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| Neo-Con Arm-Chair Chicken-Hawks Lust For Wars in Syria, Iran & N Korea |
| 12.31.03 (7:10 am) [edit] |
[b]The neo-con "crazies" in the corrupt Bush regime are arm-chair [i]chicken-hawks [/i][/b]([i]none of whom served this nation, when it was their turn to go to war ... oh, no ... they had "other priorities" & were cowards who were AWOL when better men died[/i]) ... Now, these neo-fascist goons & thugs lust for wars in Syria, Iran & N, Korea.
Is this what "We the People" want? Surely not! Let us declare our independence from the Mad King George and his corporate rapists who are illegally & immorally amassing fabulous power & riches, from their insane war-profiteering!
Consider "[i][b]Hawks tell Bush how to win war on terror [/b][/i]" on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...;$sessionid$U0WNAGBDSQVJJ QFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/ news/2003/12/31/wcons31.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/12/ 31/ixnewstop.html :
President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.
The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.
The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.
In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.
Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks' enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state.
Though on leave recovering from a prostate cancer operation, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to hail "encouraging" signs of a "new attitude" in Iran and call for the United States to keep open the prospect of dialogue with the Teheran authorities.
Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents.
It may be assumed that their instincts at least are shared by hawks inside the government, whose twin power bases are the Pentagon's civilian leadership and the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.
Such officials prevailed over invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but have been seen as on the back foot since the autumn as their post-war visions of building a secular, free-market Iraq were scaled back in favour of compromise and a swift handover of power next June.
The book demands that any talks with North Korea require the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear programme.
As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations for war, including the rapid pullback of US forces from the inter-Korean border so that they move out of range of North Korean artillery.
Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.
The authoritarian rule of Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into Syria to hunt terrorists.
The authors urge Mr Bush to "tell the truth about Saudi Arabia". Wealthy Saudis, some of them royal princes, fund al-Qa'eda, they write.
The Saudi government backs "terror-tainted Islamic organisations" as part of a larger campaign to "spread its extremist version of Islam throughout the Muslim world and into Europe and North America".
The book calls for tough action against France and its dreams of offsetting US power. "We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington," it states. Britain's independence from Europe should be preserved, perhaps with open access for British arms to American defence markets.
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| Political winners and losers of 2003 |
| 12.30.03 (7:34 am) [edit] |
[b]As "We the People" see through the end of 2003, it is valuable to reflect upon the road travelled over this last year and to assess the direction we need to set for the future ... [/b]As part of this reflection, it is both useful and fun to review the assessments of [i]political winners & losers[/i], and to ask [i]why[/i]!?!?
In "[i][b]Political winners and losers of 2003[/b][/i]" on http://csmonitor.com/2003/123... :
[b]WASHINGTON [/b]– As the last days of 2003 tick away, this city is in slow motion. Orange alerts aside, Washington loves a good holiday break, particularly in the year before a presidential race. There is time to think about the campaign ahead and time to sort through the winners and losers of the past 365 days.
The list is long, but there are a few items to ponder.
[b]1. Who had a worse year, [i]Sen. John Kerry [/i]or the Detroit Tigers?[/b] It's tempting to say the Tigers, who lost 119 games, coming up one short of Major League Baseball's record 120. But not much was expected of the Tigers, who've been awful for years.
The Kerry campaign's failings, however, were more startling. In one year the Massachusetts senator has watched his standing in one New Hampshire poll go from a 12-point lead over his nearest challenger to a 25-point deficit. Here in Washington, where Senator Kerry was once considered a party establishment favorite, he has fallen in the polls to 4 percent behind even, yes, the Rev. Al Sharpton.
The Tigers have added a second baseman and a center fielder for their 2004 campaign. It really doesn't matter whom Kerry adds at this point; his campaign won't see spring training.
[b]2. Can anyone stop [i]Howard Dean [/i]from getting the Democratic nomination? [/b]At this point only Howard Dean, but he seems willing to give it the old college try. The candidate's penchant for talking first and thinking later has his list of misstatements growing by the day. It's not clear yet whether this is the growing pains of a campaign going from insurgent outsider to anointed front-runner or something more serious.
