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TechnoratiA little over a month ago, I wrote "The Handy Reference Guide to Bush Disasters, Incompetencies, and Lies"
and asked readers to add to the list, which was an attempt to be a relatively non-partisan chronicling of some of the worst abuses of Bush and his incompetent cronies.
The responses came in droves.
Thus, we will add more items to the original list, but the original rule of non-partisanship must be kept in force. I did not want this to be a highlighting of mere policy differences between liberals and conservatives. Instead, the list should be a sincere attempt to show obvious failures, lies and disasters that have been clearly detrimental to the world, to America or to American interests. So, picking up after the end of the first list:
31. No Child Left Behind. By far and away, most of the responses cited my failure to include this in the original list. (In fact, some emails were simply blank but had "NCLB" in the subject line.) I had considered including the No Child Left Behind Act in the original list, but thought it might be too partisan; after examining the issue further, though, I found that my fears of partisanship on this issue were misguided. The law has faced bi-partisan criticism from teachers and parents, administrators and educational theorists, conservatives and liberals. A reliance on standardized tests and the resultant punishment of schools for not meeting certain benchmarks has lost an entire generation of students by condemning them to learning things that are virtually useless. Schools have lost valuable class time in not only core subjects - as teachers skip English, math or science class time to drill students on standardized tests - but also on more "electives," such as art, music and physical education. Sen. Edward Kennedy was famously behind Bush on NCLB, but it became obvious even to him that Bush never intended to adequately fund the mandates, making them almost impossible to achieve. The result - many children have been left behind.
32. While we're on education, let's include some of the other misguided administration policies that readers citied - support for teaching intelligent design alongside evolution and abstinence-only programs that actually promoted anal and oral sex while doing nothing to discourage "ordinary" sex.
33. The direct administration cover-up of its complicity in torture and abuse of innocent people at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Included in the original list was the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld sanctioning of torture, illegal wiretapping and extraordinary rendition. But a new series by McClatchy (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38775.html) has detailed the jaw-dropping venality, criminality, arrogance and corruption of Bush and his team, who made up new legal doctrines in violation of U.S. and international law specifically for the purpose of not being held accountable for war crimes. Now, those on the other side of the fence repeatedly justify torture or mistreatment of detainees because, they say, they are our enemies or are prisoners of war. The problem with that argument is, for many of those apprehended there was no evidence they were enemy combatants; they were simply designated as such and held without charges. In one case, McClatchy reported, one detainee, an employee of the Afghan interior ministry, repeatedly asked his guards to simply call the Afghan officials to verify his story that he was actually a government official and friend of the U.S. But he was never allowed to present any evidence of his innocence. The McClatchy reporter made a couple of phone calls and verified the man's story. He was held for four years. This was not an isolated incident; McClatchy reported on hundreds who were held but later released, having never been charged. Many of those were tortured or abused; many are still being held, having been framed or jailed because of bribes or the settling of old scores. Let anyone doubt Bush's complicity in torture, just listen to his own words. He said he knew of, and approved of, discussions to approve harsh interrogation techniques for prisoners; he doesn't call it torture, but by U.S. and international standards, the techniques were, indeed, torture. According to some of his own military officers and international attorney Philippe Sands (author of the devastating book "Torture Team,"), this may mean that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others could legitimately be prosecuted for war crimes.
34. Abuse of the Constitution and contempt for U.S. law. (See above.) No one wants terrorists to be set free. Sadly, in the minds of Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld, and their millions of followers, there is no conception of the notion of providing fair hearings for these people and then punishing them, severely, when necessary. For these people, providing even a hearing for someone held without charges or evidence is "surrender" or a "pre-9/11 mindset." In actuality, of course, it has been these neocons who have endorsed the terrorists, by surrendering freedoms which make America what it was before they took office. It is the right wing who has weakened the Constitution. It is the right wing who would as rather see American values of justice and checks and balances destroyed before the release of one detainee, guilty or innocent. And this is supposedly from a group that believes in limited government. If you think this is all an exaggeration, listen to what they say.
35. The divorce of the vice presidency from the Executive Branch. This is actually a Cheney argument; in 2007 he exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information because he said it wasn't part of the executive branch. Imagine this: suppose a rogue vice president might use such a privilege for abuse of his powers of office... oh, wait, that's what Cheney did, as well.
