Bush and Cheney's Private Gestapo

From the first paragraph of a front page article in today's New York Times:
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"The American security contractor Blackwater USA has been involved in a far higher rate of shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq than other security firms providing similar services to the State Department, according to Bush administration officials and industry officials."
Reported by John M. Broder and James Risen
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Take a good look at the photo above. These are mercenaries who are in the employ of a private, for profit security firm called "Blackwater" (an ominous name if ever there was one). They have been hired by your president to enforce his law. They have been used in lieu of the National Guard and the US Military to "keep order" not only in Iraq but in your country as well. You may recall that they were responsible for the deaths of a number of citizens on the streets of New Orleans two years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; some of whom were innocent bystanders who only, inadvertently, walked into their cross hairs. They operate outside the mandates of the Constitution and the Geneva Convention. They are George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney's private gestapo. They are not - by any stretch of any one's imagination "a well regulated state militia" as prescribed in the second amendment. They are a direct threat to your liberties. They are just one more example of the madness of the far right and their pathological obsession with privatization.
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As of this writing, it is estimated that Blackwater has been paid nearly three quarters of a billion dollars from a no-bid contract to "secure" the streets of Iraq. How were they able to arrange such a sweet deal, you may well ask? Its CEO, Erik Prince, was a major contributor to the 2000 and 2004 Bush/Cheney campaigns....Ah! You can smell it, too, huh?
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Blackwater is a company that is so at odds with the historic American view of governance, it should be put out of business immediately. There is not a single piece of paper from our Founding Fathers to be found in the National Archives (whether in documents of public policy or in private correspondence) that would have tolerated - or even hinted at - the idea that a private citizen could have the means at his disposal (and I use the masculine term here - women are smarter than that) whereby he could - in the case of a "national emergency" - make war on other Americans at the behest of a murderous, unbalanced chief executive....umm....sort of like the one we've got now.
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I'm telling you, one doesn't have to be a constitutional scholar to figure this stuff out, folks. This ain't rocket science, kids; this is Civics 101.
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What you have here is but one of literally hundreds of examples of the creeping fascism that has been overtaking this once-great nation at such a snail's pace for the past quarter of a century, the overwhelming majority of the American people haven't even noticed it. From the "free speech zones" enforced by the S.S. (Secret Service) whenever the First Fool comes to town, to the illegal, warrantless wiretapping of the Bush "Justice" Department, to the persecutions of the brave men and women working in the government who have tried valiantly to put an end to and expose the Bush Mob's criminal looting of our national treasure; all of these things - and more - should have every thinking person outraged. Instead, the foolish American people, thanks largely to the distractions of the corporate media, are more concerned with the latest misadventures of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton. The day after Ms. Spears' ill-fated appearance on the MTV music awards, that was all the main stream media could find to talk about! This at a time when thousands of men, women and little children are being massacred in Iraq every month.
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Blackwater is not the only private security firm making big time hay off of our taxpayer dollars. In an excellent piece posted this morning on AlterNet (a link to which may be found on this site), Bill Maher reported the following:
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"Donald Vance, a Navy veteran, was working for an Iraqi-owned outfit called the Shield Group Security Company. Vance said that he witnessed Shield Group selling guns, land mines, and rocket launchers to to Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and military workers. Vance described Shield Group as "a Wal-Mart for guns." Vance reported this to the FBI, and instead of a pat on the back, he got 97 days at Camp Cropper, a military prison outside of Baghdad. In fact Saddam Hussein's old crib. Vance was placed in solitary confinement, subjected to head-banging music blaring from dawn to dusk, and interrogators screaming the same questions over and over again in his face."
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/63893/
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Isn't it a shame that we've gotten to the point in our history where we have to rely on a comedian to keep us informed? Did you ever get the feeling that you were living in the fall of the Roman Empire??? Jeepers creepers, I sure do!!!
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Katrina was only a dry run of the Blackwater Show, make no mistake about it. They and other, GOP-connected "Private Security Firms" will no doubt make themselves known on the streets of this sad and troubled country once the citizenry finally stands up and shouts - as one - "ENOUGH!", in a voice so loud, no one will be able to pretend that he or she cannot hear it. Blackwater is not an organization that is bound by any strict code of military conduct. Their behavior on the streets of Baghdad during the last four and a half years is proof of that (as if any more proof was necessary). Of this you may be absolutely certain: When the day arrives that Blackwater is, again, contracted out by the half-witted, murderous little thug in the oval office to "maintain order" in the next American city to undergo a major crisis, they will not be bound by the sham "compassionate conservatism" that so many people are still stupid enough to believe is the hallmark of this disgusting administration's agenda. These homicidal bastards are gonna shoot to kill. Count on it.
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The only way We, The People can be spared the threat that a semi-fascist organization like Blackwater poses to our democracy, is by challenging its very existence in the courts. Unfortunately, that challenge may have to wait until there is a Democrat in the White House who is able appoint one - or more - justices of a reasonable, moderate judicial temperament. To even expect some of the reactionary fools currently sitting on the Supreme Court (Scalia and Uncle Thomas come readily to mind) to act in accordance with the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution is wishful thinking, to be sure. Enlightenment on that court is desperately in order.
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I am a pacifist by nature. I have never advocated violence nor do I do so now. Non-violent, passive resistance, when applied lovingly and with great thought and care, can move mountains. Mahatma Gandhi proved that in his day, as did - more recently - Martin Luther King. Non violence is, indeed, in perfect compliance with the words of Jesus Christ in His Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the peace makers." It is the only path that, I believe, a true Christian can possibly take. And yet, having said that, here is something else that also needs to be said:
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When Blackwater finally brings its twisted little act to your city, you have the right, the constitutionally guaranteed right - if not a God given one - to shoot back.
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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suggested reading:
THE FREAKING CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES - HELLO???