If Kerry's 2003 was bad, Governor Dean's was a triumph. While he has faced criticism for being on the far left of the Democratic party, he has simply run a classic primary campaign. He has gone left to win more committed voters. Expect a swing back to the middle soon when his moderate governing of Vermont will become the focus. He has ridden a wave of enthusiasm so well that he has all but wiped out his opponents before a vote has been cast. Oh yeah, and he has done it all while raising ridiculous amounts of money.
If Dean can actually rein in his temper and cut down on his gaffes (granted, two big ifs), his no-nonsense approach to campaigning could make him what the White House should fear most, a reprise of John McCain's 2000 candidacy. You could have said Dean had the best year in politics of anyone, were it not for the folks in the White House.
[b]3. How does the [i]president[/i] do it?[/b] Yes, the past month or so has been good for President Bush, who has seen the economy slowly gain momentum and watched as Saddam Hussein was checked for head lice by US troops. A recent Gallup survey found 63 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing - that is an astounding number for the president, considering the list of bad news and the unfinished business on his desk.
The deficit sits at an all-time high, and conservatives criticize the president for too much spending. The Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were never found. Afghanistan is a mess. The unemployment rate sits stubbornly at roughly 6 percent. And there are connections between the vice president and a company that is being given billions in government contracts - connections that would have brought calls for an independent counsel during the Clinton years.
And despite all that, George W. Bush is looking like a better and better bet for reelection going into 2004. So how does he do it? It's part media management and part public mood, but no one knows for sure exactly. And going into 2004, that is the president's greatest strength. As a baseball man, he knows the secret to most great pitches is camouflage. You can't hit what you can't see.
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| World Leader's Report Cards for 2003 ... |
| 12.30.03 (7:14 am) [edit] |
[b]The Bush/Cheney Inc. [i] junta [/i]certainly made a lasting impact upon the world, this last year ... but not for the better. "We the People" will be judged on the basis of having supported a neo-con, neo-fascist leader [/b]who has ruthlessly[i] waged immoral & illegal warfare [/i]to enrich [i]corporate war-profiteers [/i]... and, has recklessly[i] damaged our economy[/i], resulting in historical record-level deficits, skyrocketing poverty & homelessness, lost jobs, and a growing gap between the very, very rich & the rest of us who will [i]bear the brunt of inflation and a crumbling infrastructure[/i]. Moreover, our health care crisis is being ignored, in addition to improving education and providing a better world for our children and future generations ...
Consider "[i][b]LEADER'S REPORT CARDS FOR 2003[/b][/i]" by Eric S. Margolis, on http://www.bigeye.com/foreign... :
[b]George W. Bush [/b]— Managed by brilliant political handlers, wins big time on the domestic front. Tax cuts, subsidized drugs, a rebounding economy and the capture of Saddam Hussein (and maybe Osama bin Laden just before 04 elections), will likely win Bush re-election. But the worst foreign policy maker in memory.
Middle America loves Texas Ranger Bush, who claims to take his orders from god. But Bush's divinely inspired mission has run up a $400 billion plus deficit and is gravely undermining constitutional rights and liberties at home. Two unresolved wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost $166 billion, over 3,000 US casualties, and growing anti-US feeling around the globe. Terrorism continues unabated.
