Bush and Ahmadinejad: Two Peas in a Pod
We’ve all known two people who hate each other, and privately everyone talks about how much alike these two really are. Maybe this is the case with Bush and Iran’s President Ahmadinejad.
For one thing, they both want to give more and more power to crazed religious fanatics. The other day George W. Bush said “Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities.”
Oops, my bad. That wasn’t Bush; Ahmadinejad said that. It’s getting harder to tell the players without a program.
Bush, er, I mean Ahmadinejad complained that it was difficult to make changes in the country’s universities because their education system has been corrupted by secularism for the past 150 years. But he said that “such a change has begun.”
Ahmadinejad has already “retired” dozens of secular teachers and professors, and he’s replaced a lot of high ranking government officials with gung ho
And there’s still more common ground between Bush and Ahmadinejad — Class Warfare. There are tens of millions of poor Iranians; they’re the backbone of Ahmadinejad’s support. But they’re becoming alienated.
“You haven’t lived ‘til you’ve driven a BMW 740...I’ve paid so many fines for speeding that the government should give me a medal!” Some Yuppiescum from LA, right? Nope, from Teheran.
Ahmadinejad came to power by promising to redistribute Iran’s oil wealth more fairly. He said he’d do this by “bringing the oil money to people’s tables.” Didn’t happen.
As this Newsweek article says, “Teheran is awash in money—an extra $25 billion last year alone. But ordinary Iranians are seeing little of it. Per capita incomes have failed to keep pace with rising living costs; rents are skyrocketing beyond people’s means to pay.”
Hold the phone! Biblethumping tax-cutting Republicans — you have a friend! George W. Bush, stop rattling those sabers. Ahmadinejad is your bud. You don’t hate him; you’re just green with envy.
posted by Tom Harper @ 7:00 PM
12 Comments:
Excellent piece. No matter what religion you follow, power ultimately produces corruption.
J. Marquis: Yup, it's amazing how much common ground there is between rival powermongers.
You on the left hate Bush so much you would actually say that President Bush and the Iranian nut case are even remotely similar.
President Bush isn't a powermonger, he is simply doing his job as the Presdient of the United States and you on the left just don't get it and never will.
"President Bush isn't a powermonger, he is simply doing his job as the Presdient of the United States." Oh, so you mean his "job" is to dismantle decades' worth of environmental laws and workers' safety protections; transfer billions of dollars from the middle class to the wealthiest 2%; and invade sovereign nations that haven't attacked us? OK, got it.
hey, that is really an excellent post. you nailed it. I never thought of that.
I.M. Dedd: Thanks.
Why do neo-fascist people think lefties "hate" Bush? It's as if they think people are motivated only by blind emotion. They seem unable to conceptualize that perhaps people oppose Bush because, well, he's done a bad job. A really, really bad job. In fact he is not "doing his job as President of the U.S." as jon claims. He fiddled while New Orleans drowned, he's let the deficit skyrocket, and our nation is facing a health care crisis. I mean forget foreign policy and civil liberties--even just looking at basic financial stewardship, crisis management and addressing major problems in some form or fashion, the man is a failure. Could it be not that we mysteriously "hate" Bush but that we're simply angry, dismayed and shocked? "I hate you!" is something little kids say..Oh, and right-wing people too. If you look at some of their blogs, you can see that "hatred" is their favorite word.
Elizabeth: I think hatred is something felt by a lot of extreme rightwingers (and probably extreme leftists too). They probably project that emotion onto anybody else who disagrees with them.
Whether it's by design or just total ineptitude, this is the worst administration in my lifetime, by far. Some people think it's part of a neocon master plan -- to totally wreck everything and then start over from scratch. Whether there's any truth to that or not, this presidency has been one disaster after another. Like you said, the treasury, health care, civil liberties -- it's all deteriorated.
I don't "hate" Bush, I don't "hate America"... I do hate being tarred as a seditions, treasonous commie or worse because I disagree with Bush.
Leadership includes examining evidence, synthesizing it, and acting accordingly as much as it includes being able to make split-second decisions... and to my mind, Bush doesn't do the first thing at all, and he does the second thing poorly at best.
Thanks, Tom, for pointing out that it is fundamentalist religion that creates the similarity between the two leaders. Sure, Bush is not like the Iranian freako in many ways, but righties need to face facts: both guys subscribe to fundamentalist belief systems. If we have learned nothing else from history, we should have learned by now that such adherence to strict religious belief systems by leaders of nations can be a recipe for disaster.
I am sure our Founding Fathers and framers of our Constitution must be rolling in their graves right about now. To you righties, read conservative author Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy". In it, he will explain how the Republican party has become our nation's first major religious political party! And they would like to establish a national religion, too. THAT isn't something allowed in the Constitution. Check it out! You might be amazed.
Snave: "Leadership" -- now there's a concept. Imagine, a president whose administration examines evidence, acts accordingly and doesn't slander everyone who disagrees. Maybe someday...
Yup, Bush and Ahmadinejad definitely have a lot in common, more than they'd ever admit. There's a lot of similarity between all religious fundamentalists, whichever religion it is. And yes, our Founding Fathers have to be rolling in their graves.
wow..do you think they were seperated at birth?....i personally see a resemblence between ahmadinejad and the old man bush..
Separated at birth, LOL. I wouldn't doubt it. Birds of a feather...
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