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The Legacy of Bush II
Curb your enthusiasm. Even if your favored candidate did well on Super Tuesday, ask yourself if he or she will seriously challenge the bloated military budget that President Bush has proposed for 2009. If not, military spending will rise to a level exceeding any other year since the end of World War II, and there will be precious little left over to improve education and medical research, fight poverty, protect the environment or do anything else a decent person might care about. You cannot spend well over $700 billion on "national security," running what the White House predicts will be more than $400 billion in annual deficits for the next two years, and yet find the money to improve the quality of life on the home front.
The conventional wisdom espoused by the mass media is that Bush's budget is a lame-duck DOA contrivance, but that assumption is wrong. The 9/11 attacks have been shamefully exploited by the military-industrial complex with bipartisan support to ramp up military expenditures beyond Cold War levels. This irrational spending spree, which accounts for more than half of all federal discretionary spending, is not likely to end with Bush's departure. Which one of the likely winners from either party would lead the battle to cut the military budget, and where would the winner find support in Congress? Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have treated the military budget as sacrosanct with their Senate votes and their campaign rhetoric. Clinton is particularly clear on the record as favoring spending more, not less, on the military.
John McCain, who previously distinguished himself as a deficit hawk and was almost in a class by himself in taking on the rapacious defense contractors, has thrown in the towel with his inane support for staying in Iraq till "victory," even if it should take a century. It is simply illogical to call for fiscal restraint while committing to an open-ended war in Iraq that has already cost upward of $700 billion. Bush's request for $515.4 billion for the Defense Department doesn't even include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which accounted for nearly $200 billion over the last budget year and which will cost at least $140 billion in 2009. Add to those numbers $17.1 billion for the Department of Energy's weapons program and over $40 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and other national security initiatives spread throughout the federal government, and you'll see that my $700-billion figure underestimates the hemorrhaging.
McCain knows, and has frequently stated as a Senate watchdog, that much of the military spending is wastefully superfluous for combating terrorists who lack any but the most rudimentary weapons. Bush totally betrayed his campaign 2000 promise to reshape the post-Cold War U.S. military when he seized upon the 9/11 attack as an opportunity to reverse the "peace dividend" that his father had begun to return to taxpayers. Instead, Bush II ushered in the most profligate underwriting of weapons systems that are grotesquely irrelevant for combating terrorism.
The U.S. already spends more than the rest of the world combined on its military, without a sophisticated enemy in sight. The Bush budget cuts not a single weapons system, including the most expensive ones, those designed to combat a Soviet military that no longer exists. Those sophisticated weapons have nothing to do with combating terrorism and everything to do with jobs and profits that motivate both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. It is not known whether Osama bin Laden even possesses a rowboat in his naval arsenal, but that won't stop Joe Lieberman from pushing, as is his habit, for an increase in the defense budget to double the funding for the $3.4-billion submarines built in his home state of Connecticut. Nor does the collapse of the old Soviet Union-and with it the need for enormously expensive stealth aircraft to evade radar systems the Soviets never built-dissuade congressional supporters of those planes from pushing for more, not less, than Bush is requesting. Nor does wasting an additional $8.9 billion on ICBM missile defense have anything to do with stopping terrorists from smuggling a suitcase nuke into this country.
The centerpiece of the Bush legacy is a "war on terror" based on a vast disconnect between military expenditures and actual national security requirements that the presidential candidates all fully understand. The question is whether the voters and media will force them to face that contradiction or whether we're in for more of the same-no matter how much the candidates go on about change.
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.
© 2008 TruthDig.com
93 Comments so far
Show AllThe main--and very lasting--legacy of G. W. Bush is the string of anti-citizen decisions yet to come out of the Roberts/Alito Supreme Court. If we permit John McCain to follow Bush, this "legacy" might last to mid-century.
Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton are your only two possible "legacy-busters" at this point, and if one of them is not elected, your children will be wondering why the heck you didn't care enough about them to install proper judges when you had the chance. We, the parents, already failed once with Bush-Roberts-Alito.
Care to worship Ralph Nader while failing again?
