Why We Shouldn’t Forgive And Forget The Policies Of H.W. Bush

Yup. You can consider that hate speech. I challenge you to a duel. And if you’re from George Herbert Walker Bush’s neck of the woods, Them’s fightin’ words.

The Guardian made an outstanding piece about why people shouldn’t be glorifying George Jr. immediately after Trump’s disastrous first year. The pure, blatant, unimaginable nerve that some people are lugging around is baffling. Just gonna forget what these people have done, huh? Two years ago, my same fellow-Democrats would be saying “fuck the Bushes!” in a flurry of hands waved, protest signs, and anti-Capitalist propaganda.

And until a couple days ago, I saw this sentiment coming from only my liberal white lefties who would have “voted for Obama 3 times,” to borrow a phrase from Get Out. That’s fine. Liberal white voters have never been as liberal as they’d like to think. But black people who gain this sudden change of heart in the face of someone else’s impending death make me wanna puke! Forgive and forget, I suppose.

Not to me.

Not today.

If you have a problem swallowing this pill, you probably don’t understand what you’re talking about. H.W. Bush’s administration had no problem ignoring human rights issues in Panama, Iraq, China, or El Salvador. The Bush family-owned Arbusto Energy and its strong ties to the Bin Ladens probably doesn’t bother many people today. Even though it should.

Bush pushed just as many horrifying practices as his boss, Reagan, did. Remember the “War on Drugs”? Oh, you say it hasn’t been won? Yeah. And both tenures enacted policies that were wildly unfair and biased toward one group of people, yet lenient to another: sell and possession of crack cocaine carried a 100-to-1 disparity as opposed to the sell and possession of powdered coke, a drug that was at the time a rich, white luxury, rarely afforded to African American hoods.

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If you don’t remember (because many of my colleagues have forgotten) that Bush Sr. stepped up efforts to “curb” the sale and distribution of crack. In his first address to the nation, his now infamous words were that this was “the greatest domestic threat facing our nation today,” while holding a bag of crack.

This War on Drugs certainly has look like a war, as Bush green-lit the 1033 Program, which distributed surplus military equipment to local and state police departments. A system that would hold until Mr. Obama reversed most of these practices, but soon to be fully reinstituted once Trump landed in office. An army of police have flooded the streets, blurring the lines between both since 1990. Thanks a lot HW. We appreciate it.

Barbara bouncing black baby AIDS victims on her lap, as the perfect photo-op. That would have been a laugh if it weren’t so lazy. Desperate as hell. I won’t mourn for her either.

People mad at me for saying these things, while the Senior Bush is likely on his deathbed, are probably the biggest of all hypocrites. Each and every one of us has a president we hate. If you were one of the fortunate ones to have been alive at any period in American history, what’s not to hate? So it bothers me that the haters of Nixon and Johnson; the dissenters of Reagan, JFK, Roosevelt or Roosevelt (FDR); and those rebellious zealots who idolized Jefferson but spat on the name of Jackson, would accuse me of heartlessness. That’s fine. Rip me a new one if you want, I could use a couple more.

In my opinion, though, it’s worse to criticize a sitting president in peak-condition than one not currently on the throne, on his way out—but ya’ll, those of you who did, had no problem trashing Obama every second of every day. Or maybe you were alive when Bush 1 was still in office and you drag his name through the dirt back then. Yeah. Never put off tomorrow what you can do today, I always say.

It’s been popular to say things like “doesn’t that make you just as bad as the people you’re rebuking?” Yes. Because I’ve always wanted to douse thousands with biological agents and sell weapons of mass-destruction to nations and later go to war with them because they have weapons of mass destruction. Yup. I’m just as bad. Forgive me for stooping to their level.

Tasteless, you say? Perhaps. But then again, Bush didn’t leave a great taste in the mouth of most communities, did he?