Listen to a reading of this article:
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Oh my God. It happened. I can’t believe it really happened.
During a speech in Dallas at Southern Methodist University’s George W Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, the man himself, George W Bush, did the best thing ever. I am pretty sure it is the single best thing that has ever happened. I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that.
While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any American in general and Bush in particular), the 43rd president made the following comment:
“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.”
Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/UMwNMwMnmX
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 19, 2022
And then it got even better. After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension in the empire-loyal crowd with the words, “Iraq too. Anyway.” He then quipped that he is 75 years old, leaning harder on his “Aw shucks gee willikers I’m such a goofball” persona than he ever has in his entire life.
And Bush’s audience laughed. They thought it was great. A president who launched an illegal invasion that killed upwards of a million people (probably way upwards) openly confessing to doing what every news outlet in the western world has spent the last three months shrieking its lungs out about Putin doing was hilarious to them.
There are not enough shoes in the universe to respond to this correctly.
As comedian John Fugelsang put it, “George W. Bush didn’t do a Freudian slip. He did a Freudian Confession.”
One of the many, many interesting things about this occurrence is the likelihood that Bush’s words tumbled out in the way they did because he’s either heard a lot of criticisms of his invasion or has been thinking a lot about them; a familiar neural pathway would explain why his brain chose the exact worst word he could possibly swap out for “Ukraine” in that moment. This would be a small light in the darkness for we ordinary folk who oppose war and love peace, because it suggests that even the worst empire managers cannot fully insulate themselves from our criticisms.
Speaking of George W. Bush and Iraq, the current president was also instrumental in bringing about that war — not just by voting for it, but by using his pulpit as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to advocate for it. But today he's got Ukraine all figured out
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 19, 2022
The bullshit doesn’t get any more brightly illuminated than this, folks. All that spin and narrative management they’ve been pouring into the US proxy war in Ukraine, and Bush undoes it all with the Bushism to end all Bushisms.
While the western political/media class constantly rends its garments over “disinformation” about the Ukraine war even as US officials openly admit they’ve been using the media to circulate disinformation about that same war, and even as the Biden administration imprisons and persecutes a journalist for exposing US war crimes, we get a square admission that the US is no better than Russia and that the only thing obscuring this is the fact that we are all swimming in a sea of disinformation and propaganda provided by that same political/media class.
And this admission comes not from any low-level empire lackey, but from the man himself. The guy. The man whose name alone serves as a one-word debunk of every claim made about how uniquely nefarious Vladimir Putin is on the world stage and how uniquely depraved is his invasion of Ukraine.
If you really look at what just happened, really truly ingest it, this one incident just by itself is enough to show you that we are swimming in a sea of lies designed to give us an upside-down and ass-backwards perspective of what’s going on in the world. If Bush himself can’t always tell the difference between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Ukraine, then this means our news media and our politicians are lying to us constantly. They lied to us through 2002 and 2003, and they never stopped lying, and they are lying now in the year 2022.
The entire mainstream worldview is a perceptual distortion filter which obscures the public understanding of world events so severely that Bush has been not just forgiven for his crimes but actively rehabilitated in the public eye, while the enemies of the United States are continuously compared to Adolf Hitler and condemned throughout the US-dominated world.
In reality the US is the single most tyrannical and destructive government on this planet, and it is only because the public is fed a nonstop deluge of propaganda that this isn’t universally obvious. Even the worst empire managers know deep down that this is true, and, in their less guarded moments, sometimes the truth slips out.
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53 responses to “On Bush’s Freudian Confession”
This brings to mind a famous 1866 cartoon of the former CSA “President” Jeff Davis, haunted by the dead of the war he started, called “Why He Cannot Sleep” https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/45524
I suspect Baby Bush sleeps well enough, as psychopaths lack normal human empathy. Davis did too. actually ; the cartoon mocked his complaint that he couldn’t sleep because the light was not extinguished in his cell at night.
Let us not forget that Prescott Bush made a fortune off his friendly business dealings with Nazis. While the Holocaust raged on, the Bush family lived high on the hog off Nazi profits. It appears that the apple does not fall far from the tree.
Not only all that, but the man sounded a bit tipsy, did he not? Sure looked like he’d hoisted one too many.
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Why is a mass murderer still trotted out to amuse the oligarchy?
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An appearance by Will Smith and his schtick might have sobered up both Dubya and his audience.
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You can tell I’ve never been a fan.
He was a heavy drinker in his past. Would not be surprised if he picked in back up.
Maybe he meant Saddam Hussein?
Naaah, then he would have followed up with a Saddam comment.
If I had attended that soirée I would have left barefooted.
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He’s getting old and slow to say nothing about incoherent.
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Think I could have nailed him with my fastball, er fast shoe.