To understand where this fiscal irresponsibility is going to take this country, you need only look at the example of Spain in the 16th century. Despite enjoying the huge advantage of an inflow of gold and silver from the New World, Hapsburg Spain became a debtor country, borrowing to pay for its imperial wars. By the beginning of the 17th century Spain was already in a severe decline. Similarly we had a large percentage of the world's industrial capacity following WWII, but we have squandered our advantage by imperial overstretch, and there is no prospect any of the current presidential candidates would try to reverse the trend.
You're sounding a bit shrill today, DD.
It is unconscionable to cut $208 billion from medicare (calling it wasteful spending almost makes me vomit) while committing $170 billion to the war. As is the standard, there will no doubt be additional requests (we just couldn't forsee it!) later in the year. Bombs are the ultimate in wasteful spending. Not only does it take a tremendous amount of money to get them in the air and aim them in the general area of a target, you only get to use each bomb once. And what do you get? Dead people. That's the end product. Dismembered, charred remains. I suppose the benefit is that you don't have to look the people you murder in the eye. Beating a dead horse here, but to call this "liberation" is an assault on the English language and no less an assault on the morality of the United States of America.
Truth in advertising should require a renaming of the Republican Party to the Corporate MIC Warmonger Party of Traditional Values and Hillary obviously envisions the completion of the transition of the other major party to what should be called the Feminist Corporate MIC Warmonger Party.
Obama, show us something. Ralph is waiting in the wings.
mr. scheer, you've once again got it right. however, your last sentence begs for clarification. from my point of view, i doubt seriously that the media will force anyone to face any sort of contradiction, unless instructed to do otherwise. certainly, i've yet to see any journalist out there willing to put his career on the line and ask just one hardball question, face to face.
Isn't Scheer missing a huge part of the story by ignoring the certainty that the election in November will be stolen by the Neocons and the MI complex?!
Everyone reading Mr. Scheer's comments must remember what Bill Moyers' wrote a couple of years ago. . .it is a testament to the cynicism and the objectives of the Bushites (the lot of whom I believe need to be charged with war crimes for "Shock and Awe")
From Bill Moyers:
As a citizen I don't like the consequences of this crusade, but you have to respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to change how America is governed - to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it, even acknowledging their mean spirit in accomplishing it. Their leading strategist in Washington - the same Grover Norquist – has famously said he wants to shrink the government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, "I hope one of them" – one of the states – "goes bankrupt." So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking down the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle-class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the corporations.
It is the most radical assault on the notion of one nation, indivisible, that has occurred in our lifetime. I'll be frank with you: I simply don't understand it – or the malice in which it is steeped. Many people are nostalgic for a golden age. These people seem to long for the Gilded Age. That I can grasp. They measure America only by their place on the material spectrum and they bask in the company of the new corporate aristocracy, as privileged a class as we have seen since the plantation owners of antebellum America and the court of Louis IV. What I can't explain is the rage of the counter-revolutionaries to dismantle every last brick of the social contract. At this advanced age I simply have to accept the fact that the tension between haves and have-nots is built into human psychology and society itself – it's ever with us. However, I'm just as puzzled as to why, with right wing wrecking crews blasting away at social benefits once considered invulnerable, Democrats are fearful of being branded "class warriors" in a war the other side started and is determined to win. I don't get why conceding your opponent's premises and fighting on his turf isn't the sure-fire prescription for irrelevance and ultimately obsolescence. But I confess as well that I don't know how to resolve the social issues that have driven wedges into your ranks. And I don't know how to reconfigure democratic politics to fit into an age of soundbites and polling dominated by a media oligarchy whose corporate journalists are neutered and whose right-wing publicists have no shame.
Maybe the legacy of Bush II will be a fired up democracy that utilizes the internet to change this country forever? Our choice to make.
All of those submarines, stealth aircraft, ICBMs, aircraft carriers, etc. don't make me feel any safer from Osama. What we really need is a manned mission to Mars, cost be damned, to secure it before the terrorists get there. Then I will be able to relax.
Thankfully we are running on borrowed money. Please someone (China)...turn off the spigot and put an end to this insanity.