Franklin Roosevelt's Endangered Legacy

It was said of him at the time of his death on April 12, 1945, "Although he never regained the use of his legs - much as he wanted to; much as he tried - he taught a crippled nation how to walk again."

He was the pampered son of privilege from Hyde Park, NY whose battle with polio, begun in the summer of 1921, ingrained into his soul a deep and abiding empathy for the suffering of others that had previously been somewhat lacking in him. Through the development of a series of radical, revolutionary programs - unparalleled in history - which his administration brought into the main stream of American social engineering, he was able to usher millions of regular people into the ranks of a middle class that had not even existed before he took the oath of office on March 4, 1933. It is now almost a cliche but it is as true as the rising sun: He saved capitalism by "tempering its excesses." The people would elect him to an unprecedented four terms. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was - beyond a doubt - the greatest president in American history.

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His smiling, jolly disposition which was always on display for the press and the news reel photographers, belied the hidden reality of a deeply complex man - many layered, indefinable, even tormented. His closest confidantes would testify years after his passing that they always had the feeling that they never really knew him. Emotionally, he would keep even his loved ones at bay - so difficult was it for him to reach out on an intimate level to another human being. Throughout his life he would project to the world and to those around him, a cheerful - albeit guarded - amiability. That he could be devious at times, there is no doubt. He enjoyed setting members of his own cabinet against one another in order to to play for time in pursuit of the desired solution to whatever pending political problem that might have been manifesting itself at any given moment. But his all-too-obvious human frailties should not distract us from the larger picture: We are a better nation because of Franklin Roosevelt - and far too many Americans are abysmally ignorant of this fact.
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"So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself: Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

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Twenty seven years ago, FDR's legacy, the New Deal, came under assault by the reactionary political ideology of the so-called Reagan Revolution. As a result, today the middle class that he literally brought into being is in danger of total extinction. The privatization of America, begun during the administrations of Reagan and Bush I, passively enabled during the Clinton years - and accelerated under under Bush II - has decimated the quality of life in a country which used to be a nice place in which to live. From the early 1940s until well into the 1970s, working men and women in the United States thrived because of the programs put into place by President Roosevelt and the brilliant men - and one woman, Francis Perkins - who comprised his cabinet. Home ownership was at an historical high and the chances for the children of people of modest means to receive a college education were better than they had ever been before and, sadly, might ever be again. During this period, the rich - the plutocracy - had to contribute their equitable share to the nation's tax burden. Corporate America was also obligated to pay into the system as the price of doing business in a country with such an abundance of wealth and prosperity. The result of this was a social and economic infrastructure that was the strongest, most envied in the world. All of that has changed - possibly forever.