36. The Bush administration violated federal law in 2006 when it restricted states' ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families. That ruling from the Government Accountability Office came after I wrote the column. The GAO said that Bush could not legally prevent states from expanding health insurance for children, but legality of his actions isn't much of a consideration for Bush.
37. Several readers said to include privatization of government and/or cronyism in appointments on the list; I did so, but perhaps not strongly enough. Bush has abused his office and the trust of voters by placing partisan hacks in positions of regulatory authority over such agencies as the Energy Department, FDA, Interior, FCC and EPA. The result is a government giveaway to private interests and a massive loss of protection for average consumers. Some may find this point partisan, but, given that three-fourths of the country disapproves of Bush's performance, it seems like a mainstream opinion. To be sure, Democrats are not free of corruption, but this isn't how the best of them govern - they see government as an attempt to prevent corporate as well as governmental abuses, not primarily as a tool for lining the pockets of supporters at taxpayers' expense. As for privatization, I did mention the privatization of war, but other disasters of this kind certainly are worth mentioning; one is the privatization of services at Walter Reed Veterans' Hospital. The Army Times reported that cost-cutting because of privatization led to staff cuts and loss of critical care for wounded veterans. The desire to reduce or gut veterans' care stems from the beginning of Bush's terms but gained steam with the Iraq War. And Bush has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for the troops. As noted in The New York Times last month, "President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it." The ability of those words to outrage us has diminished only because we have lost our awe at the utter incompetence and morally corrupt behavior that have marked George Bush's presidency.38. Bush's obliviousness to the suffering he has caused. Bush danced a jig while waiting for John McCain. He looked like a frat boy giving chest bumps to airmen at an Air Force graduation ceremony. He commented repeatedly, throughout wartime, about what a great time he was having. He made jokes about not being able to find weapons of mass
destruction, while people were dying, doing precisely that. He said the world should stop at nothing to stop the terrorists and in the same breath told reporters, "Now watch this drive," as he hit a golf ball. He claimed to give up golf because of the losses in Iraq but even that was a lie. He apparently has no ability to reflect upon himself, his conduct, or his presidency; who could argue that that is a good qualification for a president?
39. The freedom of Osama bin Laden. While Bush, Rudy Guiliani and other blowhards complain that giving terrorists "new rights" will endanger Americans, they overlook the point that they have given terrorist bin Laden the greatest right of all - his personal freedom. Instead of capturing bin Laden, Bush forced us into a war that stunted the hunt for bin Laden and allowed him to walk free all these years. Imagine if a Democrat had let him go free this long... can you imagine the howls of anger and bitterness from the right? The hypocrisy is really quite astonishing.
40. The total poisoning of politics. While dirty politics is not exclusive to any political party, Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove politicized a war and the fight against U.S. enemies. This has turned ordinary political bickering into a fight for the soul of the country and the future of the world - not a necessity when Bush had most of the world behind him following 9/11. Bush, unlike other lame duck presidents before him, doesn't even have the class to stay out of the current presidential election - speaking absurdities about appeasement to the Israeli Knesset (by the way, Israel was negotiating with Hamas at the time and has brokered a cease fire, which may or may not hold) and now calling for off-shore oil dwelling in a coordinated hack job with John McCain.
41. The Valerie Plame/CIA leak case. I had not included this case because of the conservatives' unequivocal defense of Rove and Scooter Libby. While I believed that it was tantamount to treason to out a CIA officer's identity simply to discredit a man who had questioned the need for war, I was willing to admit a partisanship on the issue. But as former press secretary Scott McClellan pointed out in his recently released book, what the White House did in this case amounted to a criminal cover-up through orchestrated lies. Even those who back Bush don't really argue with anything McClellan says; they just say that he's "not the Scotty" they knew.
42. And, in breaking news... another to add to the list - the illegal elimination of outstanding job applicants at the Justice Department because they had either used "liberal" code words, worked for "liberal" causes, or just seemed vaguely liberal based on where they went to school or with whom they associated. Such an ideological litmus test should be an outrage to all Americans, and perhaps most to those who favor a limited, blind government.
The list is still nowhere near complete. But after thinking about the upcoming presidential election, one has to wonder if the old "liberal" label will work against Barack Obama. In fact, pick any attack against Obama - say, the notion that he would wantonly bomb Pakistan - and you will find a worse policy on the same issue that Bush has already adopted. In 2006, Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, said Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if it didn't cooperate in the war on terror. Yet one hears the hysterical wailings of those on the right complaining that Obama is "naíve" because he threatened to bomb bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. This is why the old "liberal" labels may not work in 2008. The answer is simple: "We tried it your other way; look what happened." The fact is, almost nobody could do a worse job than the bunch that is already in there.