Empires will always act like empires. They don't stop; even when the die is cast and it's obvious they are in an unstoppable decline, or even in view of the bottom of the toilet, they still don't stop. The United States is no different. Scum like George Wanker Bush simply represent the majority of Americans and their attitude toward the rest of the world. This country will never wise up because it's simply incapable of doing so. But just as the dotcom boom and the housing boom came to an end, so will the American empire.
As long as Democrats care more about Nader being in the race than they do about Republicans stealing the 2000 vote, gonna vote Greenie or for Ralph(Nader or Wiggum).
But there is a resurgence of internet companies, we will always need housing and prices will rise again, just as America has the ability to rise again as an example of the democracy and justice people all over the world are seeking.
Bush doesn't represent the American people. Only 21% of the population voted for him and most of those people just wanted to make sure gay people didn't get equal access to marriage benefits. Only a small handfull of people actually support the Bush ideology. However, they are a very wealthy and powerful minority.
However, things can change very fast.
kelmer,
And that's why you should count yourself as one of those who insists on being firmly planted in the past.
The election of 2000 is over.
I'm with Kelmer. I'll vote independent (hopefully Ralph) before I'll vote for either of these two.
I simply don't vote for murderers anymore. And I'm certainly not persuaded by intimidation tactics by dem hacks ranting about Nader. I think quite honestly, that some of those guys need to take a time out and get a grip, because you're gonna lose -- again. And its not gonna be because of Ralph or anyone else. Its gonna be because of your party. At this point, you don't HAVE a party.
Fix you party, fix your problem.
DD: Make your choice - I agree that there may be some window of hope that either of the Democratic candidates might recognize some pressure from outside the system calling for election reforms, universal health care, an absolute ban on nuclear arms (or power for that matter), a dramatic cut in DOD spending, full and complete withdrawl from Iraq, the closing of a good portion of the 700 military bases worldwide, negotiations with Iran or any other country without the "military option", a responsible energy policy and on and on and on and take it to heart. LOL...
But, really DD do you actually think any of this very popular agenda of reforms and changes are likely to affect these "gilded asses" in the glory of their individual cults of personality? These people talk the talk of leaders but lack the ethical capicity of foresight to see beyond their own personal agendas of power and the interests of those that put them there. I'll believe it when I see it.
Until then, I'm not buying on faith; either in the system or the annointed individuals. This country needs more choices, more discussions, more ideas, and much more democracy and both the Republican and Democratic parties stand in the way. I cannot support and refuse to surrender to either of the established parties and will continue to work to bring about policies that promote opposition parties and hope that one day some candidate will do the impossible (much like Jesse Ventura) and make both established party candidates look like the shams they are and take the American crown away from them. I only hope that after doing so the opposition doesn't fall into the same old trappings of power and keeps itself vital by allowing differing points of view and constantly challenging itself with fresh ideas and new partnerships.
I guess a woman or a person of color in the Off-White House is a victory of sorts...yeah!
the legacy of bush the lesser was brought to you by:
bush the elder and his cia connections;
brother jeb and katherine harris;
choicepoint and diebold;
5 supreme court justices;
al gore and the other senate dems, ANY ONE OF WHOM could have acted on the congressional black caucus's motion to investigate the florida ballot fiasco.
dlc stooges who try to blame all that on nader are pathetic, but, like that mosquito in your ear at 3am, will drive you nuts until you swat 'em.
re 5280's comment "Fix you party, fix your problem"...right on.
Scheer always gets it right! And for those who always get it wrong, here are my latest thoughts:
People vote for someone who they feel comfortable with and, yes, they do make horrible choices (for example, George Bush.) Sadly, we seem to be heading in that direction again!
A bit of history we probably all know: Bush proved more likable than the two stiffs who ran against him. Gore and Kerry, aside from showing very little in the way or charisma or warmth, were muzzled by kingpins who didn't want them to come out against the Iraq war and economic policies favoring the have-nots.
Comes 2008, the Dems will probably repeat past mistakes: pick another humorless, charisma-less candidate to run against John McCain, an awful conservative, but a solid, warm guy with a grandfatherly demeanor.
