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the way i see it: Fuck Space
1.15.2004
Fuck George Bush and his space-talk. I am so sick of this guy I could puke. George, we do not need space. We have a planet here that's pretty damn ok, and if we spent all the money, time, and resources that you want to pour into the space program on preventing disease, feeding the poor, and improving the environment, we would be a whole lot better off than we would living on Mars.
Now I know the idea of space exploration is not necessarily about finding another place to live. It's about power. Many will say it's about patriotism and being number one and all that horseshit, but it really comes down to gigantic contracts being doled out for building a new space vehicle to replace the tired old shuttle. It's about distracting people from the mess we're in over in Iraq. It's about bolstering your popularity on the eve of your second term bid.
Now I often use a frequently-used anecdote when discussing George W.'s obliviousness. It's one told often by Molly Ivins, co-author of the books Shrub and Bushwhacked. It's a little nugget from George's days as Governor of Texas, one that elegantly illustrates the fundamental problem with our current president. And that is that he's got his head in the clouds. He can't see the forest for the trees. He's completely out of touch with the most basic concerns that we have as Americans trying to get by in 2004.
Oh, yeah, the anecdote. So, George W. Bush, in 1999 was utterly aghast at the hunger statistics that came out just before his presidential bid. George stated (and I quote), "I saw the report that children in Texas are going hungry. Where? No children are going to go hungry in this state. You'd think the governor would have heard if there are pockets of hunger in Texas." Obviously, Mr. Bush had not spent any time in the South Texas border-towns. In his five years there, Bush had not spent any time with the people in this area, nor was he even remotely aware.
Just as George W. Bush was unaware that there were children going hungry in his own state, he knows nothing about what it feels like to be sent, or have your children sent to Iraq under false pretenses. He knows nothing about what it feels like to be a single mother, trying to raise children while working two jobs and still not be able to afford health insurance. Or what it feels like to work your ass off your whole life only to lose your 401(k) to crooked accounting practices. He knows nothing about how bad some of our schools really are. He knows nothing about how it feels to live with HIV, or to lose a son or daughter to gun violence or drunk driving. Now, I know that these things are not easy to fix, and I am not saying that it's the president's job to fix all of these problems. I'm not calling for socialism. What I am saying, is fuck space. Fuck the space program. Sure it's neat. But there are a million other things that I would prefer my tax money go to, a million things that we could get those same engineers working on to better our own planet, and a million other things that would help to make our country more unified than any trip to Mars could ever do. We don't need to be firing gigantic cocks into the sky. Get your head out of your ass, George, quit distracting us from the issues that plague us on a daily basis. Do something that has a direct effect on our lives. Leave space to George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg.