Guy Reel is an assistant professor of mass communication at Winthrop University. He can be reached at reelg@winthrop.edu.
53 Comments so far
Show Allmy children (ages 16 and 20) both slogged through years of NCLB, and they have their own way of referring to it: "no child left behind...fuck 'em all." the standardized tests are a cruel joke that don't prepare the participants for anything other than filling in those bloody little circles on the answer sheets.
lucky for my two that they were admitted to one of the best high schools in the country. if i'd left their education entirely to public school in this era of the neo-con drive to make sure that the voting populace is ignorant and easily manipulated, my children would have been screwed along with most of the rest of the student population.
my partner used to be a high school math and science teacher. his view is that the children aren't the only group being screwed. if you were counting on the next generation to provide a tax base to float the baby boomers, don't give up your day job. overall, they're functionally illiterate.
Another funny "coincidence" re: 9/11 . . .
Let's not forget that G. H. W. Bush was with Osama's brother on 9/11 and that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is so close to the Bush family that their nickname for him is "Prince Bandar Bush."
annabelle June 29th, 2008 1:48 pm
Got it right.
dgpdx June 29th, 2008 11:26 pm
True, Ken, I shouldn't insult chickens like that.
Truly an insult to the noble chicken. Glad you see the error of your ways.
Language please...ladies present.
SiouxRose, always love reading your posts. Just wanted to share with you that in the overlay of chakras and planets that I've studied, Saturn corresponds to the first chakra (life and death) and Mars corresponds to the third chakra. Note that the third chakra is considered the will center and the current administration subverts, so to speak, the will when they use fear and lies to manipulate; people often lose their use of will when they are in fear or have been maniplulated.
Liberul June 30th, 2008 3:25 pm You said a mouthful..INTEGRITY...a lost quality! I say Ralph can WIN! Now more than EVER!
Fuck 'em all. I'm not voting for any fucking criminal w/ a suit on.
The govorporation grows & grows, fatter & fatter w/ tax dollars as the Amerikans grow fatter & fatter on junk food. I wonder if any of them will recognize themselves in the movie Wall-e.
If Nixon would have had this attourney general, this supreme court, this Democratic congressional membership, and FOX news, he would never have had to resign, and we would never have left Vietnam. This should give us a hint of what the future will look like in 10 years.
Which is why I'm voting for Ralph Nadar, the only candidate with any integrity.
To Poet June 29th @12:59 pm:
Precisely! The two stolen GWB terms have been successful beyond their wildest dreams and expectations. Americans' confidence in their givernment is shaken, career government employees (throughtout, not just at Justice) are demoralized, depressed, and departing. The financial vacuum cleaner that is Iraq is bankrupting the New Deal services the (R)s had, until now, been unable to dismantle. Iraq itself is going according to plan. As Greg Palast pointed out years ago, the idea was to maintain the 100-year policy of keeping Iraqi oil underground and off the market. The result? Take a look at Exxon's and Chevron's and BP's profits.
I was surprised at how short the article was. I guess CD has a word limit for the writers and Mr. Reel just had to hit the high points.
dydymus (6:53 am) offers the frequently-seen hypothesis that:
"Could it not be possible that the Democrats have done nothing because...They are being blackmailed after having been spied on...?
- In a word, no. This is a dumb idea. The Democrats haven't done a thing to resist the steady rightward move in the US for over 40 years. To be sure, Nancy Pelosi herself has "blackmailed" John Conyers, in a sense -- Pelosi told him that if he gets out of line (for example, by pushing for impeachment), he'll lose his committee chairmanship.
But it has nothing to do with Republicans "blackmailing" Democrats. The Democrats defend the same class interests that Republicans do. The whole idea of them being more "people-friendly," or the "party of the Little Guy," etc -- this is all bullsh*t, & always has been.
It's only because you swallowed that bullsh*t that you're looking for silly explanations of why, if the Democrats are supposedly a "force for good," don't they ever lift a finger against the likes of Bush. The answer is that your premise is wrong. The Democrats are not a force for good.
And Pelosi most certainly does not "loathe" Bush. Just look at the picture accompanying this article. Does it look like she loathes him, to you?