Democrats-- it's time to start going with your gut instead of your heads!
Dr. Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
It is interesting that Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Matt Drudge and others of their ilk still seem to expect people to follow their "wisdom and guidance" after seven years of being so wrong that America has reached it's current situation.
For over seven years, Bush and Cheney have controlled the administration, the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the State Department, and virtually all other branches of government, while having a Congress that has just about rubber-stamped everything they have requested… and those people I listed and their fans have cheered Bush and Cheney on and demonized anyone who opposed them.
Where is the nation now? Millions of people have streamed across our borders illegally and with little or no resistance, millions more have come in under visa programs that have displaced relatively high-paid American workers, hundreds of manufacturing facilities have shut down and gone abroad for their products and services rather than employing Americans, truces with other nations have been broken, people within our government have decided that they are above our laws and have decided it is up to them to decipher the meanings of our laws instead of our judges, banks and credit card companies are robbing their customers blind, and a record number of people are uninsured while drug and medical service prices skyrocket upward.
We are stuck in two never-ending occupations of hostile lands, and our economy is spiraling into inflation… while America is becoming more and more hated by the rest of the world.
So I ask you… why would ANYONE want the advice and counsel of these agents of the devil?
daniel david hit the nail on the head.
its not that any of us admire the current incarnation of the democratic party but there are REAL consequences to letting the republicans continue to drive. the supreme court is just one example but an important one. if you allow mccain or romney to win this election, the scalia, thomas, roberts, alito wing of the court will be augmented by at least one or two more "conservative" radicals. let's assume some third party - the greens, whoever - suddenly rises up and takes the presidency in 2008. hell, lets take a big chug of the kool aid; they win the presidency and BOTH houses of congress. any improvements they attempt will be made that much more difficult - if not stymied, completely - because of the solid majority of "conservatives" in control of the supreme court for the foreseeable future. cause i guarantee you grover norquist, ralph reed and that crowd will sue and appeal all the way to the supremes over every single comma and hyphen of every single bill and amendment they pass.
but hey, you didn't sacrifice your principles. to paraphrase the immortal carl spackler, "so, you got THAT going for you"
the perfect is the enemy of the good
it's really not the party that needs fixing. it's the election process. not trying to stir up a hornet's nest here, based on the overload of responses to nader's saturday article, but the problem is not any comment daniel david makes, of which he mostly speaks the truth. the real issue for you nader supporters would be how do you funnel all of your passion and energy (i.e. direct it in a way that makes sense) to get your man where you want him to be? you obviously have the passion and energy. but what it gets back to is not fixing the democratic party, but fixing the election process instead. and then, produce a winning ticket. nader and his supporters can't do it by themselves. until you add an edwards or a kucinich or a sheehan, it's just going to be the same old thing. we're all just pissing in the wind.
It's important to note that the reason people are streaming across our border is because of Clinton's passing of NAFTA and the WTO. That doomed the Mexican farmers and sent them running to the US (parts which used to be Mexico) in search of work just to make a living for their families. Don't blame everything on them. As usual, the US empircal policies are behind this. Blaming immigrants is such a scape goat. Don't fall into the trap.
In case anybody missed it, Psycho Ann Coulter is supporting HILLARY because she says Hillary is MORE 'CONSERVATIVE' (aka Fascist) than McCain! Nice, huh? The SUPPOSED 'democratic' candidate is supported by psycho fascist racist people-hater, Ann Coulter.
I will vote for Nader or a Green party candidate.
I will not give the stick to the person who is going to beat me over the head with it. I may get beat over the head, but I won't be giving them the stick.
That is why I don't support the democratic front runners. They know they are going to hit you over the head with a stick, and you probably know it, but don't want to admit to the sad truth.
If we can't be true to our principles of a fair and just society, how can we expect our candidates.
No compromise on peace, justice, and human rights.
so it goes...
Hitler turns to Joseph Goebbels and asks him "What do think my legacy will be?"
Goebbels replies "It's a little late to be concerned about that my fuhrer."