That’s what I was thinking. Ha ha ha ha.
Right on target as usual, Caitlin. This is the Freudian confession of all Freudian confession. But as others (and you of course) have said, Amuricans are so thoroughly propagandized that they’ll just see this as a cute little slip of the tongue by their beloved rehabilitated at-least-he-wasn’t-Trump ex-president. Sad but oh-so-true.
Bush was probably saying to himself repeatedly just prior to and during his speech: ‘Don’t accidentally say Iraq instead of Ukraine’!
My thoughts exactly.
The idea that my country is a near peer rival of China is the single most idiotic idea in the history of the fucking world.
My country can’t dig a tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan. It’s too difficult for us, and besides, even if we could do it, we are broke! Such a project might cost one-seventh of what we are sending to Ukraine, how could we ever afford it!
This bridge is nice. A road and rail double-decker. Might in my top 20 favorite suspension bridges I’ve seen in China. If it is in my top 20, it probably won’t be for long, because China opens spectacular world record breaking bridges at a clip of about one every three months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeR9rMTq10E
We can not beat China in the propaganda wars. Not without shutting down the internet and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
Another double-decker record breaker. Lmao… Sorry but my Tube feed is filling up with China bridge videos, which means my algo is either working properly or is sneaking around behind the Official Narrative’s back and hasn’t got caught yet.
Either way, I want to share my happiness with this development with everyone.
This bridge opening is brought to us by an ex-pat I haven’t run into before. Sounds Canadian maybe? Well, wherever he hails from, he has the same attitude as me. When was the last time your country did something nice for you? If China does nice things for its people all day, every day, which it seems pretty clear it does, then why is it that they are the ones viewed as the government less responsive to the wishes of their citizens?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYaHKslWAsE
It this record shattering bridge in my top 20? No. But it’s nice. Top 40 maybe.
It’s wild. The links cited here about China and BF Skinner (probably other stuff I haven’t even noticed) are now showing up as “recommended for me” by You Tube.
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Talk about compiling dossiers on everything we get within parsecs of.
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Before ya know it, O’Brien will be demanding that I betray everyone of you reading this!
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Under the spreading Apple (TM) tree, I sold you and you sold me.
There are already two tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan and I’ve been through both of them.
Yup, the Lincoln and the Holland.
Reply to Realist:
“Under the spreading Apple tree, I sold you and you sold me.”
Recently fired head of the Ministry of Truth Nina Janko-something would be perfect to render this into song. Plus she needs the work it would seem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyiC79l910
That by the way, is how you frequently see Chinese women walking in public; three of them strolling arm and arm through a – centrally planned – park without a care in the world.
Hopefully my algo takes the hint and gives me some more Andrews Sisters. They’re a top 5 trio all-time for me.
Speaking of top 5’s, my algo gave just gave me this. Definitely a candidate bridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0yVrdyeecc
In order to crack MY top 10, a Chinese supension bridge must span oceans, not rivers, anyone can build a bridge over a river, or, it must link together two mountains for no particular reason, and at one of the bridge’s ends, the deck must disappear into a tunnel bored through mountain.
As a full employment Socialist, I recognize that the Army Corps of Tunnel Borers needs to be kept busy.
Note: May your algo be with you.
Another comment from the theory of games. The game with best outcome for all is a cooperative game. But cooperative people can easily be taken advantage of by a selfish player.
The Dem or Republican party is a setup for people to cooperate for their party to win. Then they are ready to be taken advantage of by the oligarchs who advanced to their high place by competitive behavior rather cooperative.
Basically you are raised to be good and participate in a democracy, so the worst people can use you.
Btw this is how a Republic is set up, it has both elements of democracy and plutocracy. So this is how the US government is supposed to function.
I.am.Bush-ed.me.
Hey Caitlin! If you were offered a spot on The View by remote, would you take it?? :^))))))
The View is full of **(^$#*(.
It shows that he got away with it. Also, that these leaders are not the sharpest tools in the shed, Bush, Biden and McCain near the bottom of their classes. Even most of the media talking heads like Todd and Tapper seem dim. You don’t have to be bright to read the propaganda, although there might be some handwringing in certain circles over Bush’s misspeaking, back to the painter’s easel, buddy.
“The best thing that’s ever happened?” Please. Maybe the best moment ever on Twitter, and one we must share far and wide. Thanks for calling it out, Caitlin.
in lapsus linguae veritas
et nimium vinum!
He shall continuously be hunted by it. In his sleep and when awake, truth doesn’t need your confession. It will not just leave you alone the moment you realize it.
Perhaps the laughter at Bush’s performance is just a comic relief that highlights the tragedy of the audience held captive by the prisoner’s dilemma.
