A Tour of the Bush Library: BushLand

With a budget of half a billion dollars and little need to provide space for the perusal of documents the Bush Center has decided on a novel approach to ensure that the work of the Bush Junior Presidency takes its well-earned place in history while also guaranteeing that the public understands the President as a man and policy innovator. Also on the agenda; just a little bit of profit to offset those hefty salaries paid out to Karl Rove and other long time loyalists.

The facility, in partnership with Disney, will provide a walk and drive through environment that links together the high octane points of the Bush years, connecting these to how significant moments then provided the content for policies that make the Bush – Cheney Administration different from any other in American history.

Visitors will queue up for the tours in groups of not more than ten, to keep it personal. As they wait, the group will hear the historic words of the past president as he used a bull horn to address the media and onlookers at Ground Zero in New York. Then the doors, that are designed to look like the Twin Towers as they settle into a pile of dust, will open to reveal a long corridor and the visitor will be greeted by an android that looks exactly like George W. Bush dressed as he was when he landed his Air Force jet and announced the “mission accomplished” moment. The dying sound of the jet engine will fill the background.

The group will follow the President into the corridor, which will light up as the group advances. On both sides they will see jail cells that light up, revealing scenes now familiar to us through the Abu Ghraib photos. These will illustrate the deep trauma experienced by guards doing their duty to their President and their Country as they perform essential pre-interrogation routines. Sound effects are reported to be very realistic and exciting.

The Bush simulation will then wave and shake hands passing the group on to another figure that history will always associate with the Bush Presidency, Lynndie England. Here, the presentation grows more serious as Lynndie explains why Bush was driven to propose essential softening up routines as a means of ensuring that the suspected terrorists who were incarcerated at Abu Ghraib Prison and elsewhere provided information needed to save American lives.

As we now know, Lynndie, was actually a deep agent who was pardoned by Bush in the final moments of his presidency along with himself and his entire administration and some members of his family. The high volume Xerox machine used for this purpose sits in the small museum near the information desk along with other significant items, for instance, a small wooden box that Karl Rove hid in and around the Oval Office occasionally on which is carved, “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” Plans to substitute similar boxes for the traditional Easter Eggs for that Hunt were scotched by Laura Bush but are available in the gift shop at the end of the tour.

Visitors will be able to step across puddles of blood and see how the most ordinary of implements can be adapted to this purpose. This presentation is followed up with the handing out of CDs and DVDs wherein Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld explain the grave necessity that renewed the use of torture as a weapon essential for fighting terror. More such interesting and educational items can be purchased in the Library – Policy Center Store.

Visitors will then understand that this was necessary for the survival of America.

As the group proceeds down the corridor, now riding in golf carts that have been refitted from the Dallas Country Club, the group exchanges Lynndie for another android guide, Jeff Gannon. This portion of the tour will take our visitors to a news conference taking place in the media room of the White House. There, visitors will see another simulation of Gannon asking the hard questions that won him the respect of the President and drew him into a confidential relationship with the most powerful man in the world, George Bush.

This portion of the tour ends at the door of the Lincoln Bedroom, where the wall opens up and visitors find themselves in a room watching the high points from the movie DC 911, the movie produced by Lionel Chetwin in 2003 to show Americans the real story of how George Bush spent his time from the moment he came out of the slight fog in the school room in Florida, where he confronted subjects too esoteric for ordinary people to consider, until he addressed the American people. At some point in the future, perhaps five generations from now, the documents relating to this will be available.

Visitors will then sit through a presentation on American events by a real child who learned that history in a public school in Texas that ensure that no Child was Left Behind. The presentation will take the visitor through a recitation of how the Bush Walker family saved the United States by ensuring free trade with China during the Opium Wars, did behind the scenes work during the Nazi Regime in Germany, and then with the Soviet Union as they ensured that Americans would have a continuing supply of petroleum. Then, they will hear the story of how Bush Senior worked to make sure that America was not destroyed by women and environmentalists and helped Ronald Reagan end the Cold War. As proof, they will see Bush Senior and Junior hammering out pieces of the Berlin Wall. These can also be purchased in the Store. Visitors will then understand why and how a faltering Bush Senior handed off this heroic duty to his oldest, beloved, son, George Junior.

The seated visitors now exit the theatre, guided by the android of Karl Rove who leads them into the Bush vision of the future. Here they see a shiny super highway that knits together the whole of North America. The super highway, as wide as two football fields, is a hub of activity and commerce that allows for free and open access to American's heartland. The stream of vehicles are no longer using petroleum. Instead, they are using ethanol which is available at only $3.00 a gallon, far less than Americans paid for gasoline in 2008. They see happy people from all across the world working hard at jobs that used to be held by Americans who now have new opportunities for leisure and different job opportunities. They see smiling police and cameras on every corner, reminding them that now they are secured and the lovely rolling hills of the Dallas Country Club come alive as George Bush drives his own gold golf cart across the verdant scene and waves happily.

As they exit the theater they enter the gift shop that sells Bush Golf Clubs with the Presidential Seal, pens, photos of the Greatest President, simulated exact reproductions of Barbara Bush's two strand pearl neckless and other memorabilia. Also included are DVDs and CDs that teach eager tourists how to train their dogs to intimidate suspected terrorists and special implements to be used only when following the instructions included. They see an American flag that has the names of various corporations printed on the stripes. They can buy one of those, too.

Tickets are only $200.00. Call the White House to pre-order today.

This is your opportunity to imagine. Imagine a world where the policies of George Bush receive the respect they deserve.