The same goes for this "Legacy" of bush. There is nothing to salvage there. Simply "The worst President ever to disgrace the White House, liar and war criminal" is the only real 'legacy' that can be applied.
To expand on RichM, what have the Demok "least worsts" done about the White House's nuclear proliferation and arms sales, coddling of dictators, manipulating democracies? What have they done about a greatly intensified global warming, and huge wealth redistribution from the have nothings to the have everythings?
They've done abolutely nothing in their powerful Senate seats, which is just fine with 3/4 of their supporters, because they are Hillary from the New York Stock Exchange, and Obama from the Chicago Commodities Exchange. They are "our candidates". They help us to secure our multi-million dollar homes/investments. Meanwhile, the world outside our gated communities becomes a much more devastated place, but frankly, we don't give a damn.
Now maybe it's time for the rabble to bust down those gates.
I say cut the military budget in half, still an ungodly sum of money. Stop these insane wars in their tracks. Weed out most of the secret and nefarious organizations we have going and apply the left over money to cutting the debt and universal health care.
Then conduct war crimes trials for the perps and their enablers.
Daniel David writes:
>> Care to worship Ralph Nader while failing again?
As a matter of fact, I will. If the democrats had not turned into GOP lite I wouldn't have to. They have left their base constituency. In fact, I am almost to the point where I would vote for a repugnant as a devil's advocate, instead of giving in to what the democrats are offering up. They don't allow Kucinich in, and they have bellied up to the corporate coffers and are now officially on board with them. They are no longer my party, so what else am I to do.
Bush took the right to it's logical conclusion. If this hasn't shown that it won't work I don't know what will. Sometimes the storm has to shake the house to the ground before the residents vow to fix the foundation.
I'd rather that the people get their poison and wise up now, rather than later when blackwater has the tools needed to stop the revolution.
The bully pulpit? Yesterday I wound up and threw my Hail Mary to Obama. Voters under 45 have only known corporate Democratic and corporate right wing authoritarian Republican rule. Depending on the house and senate make-up a few things could change. Probably not much. But the words spoken by the next President (how could the MSM not report them?) could start a conversation of ideas. Ideas many people under 45 have never even heard. I went to protests against the Roberts and Alito nominations and they looked like gray panther meetings. Old bags like me outnumbered the 20 to 30 somethings 10 to 1. Since Obama has supposedly energized the younger voters I really want to support and encourage them all as I think they might be our last hope. But President Obama will have to put the ideas out there. It's gotta be OK'd and mainstream to listen to Kucinich, read N. Klein, Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams, etc. A President Obama could offer to the 40% who never vote because their lives never change no matter who is in office some reasons to get involved. So c'mon young Obama supporters! Make sure he starts a new conversation and you can maybe rout everyone (except the progressive caucus) while I'm still alive to see it.
The legacy of Dubyuh will be national shame like the country hasn't seen since the Amerindian genocides. Although the rehab of Saint Reagan is amazing and based on the 90%+ corporate media blackout, the coming thuglican implosion will make a repeat difficult.
I don't have great faith in the Dems, but at the CO caucus I attended yesterday, they were expecting 300 and got over 1000! I'm guessing the '08 election will not be loving Dubyuh like the apathetic 2004 farce did. The Proles are energized this time around!
I still say it's all immaterial. They didn't get this far with their plan just to let the dems come in and undo their work. If there is an election in November, and I have my doubts about that, it'll be fixed, just as 2000 was.
But I'm talking up the candidates, and making points with everyone I can about getting out and voting. Pretending is better than not.
brissot "gets it" about how much is at stake at the Supreme Court. And gin "gets it" about what Obama can offer in dialogue from the bully pulpit.
Others above might be surprised to learn that I would love to see Ralph Nader appoint judges and use the bully pulpit. The problem is that he won't go any further than Dennis Kucinich just went, AND he carries the risk of contributing to a complete defeat for liberals and progressives in what we already know will be a tight election. That the diehards want to defend this nonsense to a bitter end is incomprehensible.