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On a recent broadcast, Rush Limbaugh informed his mostly clueless listeners, "Franklin D. Roosevelt is dead. His policies survive but we're doing something about that." That blatantly arrogant statement is indicative of the real motivation of the right wing. Their rape of our beloved, tarnished country has been in overdrive for over a quarter of a century now. It has not a thing to do with "moral values". It never has. The enemies of the New Deal have used divisive issues such as flag burning, abortion, homosexuality, and Monica Lewinsky only to distract us while they looted our national treasure - and this massive thievery has had a devastating effect: Our bridges and highways are in disrepair; our health care system is broken down. And I don't think I need to remind you that the state of public education, as of September 2007, is a sick joke. This is a tragic, unforgivable situation which did not exist thirty years ago. The voodoo, trickle-up economics of these past twenty-seven years has achieved the desired result: The rich have, indeed, gotten richer; the middle class has gotten poorer. The poor don't even matter anymore.

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During the campaign of 1936, Franklin Roosevelt said of the "Captains of Industry", as they were then called, "They hate me and I welcome their hatred." (Fortunately, he had the good sense not to declare, "Bring 'em on!"). What those words reveal is the undeniable fact that the man really was on the side of the people. Why is it, then, that so many otherwise intelligent human beings would turn their backs on the legacy of FDR and the New Deal? How could they possibly embrace the perverted ideology of a political party which exists only to their detriment? Why would the masses of working and middle class men and women want to return to the conditions that existed at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (an era that Mark Twain dubbed The Gilded Age) when the robber barons controlled most of the wealth of the nation while the overwhelming majority of the American people lived in grinding poverty?

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The dreadful social inequities of that period were placed in check (if only temporarily) by another Roosevelt, Franklin's distant cousin Theodore (who was also the older brother of Eleanor's father, Elliot). Teddy Roosevelt's advocacy of "a Square Deal for every man and every woman in the United States" was such an inconvenient truth for the GOP's plutocratic power brokers of that day and age, he would be denied the Republican nomination in the summer of 1912 in spite of the fact that he arrived at the convention with all the delegates needed - and then some - to seize the mantle of standard bearer. What had so alienated him from his party's elite was his novel belief that big business exists only at the pleasure of the people - not the other way around. That is why today you never hear or see the name "Theodore Roosevelt" mentioned in any Republican campaign media or literature. He is anathema to the right wing fools and extremists who have hijacked that party.

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Every once in a while, I visit the Roosevelt mansion and museum in Hyde Park, less than forty miles from where I now sit. It is the birth place and the final resting place of the man who saved America from the corruption and greed of its elitist class, and more than likely prevented a Communist revolution. What is largely forgotten is the fact the the American Communist Party, in response to the economic horror that riddled the American landscape during the administration of Herbert Clark Hoover, was gaining serious ground by 1933. It was only after Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to prove to his fellow countrymen that the American way of government could work for the benefit of all the people, that it withered and died. I always walk away from the Roosevelt Library feeling better about America. The place is a gentle reminder that, what once worked so beautifully for "WE THE PEOPLE", can indeed be made to work again.

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The Republican party used to be called the "Party of Lincoln". But that is so obviously no longer the case that their most blatant propagandists don't even attempt to use that sort of language any longer. Unless today's cowardly, incompetent Democratic Party wakes up and realizes that it is still, in fact, the "Party of FDR", America will only continue in its present, downward spiral.

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The New Deal that Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered to the people of the United States of America needs to be resuscitated.