Poet and others: You are almost there! It is indeed class warfare, and it is folly to think the Bush mafia is stupid. But what can those of us on the other side of the class line do?
Alas, my broken record must kick in: Build the Leninist party of intertnational socialist revolution! Such a party is requisite for successful replacement of imperialism with justice. Wish, pray, cry, complain, deny, protest, wring your hands, and listen to Democracy Now all day, but without a vanguard political party, failure is certain.
Anyone who fails to mention this is either ignorant of history or on the other side. Always remember that 'liberals' are capitalists in sheep's clothing.
Turce...Incidentally, God Speed with your next visit with Conyers...HOLD HIS FEET TO THE FIRE.............or waterboard his ass!
Turce June 30th, 2008 12:41 am ..So, you think "shrub, the coward" would put a bullet in his head? ...and do us that favor? So, NOT blowing his brains all over DC makes him courageous?
FREE AMERICA
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
Could it not be possible that the Democrats have done nothing because either
1) They are being blackmailed after having been spied on (everyone in Washington has something to hide), and/or
2) They know that starting impeachment could backfire. How so? Look at the education level of the American public, and how easy it is to manipulate them (see 2001-2008). The Republicans can always hammer on emotional soundbites, "catapulting the propaganda," and convince the gullible fence sitters to scatter to their side.
There is no other explanation as to why reformist types like John Conyers or Nancy Pelosi, who surely loathe the president and VP, would suddenly go limp.
And lastly, don't forget what happened to Mr. Wellstone of Minnesota...
to canuckchuck:
you dont get it. if they do that (call themselves what they are: the one American Nazi party) the majority of the people might understand what is going on ... not that this would mean much. so why should they do that?
It works perfectly for them as it is right now. You dont change players when winning the game. Maybe they are going to do that in a few years ... just to spit in the faces of the few thinking people left ... a day before they will come over and pick you up for good.
Thank you, RichM, for stating the truth.
As for David and Goliath;
try to always remember this:
it was the SLING that was the thing which ... enabled the "powerless" ... to overcome, destroy in fact, their gargantuan enemy.
-- Do the demo thing. It keeps the enemy occupied.
-- Keep sending those bogus rumors of impending acts. It makes it easier to capture enemy agents as they flounder around in the fog deliberately created and maintained.
-- Kool Aid, anyone? Get the drift?
-- Sting ops are always SOOOO much fun to run...
-- FRAME that sucker...
-- Remember there is really only one thing the oligarch fears losing more than your stolen wealth...
The reason so many of you, temporarily, feel hopeless is because you haven´t yet picked up the right tools, recognized the right strategies, or local tactical means with which to fight off the aggressor.
Will I talk about that in detail, here, on this public forum with all of you?
Sure. To a degree.
Just ask.
Psy Ops cut both ways...
A lot of you probably think what I say sounds, well, just AWFUL!?!... You cannot achieve social justice without destroying those who profit from the maintaining of inequality, inhumanity, and deliberately contrived mass murder or worse.
Quick! Somebody name ONE instance in human history in which dialogue with the pathologically, criminally insane actually achieved peace and justice.
War IS hell, and freedom is NOT free.
Although it obviously should, could, and will be, IF we take the proper steps and measures b4 it is entirely too late.
Much more to add to that list. I will be on the Hill again in a week and a few, Conyers meeting again. See what promises he'll make and fuck us on one more day. At least when you look in Dennis' eyes you actually feel his integrity, honesty and humility. Of course I have to look down to look into those eyes but whenever some moron asks what Elizabeth is doing with HIM, as if HIM is not a great thing to be, knows NADA about women. Now with Child Torture and live burials, Yoo and Addington what a frick and frack of fuck ups. Addington acts as he is a separate entity unto himself, Yoo plays the bumbling Professor quite nicely. To think that these 2 were responsible for such egregious crimes against humanity it makes you understand how the Boogeyman is the boy next door. The Murderer in Chief and his minions, I so hate them.
willybill June 29th, 2008 1:28 pm
Suicide takes courage.
Actually quite the opposite, cowardly. Leaves us with the mess. Soeharto, agree with you there. My oldest, 31, said "You know what Mom, I whined everytime I asked what this meant or that and you'd slap down the Dictionary and say, 'Look it up.', then I'd want to be this or do that you'd say, 'Read this, or read that, library is there for a reason.', now I thank you every day because I never would have valued that all I ever wanted to be can be found in these millions of books right around the corner, or Mom I really order off Amazon now." They say one day they'll realize, this one thanked me everyday of her life because of her compassion, her humanity, her left brained artistic thought process. Damn too bad she lives 3000 miles away, I'd sure love to hug her.
drich291 June 29th, 2008 11:31 pm "Someone mentioned Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Add to this End of America by Naomi Wolf and you will have a picture of what is possibly going on."
