From Lee Iacocca, who is 'angry as hell and not going to put up with it anymore' ,(to paraphrase the movie 'Network' ) comes a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'. It is a rant worthy of any angry American. This except comes from the book written by Lee Iacocca and his co-author Catherine Whitney.
The full except is here...amazing stuff:
...Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them — or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that’s a dictatorship, not a democracy."
This is just a taste of a very serious, angry commentary on our times by a man who was once a big fundraiser for Bush. He's had it. He's angry. And he doesn't understand why more of us aren't as pissed off as he is today!
Neither do I. Where are the demonstrations in the streets? Where are the mass marches on Washington? Where are the true fights...,and I mean FIGHTS, with authority if necessary? The only thing Washington respects, other than money, is public opinion pushed into their faces where they can't ignore it. If there were ten's of thousands in the streets of Washington even the Republicans will bail out just to save their seats.
The Nine C's of Leadership, which are stinging in their honesty and outrage, are a detailed indictment of Bush and his leadership. Read them on the flip.
* Curiosity — “George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. ‘I just scan the headlines,’ he says. Am I hearing this right? He’s the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.’ Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he’s ready to go.
* Creative — “George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There’s a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty.”
* Communicate — “The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn’t cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we’ve stopped listening to him.
* Character — “George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he’s tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.”
* Courage — “Swagger isn’t courage. Tough talk isn’t courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn’t mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk…. Bush can’t even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized.”