Much of the rest of the world abhors Bush's extremist, Christian fundamentalist, neo-conservative agenda. Abroad, his faux `war on terrorism' is seen as a crudely disguised imperial power grab. [b]GRADE: [i]D[/i][/b]
[b]Osama bin Laden [/b]— The man who made Bush's presidency. Still in the lam, still encouraging attacks on the US and its allies. A fanatic's fanatic, who commands undue respect across the Muslim World. The US military-industrial-petro leum complex owes this Islamic wildman a great debt: he alone justified an imperial agenda and the Pentagon's bloated defense budget that accounts for 33% of total world military spending. Bin Laden has said he will die this coming year in a spectacular `martyrdom operation.' [b]GRADE: [i]F[/i][/b]
[b]Dick Cheney [/b]— Bush talks to god; Cheney talks to the Pentagon. He runs Washington's militarized foreign policy through a network of neo-conservatives. Cheney's repeated warnings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida sound dangerously out of touch with reality. His close links to the rapacious Halliburton company may be a major campaign liability in 04. So may a future scandal over the Carlyle Corp, the shadowy epicenter of Washington's military-industrial-petro leum complex. [b]GRADE: [i]F[/i][/b]
[b]Tony Blair [/b]— Unrelentingly sanctimonious and preachy, Blair's servile behavior towards the White House in 2003 made many Britons, who detest their government's war policies, wonder if Merry Olde England had not quietly become a colony of the United States. Blair's hopes of joining in the economic rapine of Iraq's oil wealth have, so far, been unfulfilled. [b]GRADE: [i]C[/i]-[/b]
[b]Saddam Hussein [/b]— The Father of All Disasters. Failed miserably to head off impending US attack, just like in 1991. Conducted a pathetic defense. Probably captured by Kurds, drugged, then deeply humiliated by his US captors. A disgrace to the Arabs, who already have disgraces to spare. He should be sent for trial in the Hague. [b]GRADE: [i]F[/i] [/b]
[b]Pope John Paul II [/b]— This noble, heroic man soldiers on in spite of his crumbling body. Acting as the world's conscience, the Holy Father has championed the rights of the downtrodden, the voiceless, the oppressed, opposing current militarism and capitalist excesses with the same force with which he battled the evils of communism and socialism. Who, one wonders, will replace this truly great man? [b]GRADE: [i]A[/i]+[/b]
[b]Jacques Chirac [/b]— The quintessence of a grandiloquent, slippery, scandal-plagued French politician, Chirac has nonetheless gained genuine stature as the voice of `old' (that is, not for sale) Europe. The contrast between Chirac's good sense and reasoned policies and George Bush's crusading religious zeal could not be sharper. France remains the land of reason — French drivers excepted. [b]GRADE:[i] B[/i]+[/b]
[b]Ariel Sharon [/b]— Bush's role model, adored by many Israelis. A mighty smiter of Israel's foes. But Bulldozer Sharon is leading his nation into a wilderness of oppression and apartheid, unless the Greater Israel scheme is ended for good and a viable Palestinian state created. Time for Israel's moderates to be heard at home and in North America. Maybe Sharon will become an Israeli DeGaulle by making peace with the Arabs next year. Whatever, Sharon and his nemesis, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, should retire by the end of 04 and make way for younger, more flexible men who are sick of communal conflict. [b]GRADE: [i]C[/i]-[/b]
[b]Vladimir Putin [/b]— Barely noticed by the outside world, this hard man has gathered all the reins of power in Mother Russia and put his former KGB colleagues in charge of just about everything important. The unsmiling, incorruptible Putin is laying the foundation for the re-emergence of Russia as a great world power and the reincarnation of the old Soviet Union. Tsar Vlad I bears much watching. [b]GRADE: [i]A[/i] (with an [i]F[/i] for democracy) [/b]
[b]Hu Jintao [/b]— China's new leader (if you don't count old Jiang Zemin, who is supposedly retired, but still runs things). Hu has not yet made any impression on the world, or done very much visible, for that matter. But by so far avoiding social turmoil in China, and by refusing to give in to US demands to devalue China's fixed rate currency, Hu has prevented a sharp currency devaluation that would have caused massive bank failures and the implosion of China's soaring but still fragile economy - a disaster that would shake the world's economy. [b]GRADE: [i]C[/i]+[/b]
[b][u]Special Mention[/u]:[/b]
[b]Jean Chretien [/b]— He didn't change the world, but when he retired this month, this down-to-earth leader left Canada at peace, wealthy, socially tranquil, humane, and respected around the world. It was easy to poke fun at Chretien, but few leaders can equal this accomplishment. We salute him. [b]GRADE:[i] B[/i][/b]
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| Jobless Count Misses Millions ... |
| 12.29.03 (1:04 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are facing a dire economic scenario confronting our nation, in the near future ... with the ruthless Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's [/i]record-level deficits ([i]to enrich corporations & the rich plutocracy ... and, no investment in our people or our infrastructure[/i]) that will create severe financial hardships for average and working Americans, and unconscionable misery for many elderly and poor people.[/b]
During the 1990s, the US economy created over 22 million jobs ([i]under Clinton who inherited a slow economy with stagnant job creation & unemployment at 7.5% officially, and turned the Reagan/Bush-41 recession around to create a budget surplus-- which Dubya has recklessly squandered-- and Clinton reduced unemployment to around 4.2% officially[/i])-- During Bush's corrupt [i]term-in-office[/i], in the last 3 years, over 3 million jobs were lost and unemployment is officially at 5.9%-- but studies show it is much, much worse ... anywhere from 9.7% to 15% in the U.S.A. ( http://www.cariboo.bc.ca/dsd/... ).