______________________________________________________________
No. Have to differ with you. Those books are based on the premise that you want to 'buy-in' but continue whinging and whining in a delinquent policy wonk kind of way. Take an axe to the roots rather than the branches and read John Ralston Saul's "Voltaire's Bastards".
Someone mentioned Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Add to this End of America by Naomi Wolf and you will have a picture of what is possibly going on.
True, Ken, I shouldn't insult chickens like that.
Mordechai, I think you mean in-bred.
DGPDX, be careful with the chicken comments or we'll have Pluckistani_Pete screaming at us!
I have a t-shirt that reads: "Only in America can a homeless war veteran live in a cardboard box while a draft dodger lives in the White House."
That a chicken-excrement, what-me-worry-grinning dummy like Bush is the commander-in-chief of our servicemen and women is a disgrace to all of us and a shame on America.
The first disaster was the birth of George Wanker Bush, or even the very existence of the Bush family, a plague of well bred mediocrities and yankee/confederate gangsters whose only talent is to be human metal detectors sweeping the stands after a gladitorial contest, scarfing up all the loose change and credit card receipts so they can steal your identity. Meanwhile, the college grads who can't get a suitable job are down in the ring, dragging away the bodies and mopping up the blood.
marc medler -- you are right, this isn't really new -- our government has always been corrupt and behaved with impunity. The big difference is that we no longer rely on "the media" to know what is going on in the world. They can't keep their evil doings a secret for years and years or control the message like they used to. Thanks to the internet, we the people now have instantaneous access to TONS of information and a way to communicate it with millions at lightening speed. And not just internet, but video cameras and digital photography. Repression of protesting monks in Tibet? No problem, the whole world knows about it AS IT IS HAPPENING. Citizen journalism informs -- but unfortunately, we have yet to find the means to make them change their ways.
Nearly everything the Cheney/Bush administration has done has worked out exacly as planned. The major purpose of this administration from day one has been to transfer as much public money into private hands as they could in eight years. They have been wildly successful in looting the US Treasury for the benefit of their corporate cronies, who will reward them greatly when their terms in office have ended.
Even Iraq was as much about looting the treasury as about oil. Otherwise, why was so much of Iraq's infrastructure destroyed during the first few months of the invasion? The answer of course, is so they could legally (certainly not morally) pay hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater for reconstruction and security contracts.
The only things remaining in Iraq are to gain the lions share of Iraqi oil for our oil conglomerates, declare victory, and leave behind 50,000 or so US troops on the permanent bases they said weren't going to be built.
Safe to say, the entire fiasco has been one big lie from the get-go.
Vicki, I agree. But the 1.3 million Iraqi dead is only the increase in violent deaths. There is also the increase in non-violent deaths due to unsafe water and lack of healthcare and medicines. UN has said that one in eight Iraqi children die before the age of five now. It is one in four in Afghanistan. Iraq is the #2 failed state in the world (also according to UN), behind only Sudan.
Stiglitz and Bilmes study says the true cost of the Iraq war will be $3 Trillion (assuming we are mostly out in a few years and not counting too far in the future).
Our 16 intelligence agencies tell us that it has made the U.S. LESS safe. There are 935 recorded lies taking us into the illegal war.
I hope some of these great comments about the Enabeling Party are making it onto mainstream newspaper sites also. Otherwise we are just isolating our wisdom.
As usual the comments are more to the point than the article. Is is a stratey of some to ISOLATE THEM ON THESE WEBSITES PREVENTING THEM FROM BEING PART OF WIDER DISCOURSE? Only YOU can prevent that!
The Bush Administrations' crimes are too numerous to count and the Democratic Majority in Congress can now be counted as co-conspirators for their failure to hold the loyal Bushies accountable for their crimes. Failure to bring articles of impeachment against Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, et al, (people that have openly admitted to impeachable offenses) goes to show that the Democrats aren't interested in upholding the Constitution or serving the people but instead are only interested in their return to power. How else do you explain granting retroactive immunity to Bush and the Telecoms for violating the Constitution?
