| | The End is Near
A. Scott Piraino
I am embarrassed to be an American today,
and more than that, I really fear for our future. The majority of
Americans have voted to re-elect George W. Bush, knowing what this
president and his administration stand for. Disregarding what they have
said, their actions over the last four years make clear what we can expect from the next Bush administration.
George
Bush ran on a platform of conservative “values” in the 2000 campaign,
but his real agenda was tax cuts for the wealthy. He did not
disappoint. The President proposed a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut
package, using the same tired, Republican/Reaganomic argument: Simply
put, tax cuts would stimulate a recovery from the recession, and create
jobs.
Inexplicably, there are one million fewer jobs today than
when Bush took office, despite nearly two trillion dollars in tax cuts.
It was no surprise that massive tax cuts without reductions in
federal spending would create huge deficits. President Bush inherited a
government surplus in 2001, on his watch our trade and budget deficits
have climbed to over $400 billion a year each.
After
passing his tax cuts, the President proposed a new “energy policy”.
Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was the number one contributor to the Presidents
first campaign, and he got what he paid for. President Bush signed an
executive order that allowed Enron and other energy trading companies
to legally extort electricity. The energy crisis that bankrupted California was a direct result of outrageous price gouging by
Enron and other energy brokers.
After
the energy debacle and the collapse of Enron, the Bush administration
faced their first foreign crisis. Most Americans don't remember the
incident because our enemy was
not Afghanistan or Iraq, but China. On April 1st 2001, a Chinese
fighter aircraft collided with a US surveillance plane flying in
international airspace. The US plane was forced to make an
emergency landing in China, and the aircrew was held captive by the
Chinese armed forces for eleven days.
Our government met all of China’s
demands for the release of our airmen, and issued three
apologies to the Chinese. All the while, the Bush administration
assured us that there would be no change in US/China relations. It
may seem strange that the US would appease China while our yearly trade
deficits with that country have skyrocketed to nearly $150 billion. The truth is, most Fortune 500 companies now manufacture in
China, and earn huge profits from our trade
deficits by importing their products into
the US.
President Bush cut taxes for the rich, brought back deficit spending, enacted
a corrupt energy policy, and kowtowed to China, all before
September 11th 2001.
After that horrible day, President
Bush had a new mandate; win the War on Terror. The country rallied
behind him, and their was a global consensus that the perpetrators of
those heinous attacks must be brought to justice. But instead of
fighting that war, he chose to invade Iraq.
The problem of
course is that there was no reason for the United States to invade. The
Bush administration manufactured all the evidence that Iraq was
developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that Iraq was involved in
the 9/11 attacks. The President’s claim that Iraq had attempted to
purchase uranium in Niger, the alleged meeting between the 9/11
hijackers and Iraqi agents, the mobile chemical weapons factories,
these were not mistakes, they were all lies.
By the
summer of 2002 US troops were deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, our
country was mired in recession, and defense spending was at an all time
high. While Americans were being told that sacrifices had to be made,
the Bush administration passed another 600 billion dollar tax cut package for the rich. They even had the nerve to call it “Patriotic Tax Relief“.
President
Bush has not captured Osama bin Laden, or destroyed al-Qaeda. Instead
his administration embroiled our Armed Forces in a futile guerrilla war
in Iraq. So far that war has claimed the lives of over 1000 American
servicemen, and seriously wounded another 6000.
Through it
all, the President has made his allegiance very clear. He is not going
to admit that he lied to invade Iraq, much less take responsibility for
the disaster the war has become. The majority of Americans will pay for
the War(s) on Terror, and finance our soaring deficits, while our
wealthiest citizens pay a smaller share of the nation‘s tax burden.
Since this is what George W. Bush stands for, his re-election is a disaster for the United states.
So whose fault is it?
We
can’t blame the Media. Although Wolf Blitzer did not come right out and
call George Bush a scumbag, the press by and large reported the
truth. The facts are all there: The Bush administration’s tax
cuts are public knowledge, our deficits are public knowledge, Osama bin
Laden is still at large, and there are still no WMDs in Iraq.
We
can't blame John Kerry, although he is a wishy-washy liberal, and a
“nice” man. His campaign refused to attack George Bush over Iraq, tax
cuts for the rich, and energy fraud. But we all knew these things
anyway, thanks to the press.
Finally, we can’t blame the
President. He and his neo-conservative lackeys are lying weasels and
they make no bones about it. They haven’t been devious or particularly
clever, they just lie, and then get on with their agenda.
No,
we are responsible. The American people have given the most despicable
President in US history another four years in office. We have no excuse
for it, and we deserve what we are going to get.
…
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| | Posted 11/4/2004 6:27 PM - 175 Views - 12 eProps - 8 comments
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