WORST G8- EVER… (As usual, a dollar short and a day late)
The machinations of global crony capitalism aside, a lot of folks have been making a lot of hay about Idiot Boy's use of the word "shit" in close conversation with his poodle, Tony Blair. Quite frankly- it didn't bother me all that much. I'll admit to using that word in casual conversation at least fifty times an hour (and at least twice, whenever I review a really horrible film like "A Scanner Darkly"- see below)
What was telling to me, in this video, is the grotesque, bovine way the little dictator chews his food- didn't his mother ever tell him to chew with his mouth closed? It reminded me of a one-year-old gumming baby food.
However, the true "kids say the darndest things" moment of the whole event was when Bush held up Iraq as an example of democracy for Russia to emulate. Now, I don't like Putin at all, but I'll give him credit for keeping a straight face, when he responded:
"We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly."
Bush, as always, enjoying the eternal sunshine of the empty mind, heckled Putin's assertion- "Just wait!", he petulantly shot back. Oh, yeah- just wait- in five years, everyone on earth will be clamoring to live in a violence-ridden anarchic patch of land, sodden with depleted uranium, where "death by car bomb" is all the rage.
Now, I dunno if ya'll have been following the growing rift between Russia and the United States- but since the days in which Bush was able to peer into Putin's soul, and see nothing but angelic light, things haven't been going well. The Bush Bowl has been quite critical of Putin's Russia, lamenting the loss of democracy and civil rights in that country. Pointing out the hypocrisy of such accusations would be redundant, in the extreme- I'm sure ya'll are hip to where I'm coming from, on that issue- but here's the rub:
Ya know why the Bush Bowl has been so critical of Russia, lately? As much as they would like you to believe that it's about their altruistic concern for the Russian people, it just ain't so. Recently, after lambasting Russia's record on democracy, Cheney paid a special visit to Kazakhstan, a country with a human rights record that is far, FAR worse than Russia's, and he had nothing but smiles and cheery handshakes for his Kazakh hosts.
The reason for this selective concern regarding human rights? You guessed it- Oil.
Russia, which has tremendous reserves of fossil fuels, nationalized their energy industry. They decided that if anyone is going to make money off of Russia's natural resources, it will be the Russian state- not western concerns like Exxon Mobil and Halliburton- and you KNOW that drove pins into Cheney's shriveled heart. Here in Jersey- it's a pretty amazing sight- Lukoil stations are cropping up like mushrooms, offering competitive prices, and doing impressive business. (Whenever I see a Lukoil station, I'm stricken by the irony of history- who'd have thought, 20 years ago, that the Russians would be opening up gas stations, in the USA?)
Kazakhstan, on the other hand, is more than happy to do business with Unocal and Halliburton. Not to get all "conspiracy" on ya'll, but it's not really an accident that the president the Bush Bowl hand-picked for Afghanistan was a Unocal employee, prior to his new, stately gig. It just so happens, just prior to 9/11, the chronically bankrupt state of Kazakhstan discovered a HUGE bubble of natural gas under their portion of the Caspian Sea. The only problem was- how to get it to a port in Pakistan, where it could be shipped out to world increasingly desperate for such fuel? You guessed it- a pipeline through Afghanistan, which was to be built by- guess who? UNOCAL!
This administration's gauge of human rights is closely tied to how suspect states handle their energy industries. Kazakhstan let western corporations partake of their bounty, and thus, they can torture, detain, and restrict free expression to their heart's content. Venezuela and Russia nationalized their precious crude, so they're held to a somewhat "higher" standard...