[i]Consider the following article [/i]...
In "[i][b]Jobless Count Skips Millions: The Rate Hits 9.7% When the Underemployed and Those Who Have Quit Looking are Added[/b][/i]" on http://www.commondreams.org/h... :
SAN FRANCISCO — Lisa Gluskin has had a tough three years. She works almost as hard as she did during the dot-com boom, for about 20% of the income.
When Gluskin's writing and editing business cratered in 2001, she slashed her rates, began studying for a graduate degree and started teaching part time at a Lake Tahoe community college for a meager wage.
It's been a fragmented, hand-to-mouth life, one that she sees mirrored by friends and colleagues who are waiting tables or delivering packages. In the late '90s, the 35-year-old Gluskin says, "we had careers. We had trajectories. Now we have complicated lives. We're not unemployed, but we're underemployed."
The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.
To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.
There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year.
Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago.
No wonder the Democratic presidential candidates have seized on jobs as a potentially powerful weapon.
Howard Dean criticized President Bush for "the worst job creation record in over 60 years." Richard Gephardt said that "I have three goals for my presidency: jobs, jobs, jobs." John Kerry said "the first thing" he'd do as president would be to fight his "heart out" to bring back the jobs that have disappeared in recent years.
Bush, meanwhile, is quick to seize credit where he can. When the unemployment rate for November fell one-tenth of a point, he went out immediately to give a speech at a Home Depot in Maryland.
"More workers are going to work, over 380,000 have joined the workforce in the last couple of months," Bush said. "We've overcome a lot."
A number of economists say it's a mistake to evaluate the job market solely by talking about the official unemployment rate. It's a blunt instrument for assessing a condition that is growing ever more vague.
"There's certainly an arbitrariness to the official rate," says Princeton University economics professor Alan Krueger. "It irks me that it's not put in proper perspective."
On Jan. 9, when the rate for December is announced, both Republicans and Democrats will assuredly again maneuver for advantage — precisely because the number isn't expected to change much.
"At this point, where we don't know which way it's going but it isn't likely to be going far, both sides will try to use it," says Michael Lewis-Beck, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.
In every election since 1960, the party in the White House lost when the unemployment rate deteriorated during the first half of the year. If the rate improved, the party in the White House won.
That's not a coincidence, says Lewis-Beck, who has edited several volumes on how economic conditions determine elections. "People see the president as the chief executive of the economy," he says. "They punish him if things are deteriorating and reward him if things are improving."
By any normal standard, things should have been improving on the employment front long before this point. More than 2 million jobs have been lost in the last three years, a period that encompassed a brief, nasty recession and a recovery that was anemic until recently. Even in the best-case scenario, Bush will end this term with a net job loss. That hasn't happened to a president since Herbert Hoover at the beginning of the Depression.
Many economists are mystified about why a suddenly booming economy is producing so few jobs.
"We're all sitting there and saying, 'When are they going to return?' " says Richard B. Freeman, director of the labor studies program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. "It's looking a little better, but we don't understand why it isn't looking a lot better. Why shouldn't Bush be sitting there saying, 'Man, I'm sitting pretty. This is a great boom'?"
One statistic proving particularly perplexing is the percentage of the adult population that is employed. This number rises during good times, as people are lured into the workforce, and falls during recessions as companies falter.
True to form, the percentage of adult Americans with jobs dropped from a high of 64.8% in April 2000, just as the stock market was cresting, to 62% in September — the lowest level in a decade. If past recessions are any guide, those 5 million people who found themselves jobless should have driven the unemployment rate up to about 8%.
Instead, the rate never went much above 6%.
"More than half of the additional people who would have reported themselves as unemployed in a previous big recessionary period … aren't," a puzzled UC Berkeley economist, Brad DeLong, wrote on his website. "They're reporting themselves as out of the labor force instead."
"Out of the labor force" means you're not working for even one hour a week and don't want to, either. It's the traditional category for students, married women with young children, flush retirees and idle millionaires.
A new way that people seem to be joining this category is by getting themselves declared disabled. This designation makes them eligible for government payments while removing them from the unemployment rolls.
From 1983 to 2000, economists David Autor and Mark Duggan wrote in a recent study, the number of non-elderly adults receiving government disability payments doubled from 3.8 million to 7.7 million.