Brissot and DD are operating under the false assumption that the Democrats WANT change, that they are FOR the people, and that they are simply stymied and held back by the political system. This is false!
The democrats want the corporate-poverty creating-rights stripping-police state agenda just as much as the the republicans or they wouldn't keep voting for the bills that support it! It's just that someone has to play the role of the opposition party so that we can continue to believe that someone in the government will carry our flag, so that we will continue to participate in the government which is systematically working to turn us into corporate slaves!
The democrats have proved that they are not for democracy and people's rights when they failed to meaningfully contest the 2000 election. If they don't care that voters' votes are counted, why would they appoint supreme court justices who care about our other rights?
I'm with wilmoor. The fascists have decided the Repubs don't have enough of a chance to win the next election after their gross incompetence has been exposed. The Dems are now their favored tool. They will get the money, they will win and guess what, nothing will change.
Worth listening to "Styve" and the warning of 2008 being stolen. These guys have shown clearly over 7 years that they have no respect for America and its republican principles and will stop at nothing to maintain their grip.
Worth listening to "5280" and realizing that at the minimum one should not vote for a murderer, whether the murderer acts by executive fiat or by Senate vote: millions of dead Iraqis, orphans, refugees not featured on FOX but produced by our military action in Iraq.
The MI complex was called the "military-industrial-congressional complex" by Eisenhower in his draft speech, but he was persuaded to drop the final element. Hillary has CODE PINK members arrested in her Senate office.
We progressive must invent detailed plans whereby the jobs in the war machine can be converted to socially useful employment. War is what we do, and many Americans depend on their jobs in the machine. No politician can be asked to dump them on the streets; we must put forth the ideas for new industries that will need them: renuable energy, infrastructure, education, healthcare and many more that a thriving, sustainable society so sorely needs.
Hail CODE PINK!!
"The 9/11 attacks have been shamefully exploited by the military-industrial complex with bipartisan support to ramp up military expenditures beyond Cold War levels."
Wasn't that the point of the 9/11 attacks?
Remember - in the 90's the Military-Industrial Complex was threatened by the "Peace Dividend" from the (unexpected!) collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War.
Gotta do something to keep those arms sales growing.
ACADEMIC QUESTION..............NOT a proposal: But how come no one from the ranks of the trampled-down dissidents in the US has had a crack at taking Bush out? I do not advocate such measures since you have ALL the democratic machinery to bring the guy to task and impeach and then hand him over to the Hague or another Int tribunal. Has the man NO shame......borrowing his military budget from COMMUNISTS!! yE GODS!
Good stuff on Bill Moyers maradei. Got a link to that article?
gin: Your point is well taken, but could you maybe reconsider denigrating yourself and others because of age? all of us will get there sooner or later if we're lucky, and I for one would like to be judged objectively rather than lumped into the "old bag." Come on, don't you think a little self-respect is in order here?
All of you Nader woshiping, Dem haters should listen to Daniel David and take his advice while we still have a chance to stop this disaster. It is stupid to keep blaming the Dems for not stopping the Bush-Cheney war as it is the Repugs that were in total control so it is their deal. If we had gotten Gore elected we might not even have had 9-11, as they would have been listening to the people that warned about it, while Bushco turned a deaf ear, because they were not his experts. If you care about peace, forget lost causes and support either of the Dem candidates, because if we cannot get one of them in, get set for the 100 year war.
The Bush disaster is not yet over. Who knows what he and his cabal of Neocons might yet do?
I will be on edge during the rest of this year, waiting, waiting, waiting for the nukes to start falling on Iran. Once that happens, if it does, we are on the road to extinction.
If there are 100 million households in the US, and the "national security" budget is $700 billion, that works out to $7,000 per household.
Could you bill that to my grandchildren, please?
There is a theory that military spending is a band aid fix for the disappearance of the manufacturing sector of the economy. If this theory is correct, military spending is a false crutch for an unsustainable economy.
The other crutch, so the theory goes, is petrodollars. Both crutches are complementary, as we see now in Iraq. Ditto for the other countries that have been put on notice: Iran and Venezuela. Oil rich countries where petrodollars are at stake. Chavez has been in the lead on eliminating the petrodollar and replacing it with the petroeuro or other, as I understand.