Awe come on! Any college kid with a passing grade in a junior college could do a 10 page paper on the Bush Crime Spree, come up with 300 crimes committed by this administration. Give it to a good student for a thesis project and that student probably could do a 600 page doctorate discertation or even a ten year post doc on the vast numbers of Bush crimes, incompetencies and failures. Just Bush and Cheney putting their filthy, foul feet on the soil of our precious and beloved mother earth is hideous crime beyond compare.
Try adding things like 1.3 million dead Iraqi, several hundred thousand more dead Afghani, at a minimum. Add to that, 4 or 5 million more injured, maimed, crippled, plus another 4 or 5 million homeless either displaced in Iraq or scattered throughout the Middle East. You mention 4,110 dead American soldiers, but what about 120,000 who committed suicide after they returned home or the 400,000 injured, maimed crippled, brain damaged or suffering from PTSD. What about the harm done to their families. What about the smirking, laughing Bush handing out his gold "Userper" dollars to the mothers of the dead soldiers as payment for their sacrifice. What about the weeks that he dilli-dallied in Europe while tornadoes and flooding destroyed homes and lives in our Midwest and the malicious glee with which he revels in their suffering and pain.
The damn Republicans wanted Carter shot on the White House Lawn at dawn for wearing a sweater on TV during his fireside chats. Bush is seen without a jacket or tie, soaked and reeking with sweat while laughing at the people suffering in New Orleans. He's strumming a guitar faking playing when he clearly doesn't know a damn thing about guitar deliberately mocking the suffering and dying in New Orleans. Then he gives all the aid to New Orleans to his wealthy buddies and crooked contractors in unbid contracts. And talking about stinking, what about his thinking farting in front of guests is fun. Or his serving hot dogs to the Prince Philip and then a second time to the Queen of England. I'm surprised he didn't take them out to dine at his favorite diner, the hog trough with his beloved best bossum buddies, the pigs.
What about the high gasoline prices, 4 times what it was when he took office, or petroleum costing $140 a barrel, rice and corn doubling in price this past spring, his greedy fake biofuels promotion which will only enrich his own greedy gasoline company buddies, the food riots around the world.
You also don't condemn him for the contaminated food that his FDA allowed, the spinach, lettuce and carrots contaminated when he went to the factories to crap in our food. Or the poison drugs that his crooked FDA has been allowed to be sold killing our own citizens. Did you mention the dead American workers killed when he made it clear to his corporate buddies that he wouldn't enforce any regulations or prosecute any safety violations. What about the miners who died?
There are a billion-trillion other massive crimes down to his filthy breath polluting, poisoning our precious air and contributing to the air pollution we endure.
Native Son...from my post on the first article....
Hunger, homelessness and stagnation may lead to an awakening. But, with the pervasiveness of a dumbed and numbed culture, who knows any longer. One action that may instigate revolt is to remove the drug of TV. Since TPTB will never allow this, the slaves will remain in chains..fed and entertained
The many prisons and jails in the USA are populated with people who never thought they would end up there.
The Bush administration has shown itself to be
of the highest level of criminal mind set; and exempt from or "above" the law.
The American people, as at no other time in their history have the opportunity now to show the world that they are a civilized people who respect the rule of law above all else. The AMERICAN PEOPLE can through due process make sure that this administration----all of them--are brought to trial, and when found guilty, serve lengthy sentences in prison, even if a new prison is required to be built just for them. To do otherwise would be to ignore the rule of law, on a national level----to the shame of the American People for eternity.
They now most likely are at a cross roads; either assure the world that this Administration is not exempt from the same rule of law used to prosecute the war criminals of WW11; or become the slaves of those who will.
A Nation without integrity on such a collective level as to not prosecute such war criminals does not deserve to exist in a world ruled by laws.
The USA has sanctioned, and even invaded other nations who have committed the same crimes; they risk it all not to take the action to hold themselves as accountable as they have others.
Trends are supported by the times or otherwise. The pendulum that swung in favor of conservative "values" is about to be challenged big time; so it's not so much that it's about to swing back as that OTHER forces are going to impede its further direction towards narrower and narrower wealth distribution and aggregate sharing of necessities.
Pluto is the planet of death that leads to rebirth, of endings that force new beginnings, of the Phoenix rising from its own ashes. In astrology Pluto (whether it remains planet or otherwise) represents these Shiva/Vishnu opposing forces and the planet takes 248 years to orbit. It is coming close to where it was when the U.S. began as a nation...
