlarging the gap between rich and poor, gutting most social services, privatizing everything they can get their hands on, and suspending fundamental civil rights that have existed for over 300 years. That is not the work of idiots.

So, when this team suddenly decides to piss off China, I take notice. They don't give two shits about the Dalai Lama. The U.S. government hasn't given a shit about Tibet or the Dalai Lama for a long long time, not even when he first began making eloquent entreaties to the world community for action in Tibet in the 70's. Thus, something else is going on -- the Bush Team wants to piss off China.

The situation is much more complex than this, and yes Bush has agreed to visit China during the Olympics in appeasement for this action, and yes it was Congress that voted to award the Dalai Lama the medal -- but the timing still just stinks. And besides, it's pretty obvious Congress is on the Bush Team too.

Ok enough politics.

Enjoy your internal conundrums,

Bp