The scholars present a case that the sharp increase isn't because the workplace suddenly became more dangerous. Instead, it has been prompted by liberalized screening policies, which make it possible to claim disabled status for, say, several small impairments as opposed to one big injury. Government examinations also have been downplayed in favor of the disabled's own medical records and the pain he or she claims to be experiencing.
At the same time, benefits have been sweetened. As a result, millions of individuals who lost jobs now have an attractive — and permanent — alternative to searching for work.
Autor and Duggan concluded that if disability payments weren't so appealing, many more people would be unemployed, boosting the jobless rate two-thirds of a point.
Another way in which people forgo an appearance on the unemployment rolls is if they decide to go into business for themselves. There are 9.6 million people who say they are self-employed full time, a number that rose 118,000 last month. Without the recent increase in self-employed, the jobless number would look much worse.
Many others may be working for themselves part time, temporarily, as a way to get food on the table in the absence of better options.
Take Steve Fahringer, who until recently was working for a Bay Area marketing agency that cut 20% of its employees and trimmed the wages of the remainder by 20%. Fahringer didn't particularly like his job. Because the recession supposedly was history, he thought he could find a new position. The 34-year-old didn't think it would be easy, but he thought it possible. So he quit.
"I left July 1," he says. "I haven't found a new job yet."
It's a common problem. The segment of the labor force that has been jobless for more than 15 weeks has risen nearly 150% since 2000. The current level is the highest since the recession of the early 1990s. Nearly one-quarter of the jobless have been unemployed for longer than six months.
In Fahringer's case, he spent some time aggressively looking for a job, which made him part of the official July unemployment rate of 6.2%. Then he stopped looking, which meant that he was one small reason the rate started going down.
Instead of unemployed, Fahringer was classified as "discouraged." A little more than 8% of the people who want a job in the Bay Area are estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be discouraged, slightly higher than Los Angeles/Long Beach but lower than the battered technology center of San Jose.
Discouraged workers have never been included in unemployment rates, although they came close the last time a commission met to reform the system, a quarter of a century ago. "It was a very hot issue," remembers Glen Cain, a retired economist who was a commission member. He says the conservatives on the panel, who felt that anyone who really wanted a job should be out there hustling no matter what, prevailed.
Fahringer found an alternative way to earn a bit of money. He did some acrylic paintings, which he sold for a total of $1,000. He calls himself "a hobbyist," which means for a while he moved out of the labor force entirely.
Now he's a temp, assigned by his agency to a nonprofit office. For the first time in six months, he's working 40 hours a week. By the government's accounting, he has once again joined the ranks of the employed. But from the standpoint of his wallet, Fahringer is worse off: He's earning less money, with no paid holidays, no sick leave, no pension plan, no health insurance, no future.
The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, says Fahringer's situation is in many ways typical. The industries that were expanding in the late '90s, including computer and professional services, paid well.
Those industries are in retreat. So is manufacturing, a traditional source of high wages. On the rise, meanwhile, are lower-paying service jobs.
During the boom, it was easy to trade up. Now it's just as easy to trade down.
Fahringer's solution: Opt out.
"I'm thinking of going back to school," he says. "I'd take out a loan." That would put him out of the labor force again.
In some eyes, a nation of burger flippers, temps and Wal-Mart clerks isn't the worst scenario for the economy. The worst is that companies continue to eliminate jobs faster than they create them, setting up a game of musical chairs for the labor force.
That prospect alarms Erica Groshen, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "If you plot job losses versus gains on a chart, it's shocking," she says.
Losses are running at about the same rate they were in 1997 and 1998, two good years for the economy. But job creation in the first quarter of 2003 — the most recent period available — was only 7.4 million, the lowest since 1993.
"If this goes on too long, you'd have to worry there's something fundamentally wrong," Groshen says. Although the economy has picked up since March, "so far I haven't seen anything that suggests job creation is picking up."
That bodes poorly for Ian Golder. His last full-time job was with a start-up publication that wrote about venture capital.
Two years ago, Golder was laid off. It was the first time since he graduated from UC Berkeley 14 years earlier that he didn't have steady work.
Golder looked for a while, gave up for a while, then landed a contracting gig with no benefits proofreading for a chip maker. When that ran out, he worked 20 hours a month on a financial services newsletter.