The U.S. has moved 180 degrees away from its founding idealized principles. A cancer nation (Cancer rules the stomach), it has devoured its enemies, assimilated their resources and become much that it acquired in the way one becomes what they eat. The reckoning begins at the end of 2009 and into early 2010... HUGE resource LESSONS occur at that time, and reverberations will probably be felt for about 7 years before things begin to even out. It is NOT the end of the nation, but it is the call to its phoenix... some will leave the earth plane, as death is inevitable. Bush was ring master at the phase when karma might have been lessened by seeing leadership make truly PRO-LIFE decisions, decisions that HONOR the earth and work towards sustainability, social justice, the ways to peace among tribes. Instead, what some call the reptilian brain, what I would term Mars rules first chakra mechanisms in FAVOR of war and a great many related social evils has taken prominence, and thus the karmic blowback related to the phase America is astrologically entering into is intensifed.
Live peacefully, honor the gifts of life, FORGIVE your "enemies," and try to do something tantamount to what Don Juan called making "a payment to the spirit of mankind" every day. It helps.
The Bush administration and Congress have done to the United States what Enron did to California. It is the Ayn Rand end game: Greed has destroyed America.
"This is all out class warfare and the most galling thing is that they are asking us to pay them in order to finance our own destruction."
And that , poet, says it all with the brevity of the nutshell.
Sally,
I think they counted on this all along. They know that people struggling to just survive dont have the time or the social safety net necessary to mount real, radical opposition to elite rule.
THAT is why it is absolutely necessary that wealthy *power progressives* start to openly fund the revolution by putting their fortunes on the line. What are they waiting for? This is it. Final exam time for the human race. We simply MUST dismantle the military-industrial complex and re-direct this waste of wealth toward funding a Green Transition to a whole new way of life.
The US simply must set an example and provide some of the world leadership necessary to make this Green Transition: if we choose the Bush doctrine - resource wars - we will force the entire world into a new arms race - if we havent already - and then, it's cirtains for the human race.
The list of crimes of the Bush White House is as long as my arm, maybe longer. Maybe as long as my brother is tall (and he's pretty tall, if you ask me). At any rate, what puzzles me is why they've so far been allowed to get away with so much. Where are the Democrats we elected in '06 both to end the war and to bring about impeachment of this criminal administration? Silence implies consent, and if the silence coming out of the Congressional chambers indicates anything, it implies that they are going along nice and compliantly with the Bush White House, like good little boys and girls. A few brave souls like Robert Wexler and Dennis Kucinich are out there making waves in their attempts to bring up impeachment, but everyone else is busy sitting on their hands acting too afraid to rock the boat for fear of backlash on the Democratic Party in this election year.
Well, that's just a bunch of hogwash. If the operative question is, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?", the almost unanimous answer from the majority of this country would be a resounding NO! The very few super rich would say Yes, but then, they only make up maybe 1% of the total population of this country, leaving the other 99% of us wondering how to survive paycheck to paycheck as we struggle to gas up our cars, buy food, pay our medical bills and pay our other bills and still have enough left to live on each week.
Most of us have been left struggling so bad that most people I know are being forced to work two and three jobs just to be able to make ends meet, and I would join them but for the fact that I currently have my right leg in a cast for the foreseeable future and won't know for a while yet when I will be able to get back on my feet again (Achilles tendon injury, worse than a broken bone, according to the doctor).
Sadly, most folks feel powerless to change what they've come to realize is impossible to change. The big corporations run this country and the little guy has been reduced to nothing more than a voiceless peon, a cog in the machine, a nobody with no power. When you're up against the behemoth of corporate power, you do feel helpless to do much of anything to foment real change. It's a veritable David vs. Goliath struggle, and most folks don't have the wherewithall to go out there and challenge Goliath. Oh, there are a few brave souls like Messrs. Kucinich and Wexler, but beyond them, I don't know of anybody out there challenging the power structure.
It's a pretty sad statement on how helpless the Bush administration has left most of us feeling. In that case, then, truly Bush can succeed in saying, "Mission Accomplished".
Amen RichM @ June 29th, 2008 1:55 pm!!!
For elaborations read Hidden Power by Charles Derber. There he elaborates on the idea of a corporate regime supported by both parties just as RichM says.
Progressive Democrats and Green Party members, if put into power, would prosecute, indict and convict the criminals from both parties who collaborated on the excellent list compiled by Guy Reel.
