While I joined with the millions of my fellow countrymen in mourning the victims
of September 11, I may have been alone in celebrating another signal event: the
anniversary of President Bush’s economic forum convened on August 13, 2002, at
Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Hard to imagine that it was just over a month
ago that Bush and his economic team including Vice President Cheney, Secretary
of the Treasure O’Neill, Commerce Secretary Evans and OMB Director Daniels gathered
for a symposium with “government policy makers, small investors, small business
owners, industry experts, teachers, workers, business ethicists, union members,
corporate executives, economists, business students, academics, researchers, and
others” for brain-storming, soul-searching panels designed to revivify the American
Dream and jump-start the sluggish economy.
With a quick glance backward, a swift survey of present trends, and a dash
of prognosis forward, it is safe to call Bush’s forum an unqualified success.
Who’s worried about the economy now? We’ve got an impending war to worry about.
Funny how those worrisome and intractable pocketbook issues just skittered away
in the all-scattering winds of war. Does it really matter that 2 million jobs
have been lost since George W. Bush took office? Who cares if Americans have seen
an average of thirty percent of their combined household worth sliced and diced
since the President’s ascent to the White House? What me worry about the steady
rise in bankruptcies, both personal and corporate? And what about the latest data
on mortgage delinquencies, reflecting those indicators at new highs? That looming
deficit, which various prognosticators agree will mount into stratospheric regions
during the next decade? Silly us. What’s a deficit of say, five hundred billion
compared to the measly fifty billion that the Pentagon estimates the war in Iraq
will cost? As Secretary said after a September 16 speech in Portland, Maine: “Whatever
it is that’s finally decided to be done, we will succeed and we can afford it.”
Meanwhile, White House advisors termed Bush economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey’s
estimate for the war effort as landing somewhere between $100 billion and $200
billion as being “premature.” Heck yes, it’s premature, the dang war hasn’t even
been declared yet.
Now some skeptics argue that the President and his advisors are just playing
a political possum game with all this saber-rattling, misdirecting voters away
from bread and butter issues during the midterm Congressional campaign. Of course
the doubters are mainly Democratic, sore losers in the making. Why would the President
do that? The economy will always be with us, won’t it? Certainly the deficit isn’t
going to run away. Not with the numbers Bush and his team are running up. And
not with the tax cut that the Congress compliantly passed at the President’s behest.
First things first: let’s mow down Hussein and then tackle the economy. By then
Bush and the rest of the oil oligarchy will be in a much better frame of mind,
anyway. Why bother them when we have to count on the feckless Saudis as our main
source for oil?
Besides, Americans are ready for another war. As Edward Wheeler, a Democrat
and retired Chrysler worker from Toledo, Ohio, said in the August 15 edition of
the Los Angeles Times: “And I mean, it’s no big secret that we’re not very liked
over there to begin with, so what’s a few bombs?” That’s the spirit! Bring on
the bombs! They crash and glow and look good on TV. Let’s forget about that stupid
old economy. Causes nothing but heartburn and head aches anyway. And we have more
fun things to do. Like blowing up buildings. Zeroing in on suspected biological
warfare plants and letting loose with a slew of Tomahawk missiles. Finding Hussein
and bringing this dictator who the United States government put into power in
a CIA-orchestrated coup and bringing him to justice. And meanwhile if we kill
several thousand men, women and children that never really appreciated us in the
first place, well – so what? That’s the price they’ll have to pay, being that
their freedom and liberty is at stake.
Rob Sullivan is a journalist living in Los Angeles.
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