His wife, Heather, a recent graduate in English from UC Davis, also was without a job. They thought about selling their house in Sacramento and moving, but prospects didn't look any better anywhere else. To make ends meet, they took in two boarders.
At the beginning of December, things seemed to improve a bit. Golder got a job in the document-control department of a medical devices company. The department, he was told, used to have 20 full-time people. Now it has five, plus four temps.
The job will last two months. After that, who knows?
"Optimists say things will be better then," Golder says. "But a full-time position with benefits seems pretty remote."
[b]Other sources:[/b]
"THE CLINTON-GORE ECONOMIC RECORD: THE LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN 30 YEARS" on http://clinton4.nara.gov/text...
"Hunger & Homelessness in the U.S.A. Rise at Double-Digit Rates in 2003" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Beyond Joblessness: The Bushies Economic Program Benefits Corporations, Not Workers" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"The Poverty Quagmire in America" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Corporateers Reap Profits: What About The (Unofficial) 15% Unemployment Rate In The U.S.A.?" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Hunger & Homelessness in the U.S.A. Rise at Double-Digit Rates in 2003 |
| 12.28.03 (7:17 am) [edit] |
[b]Hunger & Homelessness in the U.S.A. Rise at Double-Digit Rates in 2003[/b]
The neo-con Bush regime's neo-fascist economic policies are lauded by corporations, rich plutocrats & their greedy campaign contributors ... But, "We the People" ([i]in the American Middle-Class, Working People, the Elderly and the Poor[/i]) are facing dire & perilous times, in the [i]not too distant future [/i]... The immoral & un-christian re-distribution of our nation's wealth to powerful corporations and the wealthiest among us, by the corrupt & traitorous Bush regime, resulting in massive deficits & impoverished conditions in our nation, ([i]that the rest of us must pay-off[/i]) [i]will result in:--[/i]
* [i]Inflation[/i] as already the costs of fruits & vegetables, meat, energy and other necessities of life are rising sharply;
* [i]Higher interest rates [/i]to pay-back historically unprecedented record-level deficits created by tax cuts for the rich, and illegal & immoral war-mongerings ([i]that bring no benefits to our nation or citizens-- instead, they are designed to enrich the gluttonous corporations & plutocrats[/i]);
* [i]Slashed wages & benefits for working people[/i], as rapacious executive pay packages balloon;
* [i]Skyrocketing poverty and homelessness[/i], in a callous [i]saddam-hussein-style [/i]economy devised by the neo-cons, neo-fascists who do not give a damn about their fellow citizens;
* [i]Lack of health care [/i]for tens of millions of our citizens;
* [i]Lack of other social services[/i], as the neo-cons want to ruthlessly swindle Americans out of basic public services, social security, and other necessities for our nation to remain healthy & democratic;
* [i]Crumbling infrastructure [/i]as schools, fire stations, water systems, roads, etc. deteriorate and we devolve into a 3rd world-style country;
* [i]Higher crime rates[/i], costly to victims and tax-payers, as citizens become more desperate to survive;
* [i]War-mongering [/i]in order to divert the [i]lazy-minded[/i] public from the[i] rape [/i]of our nation, onto the[i] rape [/i]of other nations.
"We the People" must vote for a change in 2004, otherwise we will face these back-breaking costs, heart-breaking barbarities & atrocities, and other miserable perils ... that we have an obligation to fight the neo-cons & neo-fascists to reverse, in order to leave the nation better off today for all citizens, as well as for future generations of Americans.
Consider "[i][b]Hunger and homelessness in US continue to rise in 2003[/b][/i]" on http://www.wsws.org/articles/... :
Hunger and homelessness in the United States continue to rise at double-digit rates in 2003, according to a December 18 report released by the US Conference of Mayors (USCM). In the 25 cities that responded to its survey, requests for emergency food assistance were up 17 percent over last year, while requests for emergency shelter increased by 13 percent on average.
The report cites unemployment and other employment-related problems as the leading cause of hunger, giving the lie to Bush administration claims that an economic recovery is lifting workers out of poverty. While there has been an increase in corporate profits, productivity and stock prices this year, millions of workers remain mired in long-term unemployment and underemployment, with savings and other resources long since exhausted.
