Can We Be Bribed?

After enjoying the lowest approval rating in the nation's history, can both the Congress and the president buy their way back into the public’s favor? The proposed one-time tax refund of 600 dollars per person or 1200 dollars per household is designed to accomplish exactly that. Are we really that gullible? Can we really be expected to forgive all the lying, favoritism, and corruption perpetrated by this administration? After leading us into war and driving the nation into a recession, they propose to give the taxpayers some of their money back. Let us not forget that in order to give money back to us, they have to take it from us in the first place. And let us not forget, if it weren’t for this administration wasting trillions of dollars on an illegal, immoral, and unpopular war in the first place, we wouldn’t be on the brink of a financial meltdown.

$160 billion. It sounds like a lot of money. However, if we look at the Bush/Cheney welfare to Halliburton program it is a drop in the bucket. According to a recent Bill Moyers exposé, 200 billion dollars of the 400 billion dollars billed by Halliburton to the American taxpayer has disappeared. By disappeared I don’t mean failed to show up in Halliburton’s account. I mean disappeared as in the services billed to and paid for by the government were never performed. Buildings billed and paid for were never built. Outrageous double or triple billing for products and services were never reimbursed, or credits issued. In a recent investigation by a Senate panel concerning financial irregularities Condoleezza Rice attributed these disappearing funds to "accounting" errors. It is incredible to imagine waging a war on a cost-plus basis. Earmarks to other favored capital gangsters are rising to outrageous levels. Theft, by any other name, is still theft. Isn’t it?

Most economists agree that this proposed "stimulus package” won’t stimulate anything. Because businessmen realize the bubble is of short duration, they won't be adding payroll or capacity to plants. It is fair to say a portion will go to paying down personal debt, which won’t stimulate anything either. All this measure really does is drive up the nation's debt. According to Bloomberg analysts, this president has the nation on cruise control straight over a cliff. If anyone in the private sector proposed such a reckless policy, they would be on their way to an institution and fitted for a strait jacket.

We used to be able to tell the bandits from the good guys because the bandits had the decency to wear masks. Now the bandits are leading our nation and stealing us blind with the tacit approval of congress. Since the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde's are above the law they plunder and pillage at will. Unfortunately the scope of the nation's greedy plunderers extends around the globe. Because the country gets no benefit from the exploitation of our treasury, the value of the dollar is in steep decline around planet. Because our dollar is still the Globe's primary currency we are taking the rest of the world down with us. And consider the irony of needing Chinese AND Arab money to bail us out!

Now the administration is proposing the largest federal budget of all time, at a time when we can least afford it. A large portion of this budget will go to increasing this war effort and increasing military spending. While the world should be at peace, this pugnacious administration is creating an ever larger war machine and using it to invade sovereign nations without proven provocation. At the same time they propose cutting popular programs like Medicare and Social Security and other social programs like health care and education cost relief for the nations’ poorest children. The third Reich mentality couldn't possibly have arisen again, could it?

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Nobody's Perfect

Not since the day of Christ, has anyone had the hubris to claim a perfect record on anything. After all, to error is to be human. Where we have a problem is where a President, who relies on advisers, claims to be making the best decisions for the nation. No one, after seven years of examples, can suggest that President Bush has had the mental dexterity to fathom the more complicated issues. He can't even manage the complexities of his own language. Where we have a problem is when unseen agendas and hidden motives of behind the scenes manipulators affect the direction of American politics. (Whew) The President's closest adviser, presumably Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly has his own agenda on foreign-policy. Dick has a huge stake in Halliburton and Halliburton has a huge stake in Iraq. So where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves lead by a completely corrupt company with no regard for the truth, or American troop welfare, or honest accounting. This company dictates American foreign-policy through the office of the Vice President of the United States of America.

I hate being a sucker. I hate falling victim to the fast card shuffle. Therefore, I try to pay close attention. I read between the lines. I read everything I can get my hands on. From Playboy to Scientific American, from National Geographic to Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, I try to ascertain the truth. And the truth I have discovered stinks. I have no hidden agenda. I am living well (not that well is comfortable mind you) below the poverty level. The poverty level is so far above my income I could live on a year of poverty for three years. But I refuse to call a crook a hero, or a thief a public servant. I call a spade a spade.

I see no solution to our problems offered in the coming election. We need to find a solution within ourselves. This country has one of the proudest traditions of any on this planet. We have built a country free from persecution. We have built a nation of equal rights. We have built the land of opportunity like no other. But we are being lied to and misled by slick tongued orators. Our hopes are exploited; our good nature and willingness to cooperate and contribute are taken advantage of. As a result, we are falling behind. Other nations of vastly greater numbers are graduating college-level students annually in numbers greater than our entire population. Our better paying jobs are either leaving this country for cheaper labor elsewhere (which generally means everywhere), or are being supplied by foreign nationals granted work visas to fill the education gap between our graduates and the job requirements they fail to fulfill.

So, someone asks, what do you suggest? Since I am no liar, I'll tell you there is no one answer. But I have decided there is a window of opportunity. The window, for baby boomers at least, was suggested by one of my favorite bands of the 1970s. The Moody Blues. The window lies in recognizing that fear is just a lack of understanding. Fear can't kill you. Fear is irrational, overrated, and as an instrument of foreign-policy hopelessly abused. The people in these far-off lands we say are our enemies have the same hopes and aspirations for their children as we have. They have the same sense of justice and honor. Perhaps they have different customs. So what. Perhaps they even worship different gods. So what. They are people with lives and hopes and dreams like people everywhere. We are all the same under our skin. We need to get over ourselves.

Amen