Nix On Bush - Republicans must take back their Party

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The time has come in the Bush Administration when George W. has begun to think about his legacy. Murmurs of that have begun to percolate out through various avenues; the latest Surge of rhetoric from the White House was doubtless energized by what that legacy will be. If Bush were an honorable man that legacy would give him the same nightmares that wake so many of us up at those wee, dark hours, worrying about the future that awaits our children.

All Republicans should be thinking about the Bush Legacy; then they need to confront how Bush and his NeoCon administration has converted the legacy of the Republican Party, the party that championed freedom for Blacks and the vote for women into something closer to fascism.

When I first read, "Conscience of a Conservative," in 1962, being a Republican meant you believed in the right of the people to order their own lives and govern their own communities. Government was to be small; the inherent rights of individuals were sacrosanct, chiseled in stone through the Declaration of Independence. It was not government who was sovereign but each individual living American. My Goldwater button maintained a place of honor at my desk. In losing, Goldwater had still awakened a generation to the ideas of individual rights and freedom.

Many of us still kept the tradition of reading the Declaration in its entirely aloud to our families on the 4th of July. Each of my own children read out those words, standing tall and proud, knowing that the Revolution was fought for them. We knew that understanding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was the foundation that allowed future generations to keep faith with the past while building a better future for everyone. Our children could recite the Amendments and explain what they meant.

By hard work, honest dealing, and creative insights, we believed we would, together, realize the American dream. It was not making money that mattered but doing right. Integrity came first.

To lie was an act of personal dishonor for any reason. If your child lied any parent taught him that this was unacceptable. If you are a Republican today you know that the sense of honor, personally or in government, has no meaning. To the NeoCons only winning matters, and winning so you can steal became acceptable.

The NeoCons did this to us. If the Republican Party had closed up shop it could not have been used to against its own values. There can be honor in death. There is no honor in the actions taken under color of the Republican Party today.

The NeoCons now in control have been living out their inner most fantasies the last six years at our expense. It is tough to drive a country once as prosperous as America into bankruptcy, but they have managed that, too. Most of us now understand that those in power, the NeoCons, are not Republicans. They are a cadre of greedy who saw the opportunity to use the rhetoric of honor and our vision to steal for themselves and for their corporate employers. While rhetorically cloaking their actions in words like, "Freedom," "America," "Honor," and "Terrorism" Bush, Cheney and their cohort have been busily shoveling the wealth of America into the coffers of such as Halliburton and placing various petroleum companies to convert the reservoirs under Iraq into an asset line for their client companies, all at great cost all Americans and the world at large. Now, they are poised to do it again in Iran. After that, who knows; they may decide to hit Venezuela.

At the same time they have revoked parts of the Constitution in attempts to evade accountability; they have illegally used the force of government to invade our privacy. The information was gathered not to ensure our security but to stifle dissent.

That is where we are today. It is ugly to consider how many Americans and Iraqis have died while the rhetoric of honor still lingered in our hearts and minds, layered in like a cover to arsenic in speeches built to deceive us by prostituting our highest values. But that is what happened. Slowly, as Americans and Iraqis died horribly and our nation hemorrhaged money the stark horror began to sink in. Then, last November America delivered a mandate. That mandate was to get us out of Iraq and to return to the American values that evoke a true loyalty.

For those elected the message has also been delivered. Deescalate, investigate; end the war, bring our troops home. After the Shout Down that sent the newly elected Democratic Congress scampering like mice for cover we can hope the message has sunk in. Democratic activists are also challenging their leadership, having found them wanting.

We Republicans are not alone. All Americans have been through the same process of belief, doubt, and concern. We have all been paralyzed by fear as all we thought was true turned upside down. But it is the legacy of honor, conserved in the Republican Party, that was used as a weapon against the freedom of all Americans. As Bush considers his legacy, one of deception, greed, and violence, it is our own legacy we must renew.

As Republicans we need to take back our party, thus denying the NeoCons a conduit to power and allowing us to begin the work of rebuilding what was. Communities where people live, deciding for themselves, working at jobs, starting businesses, raising children whose education they control, worshiping and prospering by doing right, these were the goals that made us Republicans.

Barry Goldwater, the grandson of a peddler, understood hard work and doing the right thing. He understood accountability.

Barry Goldwater was a man who understood the need to take action. Never a fence sitter, Barry would have understood the specter we confront today; he would have delivered the word to the White House, Resign. Failing that, he would have himself written the Bill of Impeachment. He knew that the gravest danger to America came from within.

"Our tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few men deeply concerns me. We can be conquered by bombs or by subversion; but we can also be conquered by neglect—by ignoring the Constitution and disregarding the principles of limited government. Our defenses against the accumulation of unlimited power in Washington are in poorer shape, I fear, than our defenses against the aggressive designs of Moscow. Like so many other nations before us, we may succumb through internal weakness rather than fall before a foreign foe."

As a Republican, I demand Bush and Cheney resign. I think now is a good time for that.

Republicans and other Americans can register their wishes by writing him letters to be delivered to the White House. If you like, you may send them first to The Iconoclast, where they will be counted, and then forwarded. Just send to Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, c/o The Lone Star Iconoclast, P.O. Box 569, Crawford, TX 76638. Then we can demand Congress pass a Bill of Impeachment NOW. Since Congress has been confused about what they are supposed to do, we can go to our state legislatures and demand they pass a Bill of Impeachment to be delivered to the Clerk of Congress. With 50 states to work with surely one can be persuaded to do the job.

Since Bush and Cheney have already admitted enough wrong-doing we can skip the investigations and move to the vote right away.

This generation of Republicans can do the job and the right man to sit in the Oval Office is a Republican all Americans can trust and respect. Replace Bush with a Republican Barry Goldwater would have respected, too. I think that individual is Congressman Ron Paul. It is our party, let’s do the right thing.