Other causes of hunger listed in the report include low-paying jobs, the high cost of housing, medical care costs, substance abuse and mental health problems, reduced public benefits, childcare costs, and transportation expenses.
The leading cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing, followed by the lack of needed services for mental health and substance abuse problems, low-paying jobs, unemployment, domestic violence, poverty and prison release.
Continuing the trend of recent years, more families with children as well as the working poor are seeking emergency assistance. Fully 59 percent of those turning to soup kitchens and food pantries this year were children and their parents, while 39 percent of the adults seeking food were employed.
The number of homeless families seeking shelter increased 15 percent in 2003, constituting 40 percent of the overall homeless population. In 15 of the 25 cities surveyed, families may have to break up to be sheltered, while in 12 cities, families usually have to spend the day outside of the shelter they use at night.
Seventeen percent of homeless people work, down slightly from recent years. Five percent are unaccompanied youth, and 10 percent are veterans. Fourteen percent of the shelter population consists of single women, but advocacy groups point out that many of these women are “single” only because they have managed to leave their children with a relative or a close friend.
The average stay in shelters was five months this year. The length of the average stay increased over 2002 in 60 percent of the cities surveyed.
While demand for emergency food and shelter is increasing, the supply in both categories has failed to keep up. Over half of the cities reported having to cut back on the number of bags of food provided, and to limit the number of times people are allowed to receive food. In every city surveyed, families and individuals relied on food assistance both in emergencies and as a steady source of food over long periods. Fourteen percent of those asking for food were denied due to short supply.
The report also documents the lack of sufficient emergency shelter. Thirty percent of applicants for emergency shelter overall, and 33 percent of homeless families were turned away, leaving them to fend for themselves on the streets overnight.
Applications for subsidized housing by low-income families increased this year in 83 percent of the cities surveyed. The average wait for public housing units is 24 months, while the wait for Section 8 vouchers, a federal housing subsidy for approved private rentals, is 27 months. In nearly half the cities, officials had stopped accepting applications for at least one form of subsidized housing because the waiting list is too long.
According to city estimates, low-income households are forced to pay an average of 46 percent of their income on housing, down slightly from 49 percent in last year’s survey. The percentage is much higher in cities with the highest housing costs.
Most US cities with populations of over 1 million are included in the survey, with the prominent exception of the nation’s largest, New York City, and the southwestern metropolises of Houston, Dallas and San Diego. A number of smaller and medium-sized cities also responded to the survey, ranging from Burlington, Vermont, to Salt Lake City, Utah.
In New York City, the situation is no better than elsewhere. The number of people housed in the shelters set a record of 38,638 in one night this month. The number of homeless families stands at 9,211—more than double the number five years ago—and is climbing. This does not count the thousands of people, who, due to the horrible conditions in the shelters, prefer to sleep out in the open, even in winter.
The authors of the USCM report neither draw any conclusions about nor make any recommendations to ameliorate, let alone abolish, the injustice of rising hunger and homelessness in the world’s richest nation. The report does include, however, a number of comments from the surveys. While couched in the carefully worded language of city bureaucrats, these remarks nonetheless point to ways in which today’s starvation conditions are being imposed on the broader sections of workers.
In discussing the poor prospects for next year, a Boston official cites the “termination of unemployment benefits for longer-term unemployed,” referring to the recent refusal of Congress to renew a 13-week federal extension of unemployment benefits that formerly kicked in after the basic 26-week state benefits expired.
A Cleveland respondent points to the reduction every month over the last three years in benefits for welfare recipients, a function of the strict two- and five-year time limits imposed by the Clinton administration’s 1996 welfare “reform.”
A Portland, Oregon, official expects “more people will be in lines and on waiting lists” due to state and local budget cuts. “Mainstream social service systems have faced severe declines in funding and have had to make cuts in services even as the needs have grown,” he writes, continuing: “Local sources of revenue to develop and fund truly affordable housing for the poorest are now almost non-existent. The homeless systems and emergency shelters will feel the pressures of these cuts.”
Among other factors, the San Antonio survey response cites “demolition and non-replacement of public housing, zero tolerance housing policies, and low-wage jobs” as fueling further homelessness. (The zero tolerance policies refer to the practice of evicting whole families from public housing whose children may be charged with minor drug offenses.) The San Antonio response also points to the illegal and usurious lending practices plaguing the poor: “The financial inability to access conventional services forces an already exploited population to utilize payday loans, pawn shops, rent-to-own and other predatory vendors.”
