Dogs Led By Fleas

19Apr07

I figure I better write this already before it becomes irrelevent.

Has anyone else noticed how increasingly, US Politics is taking its cue from Philippine Politics?

Not exactly when it comes to the issues, because after all, the Philippines isn’t exactly rich enough to start discussing stem cell research or liberal enough to start talking about abortion and birth control publicly.

If you look at the attitudes, the behavior, and the actions of US politicians over the last few years, they’ve been acting more and more like your Filipino trapo(traditional politician/dish rag) more than anything else.

What really brought this upfront for me is the recent brouhaha that happened over Nancy Pelosi going to Syria, and the backlash it had with Republican politicans.

Not to mention, the recent scandal regarding Paul Wolfowitz, his girlfriend, the World Bank, and the republican defense of him.

Or what about Alberto Gonzales’ culling of US Attorneys, and the revelation that the US Justice Department is employed mostly by graduates from Pat Robertson’s Law School?

And that’s just the last two months. There’s also the US Government’s botching of Hurricane Katrina disaster relief (c/o the nepotized FEMA), the constant and consistent deception of the US Population with regards to Global Warming, and of course, the fiscal irresponsibility of the Iraq War (with the budge being spent on crony corporations like Halliburton and/or bureaucratic red tape moreso than actual body armor and weapons for the soldiers in the field).

Seriously, doesn’t the lack of proper equipment and facilities for the US soldiers fighting in Iraq despite the billions of dollars already spent on the war strikingly similar to that of the lack of proper equipment and facilities for the Philippine soldiers “fighting” the NPA/MNLF/MILF/ASG despite the billions of pesos (and dollars) already spent on the AFP modernization program (since the Ramos Years!)?

Maybe it’s because I was too young to notice it back then, but the Clinton years didn’t seem to have had politicans that were this corrupt, this garapal(shameless), this unbelievably incompetent that they’re already comparable to the kind of politicans we have in this country.

I think its first appearance was back during the 2000 US Presidential Elections. When, just like in Philippine Presidential elections (and I gather, unlike usual US Presidential Elections), who got to be the president was determined by the personality of the candidates moreso than the issues (because, as suggested by this SNL sketch, the two parties in question had more similarities in their position on issues rather than differences).

After which, the issues, just like in the Philippines, no longer mattered. Your position on the issues were influenced more by whether or not you were Pro-Bush or Anti-Bush, much, in the same way politics in this country revolves around your position on the president. Republicans weren’t really republicans and the Democrats weren’t the kind of democrats you would have seen during the Clinton years.

It all goes downhill from there.

My point here is that the US needs to stop acting like the Philippines soon. It’s one thing for a third world country to have those kinds of politicians. As bad as it may seem, it’s really only going to affect us Filipinos. Its another thing for the most powerful country in the world to have those kinds of politicians, because the whole world is going to end up paying for them.

I just hope that come the 2008 elections, they replace the idiotic, incompetent boob who shouldn’t have been elected in the first place (Estrada to us, Bush to them) with someone not like Arroyo. That is, someone who isn’t a bitter, insecure old hag with issues regarding the prominent male figures in their lives.

…

My God.

Barack Obama HAS to get that democratic nomination.

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