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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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SUGGESTED READING
No Ordinary Time
By Doris Kearns Goodwin
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AFTERTHOUGHT:
Yesterday morning I had an epiphany:
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Do you want to know the major difference between the right wing and the progressives?
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The right wing loves America for her body. The progressives love America for her mind.

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That's pretty much it in a nut shell, isn't it?

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To read more recent postings of this nasty, commie-loving site (And Heaven knows why you would!) please go to the following link:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

And remember, if you find yourself in the beautiful Hudson Valley, make a pilgrimage to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park. It's open all week long except Monday.

STOP THE PRESSES!

"This ain't rock 'n' roll. THIS IS GENOCIDE!"

David Bowie, 1974

After months of exhaustive research, the respected British polling firm, ORB, has just announced the results of their latest inquiry. With the chance of error at plus or minus two percentage points, they have come to the conclusion that the cost of the obscenity that the Bush administration has been waging in Iraq these last four and a half years in terms of human lives is 1.2 million. You read that right, campers! Please, give yourselves a minute or two for this nasty little piece of information to sink in:

1.2 million men, women and little children slaughtered for no fucking reason whatsoever.

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This is what the current administration has done to the people of Iraq. We all have to take a deep breath, come to our senses and admit it: Our civilian leaders are war criminals - and that by re-electing them, we are culpable! The sooner we face these unpleasant, undeniable facts, the healthier we'll all be. A Twelve-Step Program for the American soul is in order. A movement must be initiated that will see to it that George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell, Paul Bremer, Condoleeza Rice, Steven Hadley - and everyone else who had a hand in the creation of the atrocity that is now being committed against that country - be prosecuted and sent to prison for the rest of their lives.

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The motivations of these people - keeping an illegal war going that they know damned good and well is doomed for failure - are as transparent as they are deeply disturbing. Their plan obviously is to continue the carnage into the next (read: Democratic) administration. When the next president does the only sensible thing that can possibly be done and ends the American presence there, the GOP will then label the Democratic party as the party that lost the war in Iraq. ("Whiny liberal cut 'n' runners! That's what they are!") George W. Bush has the power to end this madness right now, thereby saving the lives of untold thousands of people. But for no other reason than cheap political expediency, he won't. And remember, this is the same crooked politician who in 2000 labeled Jesus Christ as his "favorite political philosopher."

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How does one even respond to this craziness? Are you speechless yet? I'm gettin' there, folks, I'm gettin' there! Did you ever, in your wildest, stupidest dreams, think that the day would come when we would sink to this level of madness and absurdity? This is dark comedy, no doubt about it. It is days such as these where I miss people like Kurt Vonnegut and Lenny Bruce the most.

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That nearly one third of the American people still think that the First Fool is doing a good job as commander-in-chief defies common sense. Are there really that many people walking our streets who are that dangerously ill-informed? Yeah, sadly there are. But sooner or later it will dawn on most of them just what sort of fruit Bush's disastrous reign of error has produced. Sooner or later, even the faithful, clueless viewers of FOX News are bound to catch on to the permanent damage that has been done to the United States of America by this rogue's gallery of kooks, criminals and fools. The American way of life is, for all intents and purposes, finished. True, we will one day, no doubt, regain at least a semblance of normality to our lives - even the people of Germany were eventually able to recover from twelve years of Hitler and the Nazis. But what was once known as "the American standard of living" has been destroyed for at least the next two or three generations - and that's a conservative estimate! If what I have to say is not apparent to you now, it will be - very soon. Count on it.

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Here's a word of advice for the next president, whomever he or she may be: After you take the oath of office, the moment you begin your inaugural address, the first words out of your mouth should be, "I have just signed an executive order directed to the commanding officers in every branch of the service, instructing them to begin the Immediate withdrawal of all American service men and women from the country of Iraq." Do that and it won't become "your war". It will forever be linked to George W. Bush and his twisted, perverted world view. It will forever be linked to the mindless greed and corruption of his nightmare of an administration. Don't try to convince yourself that if America pulls out, the place will dissolve into chaos. Iraq is beyond chaotic; we're talkin' full-blown holocaust here, pardner! If you decide to wait even one day, it will become your war and you will be blamed for losing it. And don't forget the the fact that the war in Iraq was lost from the day our government committed the dumbest military blunder in American history by invading. It never had a chance in hell of succeeding. The blame might as well go where it belongs.

