You Will Miss Him

Deep in the heart of the Mission, an artist has posted a wall's worth of prints of Dubya staring at his own visage with an empty thought bubble. In true Web 2.0 fashion, the art has become a platform for user-generated content, albeit with Sharpies and crayons.

The result has been the jokes you'd expect. You know, cocaine, abuses of power, that kinda stuff. But I think this one really captures a great truth.

"You will miss me!"

Indeed, for a billion people on planet Earth, and perhaps 100 million in the USA, hating Dubya has been religion. When he cleans out the Oval Office, it will be like the New York Yankees folding. He's a horned pariah, a scapegoat, an icon of all that's wrong in the world.

But Bush isn't the problem. Yes, he does represent the worst of America's personality -- our anti-intellectualism, our over-reliance on faith, our apathy, our ambivalence towards reason, our fear of the darkness, our exhaustion, our deliberate unwillingness to hop out of the frog-pot before it boils. But these are our problems, and replacing Bush with another suit won't fix a single one of them. In 2009, when we're still no smarter, cleaner, or less deadly than we should be, we'll miss having Bush to kick around.

Sure, everyone's "green" now. Hell, every corporation in the S&P 500 is putting a f***ing windmill on their website. But even with climate change finally getting 10% of Paris Hilton's share of the zeitgeist, sales of the largest-size SUVs were up 25% year-over-year in April. Suck it, next generation.

Meanwhile, the good people at Proctor & Gamble have eco-fever. Yes, P&G is doubling the concentration of their laundry detergent brands to cut back on water and packaging. Great idea! How can we the people fuck this up? Sayeth last night's Marketplace:

A poll a few years ago shows only 49 percent of Americans had ever read the directions on a detergent package.

WOMAN: I don't measure my laundry detergent anyway — I just dump some in.

And that average detergent user is not unique. An unscientific survey on the streets of Los Angeles shows a smaller package alone would be unlikely to change behavior.

ANOTHER WOMAN: I might not notice. I might just continue to use the same amount.

(Granted, both Woman and Another Woman were interviewed on the sidewalk in Los Angeles, a place not known for reading.)

Sure, there is hope for the USA. A more competent and mentally agile POTUS may make the world more peaceful and American prosperity more sustainable. But the SUV binge, Al Qaeda's attacks on America, and P. Diddy's career all started when Bill Clinton was president. When Dubya goes, will America finally look in the mirror?

Comments

[catherine]

Suck it, next gen. Why care about anyone else? Geesh, it is all about me and my stuff.

[Podgers]

I agree with the majority of your opinions Seamus, but I think that this post links things that shouldn't necessarily be linked.

Consumerism did not start with Bush, nor will it end when he leaves office (nor would it have ended with Gore and/or Kerry in the White House). The Iraq War, DOJ "political" hiring, conservative Supreme Court appointments... these we can dump on Bush and we will be forced to deal with these issues for many years to come. And these are the reasons that I so dislike Bush.