Korean Job Discussion Forums

[idonojacs]

I'm a firm believer that nobody's perfect, and am always willing to make allowances. But I also believe that nobody's all bad, either. There's generally a good side that we might not know about.

While I am not George Bush's biggest fan, apparently there are some on this website who think he is a great president, or at least a pretty good one. I would like to know more about what they believe George Bush has done that is good for the world, good for the United States, or some policy that has touched their own lives in a good way.

Please tell me what we should be grateful for that George Bush has done since being elected president of the United States. I really would like to know. I promise that I won't make nasty remarks. And I hope that others who friends of Bush might label "liberals" will demonstrate good manners in this thread.

Please be clear and specific about actions or policies of George Bush or the Bush Administration, and why we should be grateful for them.

Thank you, Davesters.

[SuperHero]

odds on this thread going out of control before page three - 99%

[chris_J2]

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/George_Dubya_Bush

Made me laugh!

[mack4289]

Overall, he's been a failure as a president. But it's not an unqualified failure. I posted this elsewhere, it's an argument that Bush has been better for the poor than the Democrats.

In some ways, Dubya's been much better for the poor than the Democrats.
- He has been a greater supporter of free trade than the Democrats, which has a proven track record of enabling people to get out of poverty (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6744590 about free trade and poverty, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3319895.stm for Bush's complicated position on trade, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2875464 for the Dems' position on free trade).
- He has also pushed for some changes in the food aid laws which would allow the US to buy food from African farmers and then give that food to those in need, instead of sending American surplus food there, which depresses prices in poor countries and takes business away from local farmers (http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F7091EF93D5A0C718EDDAD0894DF404482- you need NYT select to read this, sorry). This is supported by some Democrats but opposed by some politicians with connection to agribusiness, both Democrat and Republican.
- He has also supported a moderate immigration bill that hasn't drawn a lot of support from Democrats (for the opposition to the bill by some Democrats go here http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0714FA3D5A0C7B8EDDAF0894DF404482- again it's Times Select. For Bush's moderate immigration stance go here http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F20E15FB3B550C728EDDAB0994DE404482).
- I also think he was right to get some teeth into the UN resolutions that Saddam was violating, thereby forcing inspectors into the country. If he hadn't called for an invasion but, instead, allowed the inspectors to do their work and come to their own conclusions, we might be saying he did a brilliant job with Iraq.

[cbclark4]

Can you cut and paste some snippets from these inaccessible sites?

[mack4289]

"He has also pushed for some changes in the food aid laws ..."

"It was here in Kansas City, at the 2005 food aid conference, that the Bush administration pushed for a fundamental change in food aid that would have diminished profits to domestic agribusiness and shipping companies. It proposed allowing a quarter of the Food for Peace budget to be used to buy food in poor countries near hunger crises, rather than buying only American-grown food that had to be shipped across oceans.

And Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns spoke at the conference on Wednesday to again make the administration's case for the same idea, contending that such a policy would speed delivery, improve efficiency and save many lives.

Congress in each of the past two years killed the proposal, which was opposed by agribusiness and shipping interests who stood to lose business, even as it won support from liberal Democrats like Representatives Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon -- generally not a subset of lawmakers found in the president's corner."
About some Democratic opposition to it, we have this from Mother Jones:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2007/08/eat_american.html

"Now Congress is considering overhauling this system via a Bush administration proposal that would allow 25 percent of food aid to be distributed as cash grants. That move is opposed by shipping companies and agribusiness giants such as Archer Daniels Midland, as you might expect, but also by prominent congressional Democrats and nongovernmental organizations such as Feed the Children and the American Red Cross. Why would these groups be against helping the poor more efficiently? Turns out that when food shipments finally get to where they're needed, they're often given to ngos, which turn around and sell them to raise money."

Even though Democrats receive only 31% of agribusiness' campaign donations (http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=A), five of agribusiness top 20 recipients are Democrats (http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.asp?Ind=A&cycle=2006).

"He has also supported a moderate immigration bill that hasn't drawn a lot of support from Democrats (for the opposition to the bill by some Democrats go here http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0714FA3D5A0C7B8EDDAF0894DF404482- again it's Times Select."

This is inaccessible for some reason.

For Bush's moderate immigration stance go here http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F20E15FB3B550C728EDDAB0994DE404482).


"Every now and then the public gets a glimpse of the George W. Bush who is a calm realist on immigration, a former governor of a border state who knows, likes and understands Latino immigrants. It's an identity sharply at odds with that of many other members of his Republican Party, especially the snarlers clustered on its right wing.

At his news conference yesterday, Mr. Bush commented on the raids at Swift & Company, the meatpacking giant that, to nobody's surprise, seems to have had hundreds of illegal immigrants with forged papers on its low-skill work force. Mr. Bush did not condemn the detainees as border-crossing evildoers. He spoke with startling tolerance.

''The system we have in place has caused people to rely upon smugglers and forgers in order to do work Americans aren't doing,'' Mr. Bush said. ''It is a system that, frankly, leads to inhumane treatment of people.''

He continued: ''The best way to deal with an issue that Americans agree on -- that we ought to enforce our borders in a humane way -- is we've got to have a comprehensive bill.''

[pharflung]

Thank you for not going hunting with Dick Cheney.

[Jizzo T. Clown]