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In her column in today's Times Herald-Record of Middletown, NY, Beth Quinn (whom I cannot believe is not a nationally syndicated columnist - she's that good) optimistically reminded her readers that there are only 491 days left until the Bush White House is history. Beth usually gets it right but I think she got it wrong here. I have got to believe that We, The People are very soon going to demand that this insanity be ended and that this disgusting president and vice-president be held accountable for their crimes against humanity in general and the people of Iraq in particular. We cannot allow these habitual and arrogant violators of the Geneva Convention and the US Constitution to be able to escape the justice they are due. To do so would only be a subtle endorsement of their atrocities - and the world would never trust us again. Come to think of it, it shouldn't.

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Someday, our children and grandchildren are going to ask us, "How did this happen to America?" What are we going to tell them? What in God's name are we going to tell them?

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Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

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AFTERTHOUGHT:

Beth Quinn can be read every Monday at: http://www.recordonline.com/

Check her out folks! She's great!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TOM FINKLE - my oldest friend on the planet Earth! Love ya, pal!

America Is Bushed

Had enough? After six years, seven months and three weeks of George W. Bush's insane mismanagement of the federal government, do you feel the sense of exhaustion that only a person who has been paying close attention all these years could possibly feel? Do you feel (as I do) that the United States cannot possibly continue to endure the 498 days left until January 20, 2009 when (it is expected anyway) this tidal wave of corruption is finally out of power? Are you, perchance, aghast contemplating the fact that Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a tryst with a half-witted intern while the disgusting war criminal now sitting in the oval office is not even considered a candidate for impeachment by the overwhelming majority of lawmakers? Are you appalled at the waste in lives and treasure that is now being expended in the country of Iraq, compounding day after day? Are you depressed and saddened by the fact that a full one third of the American people are so rib-ticklingly out-of-touch with respect to affairs of state, they actually believe that the moron they so foolishly sent to the White House seven years ago is doing a good job? Aren't you tired of all this? Again, the question just begs to be asked: Had enough?

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Quite frankly, I'm Bushed. How 'bout you?

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Honestly, when Poppy Bush's buddies on the Supreme Court installed little Georgie in December of 2000 ("Hey Pop! Can I borrow the keys to the country"?) were you able to foresee see any of this? You would have had you been paying attention. I certainly did! When the decision was finally announced that month, I said on the Kirk Grantham Radio Program (AM 1110 W-TBQ, Florida, NY): "This country has just effectively committed suicide." It was, without question, the easiest call I ever made. Fortunately for posterity (and my own ego) that particular show was recorded. I now have the smug satisfaction of being able to replay it for anyone within earshot while singing to them, like a spoiled little five-year-old, "I told you so! I told you so!" How could so huge a percentage (although certainly not most) of the electorate miss it? Didn't they listen to the guy speak? Couldn't they see the lack of intellect? Didn't they see the arrogance? The incompetence? How could they not have noticed his absolutely comical inability to put two coherent sentences together? What the hell is wrong with the American people? Are you surprised to find out that we are the laughingstock of the planet Earth? You shouldn't be.

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The first time I ever laid eyes on George W. Bush was almost twenty years ago during the 1988 Republican primaries in South Carolina. If you'll remember at that point in time, the crazy preacher Pat Robertson was giving George the elder a run for his money. You see, your average South Carolinian Republican voter is so mind-fuckingly stupid, a lot of them seriously believed that the prospect of a Robertson presidency was a really neat idea! So who could Poppy send down there to appease these assholes? It would have to be someone they could relate to, that's for sure. Let's see....someone like....someone like.... George!....Of course! LET'S SEND GEORGE! The old man must have known, deep in his heart, that his idiotic kid would be the perfect ambassador to deal with those moronic yahoos. It takes one to know one, ya know what I mean? That was where I first saw George W. Bush, in the spring of 1988, being interviewed on NBC News, and I'll never forget my initial reaction:

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"My goodness! The boy's dumber than dog shit, isn't he?"