We could all live much better if we all decided not to collaborate with tyrannical US government.
But if we do not collaborate, while others will, then we fare much worse.
So to get ourselves a break, we do not voice our massive opposition. We are still serving our term, but the sentence is not as severe.
For example, because I started posting here, my internet service is constantly disrupted by the US gov shills DDOS attacks.
I got a VPN now, but that provider does not let me go to CJ website.
Russian news said US is using an army of 100,000 people for cyber attacks on news services and such.
No wonder businesses cannot find low wage workers. The cannot outcompete Federal gov with their tiered pay and benefits.
It started from Obama, the Fed Gov then became the largest employer in the US.
Obama also legalized propaganda in the US and enabled the CIA, and eventually gave us this CIA spokesman brainless Joe Biden.
Thanks Obama.
That’s what psychopathy does to you. And the guy is READING his speech, which seems a pretty airtight way to deliver words. It doesn’t leave much space for interferences. Yet even so… Looks like we must never underestimate Dubya’s capacity to fuck up.
People laugh because they always thought Dubya had a screw loose anyway, so they look upon him like he was a slightly handicapped child from the neighbourhood. It’s endearing… And he’s lucky he never had to face any Nuremberg trial either because they had a tendency there to put a noose round the necks of this kind of handicapped children to see if it could hold their weight. And oops… didn’t. My bad… Then again, you had to be German. Americans aren’t eligible because they’re the good guys (TM). Even Dubya and his million and one corpses.
By the way, it seems the American idiom has settled for the term “brutal” to qualify, as Dubya does, Putin’s war in Russia. It’s all over the media. This war is brutal. That’s what characterizes it compared to the wars led by Americans, which at least – think of them what you want – are anything but brutal! Even burying thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive in the sand and shooting other thousands willing to surrender, like Poppy Bush during the Gulf War wouldn’t qualify as brutal. It’s shock and awe (TM). Couldn’t be brutal because it’s made in the USA! Like waterboarding or shelling Fallujah with depleted uranium or spraying Vietnam with Agent Orange, which killed even American soldiers. Nothing brutal there! Spraying… I’m asking you… How could there be any brutality in spraying? Besides it’s tradition if we believe Braveheart’s script where Edward Longshanks orders his archers to shoot another flight of arrows at his enemies and when his aide objects that it might kill some of their own men, replies: “Ah yes but it will kill theirs too! And we’ve got reinforcement”.
That’s not brutal! It’s realistic! Putin is brutal. It’s the diff’ He was already the new Hitler before he attacked anybody. I bet think tanks are now working to a snap to find a new image but it’s gonna be hard to improve on that one. It’s the problem with hyperbole. He’ll have to go down in history as Vlad the Brutal for want of a better job…
” And the guy is READING his speech, which seems a pretty airtight way to deliver words.”
Lmao …
Soon they’ll have some kind of AI reading it while the ‘speaker’ lipsyncs.
They’ll use a hologram for the speaker to be on the safe side… :o)
HA HA HA HA HA !!
Right. In this timeline of the multiverse, only Russians = bad. Noble Ukies who slashed up the faces of their hostages down to the bone before shooting them = good.
Are you after Nina Jankowicz’s old job?
Baby Eichmann and his giggling Nazi youth club-How charming.
Even worse, maybe it was intentional and he was joking about it and even proud of it.
“There are not enough shoes in the universe to respond to this correctly.”
Hey, it was Junior’s finest hour as President, the double shoe duck. Showed his athleticism, kept his composer, and topped it off with a worthy extemporaneous quip at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxNprnas7i8
On the other hand, it was another black mark moment for the Secret Service, who arrived on the scene of the shoe attack only after the second one passed harmlessly over the head of the POTUS.
Not as great failure as the one in Dealy Plaze in ’63 of course, when the US SS failed at all levels, including leaving numerous open and obvious sniper windows and positions unobserved, ordering agents off the limo’s running boards just before the final, fateful turn, and worst of all, slowing the limo down to a near dead stop under gunfire, allowing Oswal the time necessary to work the bolt on his1891 Mannlicher for third and final time, and take careful aim at the back of the JFK’s head, the brain of which is still missing.
The Mannlicher Carcano Oswald allegedly used was called “the peacemaker” in the army because it missed its target every time. Of course this one was a special model which shot people from the front and the back simultaneously as can be seen in the Zapruder film. But even so, a string of top marksmen both from the FBI and the Army tried to reiterate the exploit from the Book Depository with the same gun for months. In vain… And they say Oswald was a lousy shot! I’m asking you… He wasn’t even at the top floor of the Book Depository but having a coffee on the second one. That’s the kind of shot this guy was! He did all this shooting with his peacemaker from the window of the second floor through a tree with a cup of coffee in the other hand. That’s why – very few people know that – Jack Ruby shot him. He couldn’t stand the competition. Some poor loser that Ruby was! :o)
The Mannlicher Carcano” … “was called “the peacemaker” in the army because it missed its target every time.”