What to do? Elect Cindy. Get Nader and McKinney in the debates. Support progressive Democrats by joining (or starting) progressive caucuses at the state level. Joining and supporting the Green Party.
Well this is an impressive list. The problem is that you restrict it to Bush. You are not serving history if you neglect to attach most of these sorts of policies to the U.S. governments and their executive since the Constitution. Imperial wars and the selective interpretation of rights have always been fond tools (nonpartisan) of the central government. The use of Washington to promote monied interests over the "peoples" has been a hallmark of elective federal regimes from the start. You are correct to mark Bush as among the best of these anti democracy advocates and certainly the most naked in his support of the monied elite.
BLASPHEMY, all of you !!
The WISDOM of the Bush Administration TRICKLES DOWN upon the faces of the Patriotic Chickenpluckin' Americans like the soothing Ministries of Ralph Reed, John Hagee, and Kenneth Hagin, who are each other's fathers!
Naomi Klein has walked with Satan and will PERISH! Her Heretical teachings will be Banished from Chickenpluckistan along with the Warchld album by Jethro Tull!
Spike Ol' Buddy! The shithouse rat-in-chief said "feet up" in Crawford, not "toes up" in Crawford!
I agree with Poet, and the premise of Naomi Klein. Bush is the most successful president in history. He's transferred $1.5 TRILLION in wealth to the top 2% of society via the tax code, started a war that enhanced the net worth of his oil friends by TRILLIONS of dollars by driving up the price of oil, and has inflicted mortal damage on the integrity and future prospects of the US Govt. This is all a harsh tragedy for the rest of us, but hey, we're not George W. Bush's base, are we?
Don't look now, but the Democrats work for the same people, so look or a continuation of this subjugation.
They should just combine the Republican and Democrat parties and call them what they really are: The American Nazi Party
OK, so Bush is a liar. So he's largely destroyed the health of American society -- morally, economically, environmentally, & in many other ways. This is not news.
The REAL point here is that if Bush has done all these things, why have the Democrats never even tried to stop him? Why have they have steadfastly protected him from impeachment? Why have they continued to give him political cover, fund his wars, & pass all his major initiatives without even putting up a fight?
The real story is not merely that "Bush is a liar." (And, as Poet rightly points out at 12:59, "incompetence" is hardly the right word.) The story is that we live in a 2-party system, where both parties collaborate with each other, faithfully serving the interests of the corporate oligarchy, while screwing the rest of the population. That's the real story.
Bush is a patsy. The neocons chose him to manipulate and manipulate him they did. He is playing a role well fitted for his narsistic personality. When he is done and no one tells him he is no longer president he will still continue to play the role to the utmost of his ability. With the Cheney/Bush powerhouse running rampant over this country it makes me wonder why they have such a woosh coming down the tracks. There has to be more to the story than just McCain. Is he the only one they could find to be their next patsy? Sure looks like it.
Suicide takes courage.
What Poet said. It would not be possible to have such bloody mess on our hands even if things had been left to random chance.
When was the last time a traitor was shot by a sitting President? A suicide by the psychotic monkey in Washington would fill the bill.
Bush's most destructive action has probably been his relentless war on the environment. Nonetheless the prime blame for all his disastrous policies lies with the apathetic voters that helped his team steal two elections, our legislators for allowing these abuses, and the five Supreme Court justices who planted him in office.
Confidential to Guy Reel--
You need to read Naomi Klein's, "Shock Doctrine:
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" and realize that there is nothibng incompetent or unplanned or accidental asbout the sordide record of the GW Bush administration.
In their quiet moments in their hearts of hearts they are toasting each other on "succeding" beyond their wildest dreams. Look at the bottom lines of all the corporations contracted to fight the Iraqi occupation. They have turned the US Treasury and the Fed into their own private ATM machine with absolutely no limit on their withdrawal priviliges.
NCLB is destroying and demoralizing public education as planned, The Patriot Act, FISA revisions, Military Comissions Act, Homeland Security Department, the gulag of extrordinary rendition and torture prison sites and a whole host of other perversions of the government will in all liklihood still be in place in 2012 no matter who wins what election in 2008.
When you write snarky articles ridiculing
"incompetence" you are taking the bait. This is all out class warfare and the most galling thing is that they are asking us to pay them in order to finance our own destruction.
All of this and no impeachment process. The Dems suck at what they do. What was the point of 2006?