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Had someone told me right then and there that, within less than a generation, this idiot would be living in the Executive Mansion, I probably would have said to them, "May I have a little toot of what you're smoking, please?"

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But as bad as George W. Bush has been for this country (and he is the worst president in American history - that's a certainty), he is merely a symptom of a much larger and deeply rooted problem. It can no longer be denied that a nationwide corporate media - in the hands of just a small number of ideologically rigid companies - has done possibly irreparable harm to this country and its people. The fact of the matter is that twenty-plus years of a deregulated FCC and the tsunami of porno-tainment cable TV programming and right-wing Hate Radio has only distracted the American people from paying attention to issues that are screaming to be paid attention to. This mass distraction is what made the Bush administration possible.

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Had George W. Bush - and his knucklehead of a father - come down the political pike a mere thirty years ago, they would not have even won a single primary (Well, OK, maybe in South Carolina but nowhere else, I assure you.) Two such shallow, inarticulate men, utterly lacking in "the vision thing" would not have been taken seriously by people of even below average intelligence. The very fact that the obviously incompetent, not-too-bright son of a miserably failed ex-president could be elected to that same office and then re-elected in his own right within a span of a few years is about as good an example as I can come up with as to how dumbed down the American people have become in the past quarter of a century. This is a situation which should no longer be tolerated. Any television or radio station that does not broadcast - at the very least - two and a half hours of objective news and information each and every day should no longer be allowed to go out over the people's airwaves. The FCC needs to be re-regulated - FAST.

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Are we beyond the point of no return? It's a reasonable question. Clearly what the Bush Mob has been trying to do for the last six and a half years is bankrupt the American economy in such a way and to such a degree that it will force them - or the next (Democratic) administration - to do away with the social safety nets that Franklin Delano Roosevelt put in place way back in the 1930s. These are the same programs that the GOP has been trying to obliterate for over seventy years now. That was the real, not-so-secret dream of the so-called "Reagan Revolution". If we are not beyond the point of no return, we've at the very least arrived at that point. The question before us is this: Are we going to be naive enough to cross it? As has been stated more times than I can count, if you are not seriously alarmed by what is now happening to your once-great nation, you're not paying attention.

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Someone once remarked that a people get exactly the type of government they deserve. So true it is. We let this happen. We were asleep at the switch. We are the ones who have mortgaged our children's future. The goal of the right-wing is, has always been - and always will be - to concentrate the largest amount of our national treasure into the smallest percentage of pockets. They told us that the money would "trickle down" to the rest of the population - and most of us foolishly - STUPIDLY - believed their lies. The only way they could possibly achieve those ends were by distracting the people with non-issues like homosexuality, flag burning and "moral values" - and it worked. We've gotten the government we deserve.

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Congratulations, America!

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Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

Chicken Hawks and "Other Priorities"

Walter Lippmann once said, "I don't like war-like old men." He was trying to point out the unfairness of old people waging wars that young people would have to fight. But at least back in the good old days, the old men that Lippmann was referring to were all veterans of either World Wars One or Two. They knew the horror of battle first hand. They knew that sending the children of America into mortal combat - however just the cause might seem - was the most terrible decision a civilian leader could possibly make. That's not the case anymore. Far from it. The astounding thing is the fact that the career of Dan Rather was destroyed because he told the truth: George W. Bush evaded the draft in the 1960s by enrolling in the Texas Air National Guard. Through the machinations of his powerful father, he was able to jump out in front of a waiting list of over two-hundred people. And when he was securely installed, the cowardly little thug went AWOL! And how about Dick Cheney? When asked why he didn't volunteer to fight in the war in Vietnam - a war he enthusiastically supported - his pathetic response was, "I had other priorities." It must be stated for the record that for anyone with a keen sense of irony, the Bush administration is a virtual treasure trove of goodies, is it not? The gift that keeps giving!