Anyway, there is an argument that this military spending is not only directly about the wealthy lining the pockets of the wealthy owners of defense companies, but also about all the other wealth that depends on controlling the world's energy supplies, denominating them in US dollars, propping up a failing dollar, and attempting to hide from the fallout of the collapse of American manufacturing.
If this theory is true, we need to have the conversation on those points. What will happen if $500 billion is cut out of that sector of the economy? I don't have the training to say.
What if it means depression and $7 per gallon at the pump? Is that acceptable? It is fine by me, if it means taking our medicine now to avoid the violence to our fellow men overseas and to the environment that comes with a false perpetuation of the existing mechanics of the economy.
Along with cutting the militar budget (and restoring the domestic programs) goes changing our imperialist role. This means we can't be the world's cops, and so we must encourage international organizations -- a revised UN, regional organizations. There's a whole program here.
We can't just say we're withdrawing from Iraq and keep the military big and keep our imperialistic ambitions -- we need to work for a world where no country needs a large military. Not an easy road but it's the only one to world peace.
Adolph Hitler will have a better legacy than GWB. Hitler was insane also, but at least he wasn't stupid.
Excellent post ~KERNEL~. __ 4:50pm.
Again, Daniel David ruins everything my injecting his Democrat-ONLY statements that lead to his ever-irritating bash of Ralph Nader.
Stop already. This article was about Bush II and your responsiblity for his so-called "election", which is a polite term for "theft" in America today, by NOT voting for Nader. When will you accept the obvious???
RichM__ Thanks for your kind comments about my mental capacities. I always did feel comfortable around morons, as I am not as sophisticated as you seem to be. One would never suspect, by your rantings, that you are in any way progressive, but more like a right-wing conservative plant to upset and confuse people so a Repug will make it again.
Anyone that thinks there is no difference between the Repug and Dem philosophies is just refusing to admit it or is blind to what is going on. If you like to load your kids with debt for constant war and take from the poor to give to the rich, vote Repug. If you want a little fiscal sanity and a little break in war along with taking care of our own people and country, vote Dem, at least this time around.
Who could care about Bush`s legacy anyway? All he and his criminal band of warmongers have done is destroy this country, and all some like yourself can do is constantly complain about the Dems and urge people to waste their much needed votes on someone that has no chance this year to get elected. Sure, many of us had another favorite in mind, but we need to work with what we have now.
It was "safe" for me to vote for Nader in 2000 because Gore was a "shoe in" in Oregon. In 2004 I was so frightened of another 4 years of Bush that I blindly voted for Kerry. Now, after enduring 4 more years of the worst nightmare of my life, I have to make another decision this year.
I was all smug that I had a choice with the Dimwit party. But then DK and Edwards dropped out. Our primary isn't until May, so effectively my vote has already been thrown away by the Dimwit party. I didn't get a say in who the candidate would be. I'll vote in the primary, but I'm going to vote for Edwards or DK. Even if I have to write them in.
Come November, IF there is an election (big IF), I'll make a decision. I absolutely will not vote for Billary because they are war mongors and corporate whores. Obama? Don't know yet, but his statement that he was willing to nuke Pakistan is a pretty bad omen.
Let's face it, the Peoples' Party abandoned the people a long time ago. Like someone said above, I know I'm going to be beaten around the head and shoulders by either party. So do I give them the stick to do it with? Do we speed up this train to hell by installing a Repug in the White house, or vote in a Dimwit and just let this train to hell take us chugging along a little slower? Me, I want off the train, but have been sealed in with no "Exit" door available right now.
Besides, the other big question is, does your vote get counted at all? It's a rigged system and was effectively stolen in the last two prez elections. What makes you think it will be any different this time around?
Isn't Scheer missing a huge part of the story by ignoring the certainty that the election in November will be stolen by the Neocons and the MI complex?!
No. He makes the point that it doesn't really matter who wins. Hillary, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, Romney can ALL be counted on to do the MI and the Neocons bidding.