Lmao … You’re on a roll today.
Athough you to need stop spreading … mis, dis, mal (?)… information (never quite sure which is which). .
Oswald was in the lunch room drinking a coke, not having a cup of coffee, when the Presidential limo starting taking lead from all angles in a full spectrum multi-dimensional sniperspace.
Note: JFK’s brain went missing not because of some conspiratiol attempt to limit forensic analysis of how a projectile moving at twice the speed of sound might strike and exit the back of a human head simultaneously, but because brains have a known tendancy to wander off when they get restless.
I want to put that crazy nonsense to bed. We all know brains go mobile when they get bored, and they certainly don’t sit around waiting get “lost” and then “disappeared” by nefarious actors.
They’re much too smart for that.
A brain drain explained.
“Although you need to stop spreading … mis, dis, mal (?)… information (never quite sure which is which)”
Too late! You’ll never know. According to a report, “working groups within DHS focusing on ‘mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended” and Scary Poppins went out the window :o)
The exit wound was in the back of the head, indicating that the shot was fired from in front. Period.
Allegedly the windscreen of the limo went missing as well.
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The secret service were highly accommodating of the shooters both during the hit and during the inquest.
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Skills erode over time. Today they probably couldn’t even make it look like Sleepy Joe accidentally stepped on a rake in the rose garden.
The lamb to the slaughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glPyZAj_wqc&t=163s
JFK printed debt free money, he talked peace, and he threatened to scatter the CIA to the winds.
You do not that and survive a term as US President.
Did JFK print debt-free money? I thought the US had always combined issuing money with federal debt, though in those days it was all linked to gold, which it isn’t today. But I haven’t checked on that!
It wasn’t Oswald. Please. Stop continuing the pretense.
Yes, I am a aware. Thank you. As I pointed out, I believe Oswald was in the 2nd floor lunch room of the Book Depository building when the assassination took place.
He was what he said he was, “a patsy.”
I don’t think this was any kind of slip at all. HE THROWS IT IN OUR FACES ON PURPOSE just daring us to try to do something about it. This is what they do. It’s a test, and so far they’ve come up against no real opposition.
It always amazes me when people question why the German people did not fight back against their government in the 30s and 40s. We’re living the same exact experience. There are lots of reasons to lay low and hope it goes away. If you value your life and love your family, you know that stepping out too far will get you “Assanged.” Somebody holds a gun to your head and demands all your money, whatcha gonna do? Not many would opt for the bullet on principle.
Remember this one?:
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
Come on. These are not mistakes. I blame cocaine (…and just plain evil).
We Americans are indeed going through a Nazi Germany experience (shall we call it an NGE?). My favorite line from all those endless NDE accounts is the person who said, following a life review, “I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.”
This isn’t even good for most capitalists. Even your neighborhood millionaires aren’t getting anything from this dumpster fire of bad leadership.
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I don’t understand why small and mid-level businesses, anyone other than the super huge megacorps support the War-mongers. Wars are objectively the most expensive, commerce-eroding waste of time and money imaginable.
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Iraq cost us 10 years of progress, and I don’t mean that in the enlightened and leftist way, I mean it in the high-achiever materialistic sense.
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Even if you’re a Capitalist, unless you are in the C-Suite at Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, IBM, GE, Raytheon, or some other large cap company on the stock leaderboard, and/or specifically in the defense sector, this sucks for you, a lot. Basically if you aren’t invited to Bohemian Grove, Davos, Epstein’s Pleasure Island, or other you know, *actually, really rich* people clubs, you should be thinking, “Another war? Seriously, fuck these guys.”
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Jonathan
you know for a moment I thought old George was confessing all at some evangelical meeting , but no, he really couldn’t do it could he, but for a second or two and he’s back i n acting mode like the rest of them the old psychosis just won’t give ground, oh well, back to normal .
It’ll just be used as further evidence for his rehabilitation. Being a servant of empire has its perqs.
My take on this…a bit shorter: wherever the US goes, shit is sure to follow. Hasn’t failed yet.
I doubt Bush’s confession will change many minds in the USA.
Iraq posed an imminent threat to the USA. It doesn’t matter that the threat was imaginary; the USA is by definition good, so the invasion of Iraq must have been good.
Russia, on the other hand, is evil, so even if Ukraine posed it a real imminent threat, the threat must have been good, since it was countering evil.
Ridiculous and circular as it may be, I’ve actually come across versions of this argument many a time. At any rate, “Bush’s audience laughed. They thought it was great.”