A generation after the fact, these same dirty old men - these draft dodging chicken hawks - are the ones waging a senseless war that they know is doomed for defeat - and young people are dying in it by the thousands. Does anyone know what the latest body count is? I've lost track.

And now we are re-learning a lesson that we should have learned forty years ago: Our government has been hijacked by the armaments industry and will make war if only for the sake of keeping the cash (our tax dollars) pouring into the coffers of the weapons manufacturers who fiance the campaigns (and in some cases the lifestyles) of these murderously corrupt politicians. Whenever a candidate for public office courageously speaks out against this atrocious situation, he or she is accused of being "soft". Forty years ago they were "soft on communism." Today they're "soft on terrorism." It's the same old tired and stupid accusation - just a different "ism".

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"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of misplaced power whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties and democratic processes."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

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The military industrial complex that Ike spoke so presciently of in his farewell address to the nation forty-seven years ago this January should be permanently shut down. It has not only looted the economy of a country that has the potential to be the greatest place in the world in which to live (Dirty little secret: It's not) but it has also turned this fragile planet into a powder keg. The United Nations - for the sake of life on this planet - has got to put the merchants of death out of business not only in this country, but across the globe. Why is it that this manner of dialogue is always dismissed as the ramblings of a fool and a fanatic? Why is it that so many people who call themselves "Christians" would tolerate a situation that utterly flies in the face of the words of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called, 'children of God.'" (From the Gospel according to Matthew)

What is being done at this very moment by our government - in our name - is sheer madness. But we could put an end to it tomorrow if we really wanted to. We should tell our young people that the government of the United States cannot be trusted and that the situation will not improve much next year if the Democrats are put back in power. They should be made aware that joining the military is not a good option. That's why the sons and daughters of privilege don't enlist. That's why George W. Bush didn't enlist. When the fools in power bring the draft back (and it's going to happen - count on it.) a mass resistance needs to be organized. We should no longer support a government that wastes so much of the treasure of this once-great nation on weapons of war. Think what might happen if there were no longer any children willing to don a uniform and march off to die? What would happen if there was a nation-wide tax strike? What if we all stood up and shouted, in unison, "We are not going to support this insanity anymore." It's not impossible! It can be done - It will be done - Thy will be done! All we are saying is give peace a chance.

From this day forth, I will no longer "support our troops." If "supporting" them means encouraging the murderous agenda of the Bush administration, then count me out, brother or sister! I just want them to come home, safe and sound. I don't want them to kill or be killed any longer. I don't want them to have to deal with lost limbs and wasted lives anymore. Anyone who seriously believes that the war in Iraq is going to have a happy ending and that the USA will emerge from the carnage victorious has been watching too much FOX News (FLASH: They've been lying to you from the moment they went on the air).

This war is over. This war is lost. Get used to the idea. Come to terms with it. Stop being in denial - GET A GRIP, FOLKS! The almost four thousand American kids who have lost their lives in this hideous atrocity (not to mention possibly a million or more Iraqi men women and little children) have died for nothing. This obscene situation was engendered only because a handful of GOP connected corporations wanted to loot a country that is in possession of the second or third largest oil reserves on the planet. Is that an "un-American" thing to say? Quite frankly I couldn't care less if I tried. I refuse to be a "good German", thank you very much. Just call me a citizen of the good ol' planet Earth.

I was just curious: Is there anyone out there who still believes that sending this disgusting, half-witted little frat boy to the White House was a good idea? Anyone? Anyone???

War is over if you want it.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

By the way: In case you were too caught up in the latest misadventures of Britany Spears and Paris Hilton to take notice, the middle class in this country is being totally and permanently destroyed. Just thought you'd like to know.

Happy Labor Day, everybody!