Under these circumstances, the outlook for “those on the margins” in America remains bleak. Some 90 percent of the cities surveyed expect both homelessness and hunger to get only worse in 2004.
[b]Other Sources[/b]:
New York: Homeless man crushed to death by sanitation truck [1 December 2003] on http://www.wsws.org/articles/...
Homeless, poor freeze in US cold wave [5 February 2003] on http://www.wsws.org/articles/...
US mayors’ report chronicles rising hunger and homelessness [27 December 2002] on http://www.wsws.org/articles/...
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| Naughty & Nice 2003 ... |
| 12.27.03 (9:09 am) [edit] |
[b]The [i]Center for American Progress [/i]has published a [i]Naughty & Nice [/i]holiday list for [i]2003[/i] ... well worth reading on[/b] http://www.americanprogress.o... . Perhaps "We the People" will wake-up and demand a change for the better in the New Year! Let's make some New Year's Resolutions to oust the corrupt Bush regime and elect better leaders in November 2004!
The following is a [i]sample of a some of the issues [/i]that they highlight from 2003 ...
[i][b]Americans and Troops:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]Operation Hero Miles:[/b][/i] [i]For collecting unused frequent flier miles [/i] http://www.heromiles.org/ from Americans and giving them to soldiers trying to fly home to see their families. So far, "the generosity of thousands of travelers this holiday season means soldiers can get 6,700 free plane tickets allowing them to spend quality time with family and friends without worrying about how much it will cost."
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]Loan Sharks:[/b][/i] For [i]preying on cash-strapped troops[/i] http://www.ajc.com/news/conte... . As more national guard soldiers are called up for prolonged periods of time, they're not making as much money as they were on the outside. Smelling the potential blood in the water, "military bases across the nation are magnets for so-called payday lenders, which make money charging fees as high as $30 every two weeks per $100 borrowed - equal to a 720 percent annual interest rate."
[i][b]Americans and Troops Part II:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]Military Families Speak Out:[/b][/i] For highlighting the problem of the [i]severe body armor shortage [/i] http://www.newtimesbpb.com/is... in Iraq. Because of their work putting this crisis in the spotlight, Congress forced the Administration to make sure more soldiers are better equipped.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] - [i][b]U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt:[/b][/i] For saying the media should be focused on Iraqi reconstruction, [i]which he called [/i] http://seattletimes.nwsource.... "a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day," despite representing a state where thousands of U.S. troops are stationed.
[i][b]Civil Liberties:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] –[i][b] DoJ Inspector General:[/b][/i] For [i]exposing abuses [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... of post-9/11 detainees.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] - [i][b]20 Guards at Brooklyn Detention Center:[/b][/i] For [i]slamming and bouncing detainees against the wall[/i], http://www.washingtonpost.com... twisting their arms and hands in painful ways, stepping on their leg restraint chains and punishing them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time. MDC staff members then attempted to hide video tapes and other evidence documenting the detainees mistreatment.
[i][b]Columnists:--[/b][/ i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]Walter Cronkite:[/b][/i] For [i]coming back [/i] http://www.denverpost.com/Sto...,1413,36~29003~1839593,00 .html on the scene with a new column.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]Ann Coulter:[/b][/i] For still writing her [i]swill[/i] http://www.conservativebookse... .
[i][b]Congress:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]Lawmakers Who Care About Troops:[/b][/i] For forcing the President to fund [i]more body armor[/i] http://www.sunherald.com/mld/... for soldiers.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]Lawmakers Who Care About Food Names:[/b][/i] For spending energy renaming foods like [i]Freedom Fries [/i] http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/So... instead of adequately protecting our troops.
[i][b]Economy:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]The Corporate Recovery:[/b][/i] For growing GDP, up 8.2% in the third quarter, showing that America's [i]macro-economic indicators [/i] http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/... are beginning to move up.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]The Labor Market Lag:[/b][/i] For [i]leaving American workers out of the recovery[/i], http://www.nytimes.com/2003/1... as wages remain down and companies are pocketing the profit from the increased productivity without passing it down.
[i][b]Intelligence:--[/b] [/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] - [i][b]State Dept. Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs: [/b][/i]For writing a [i]comprehensive study [/i] http://foreign.senate.gov/tes... focusing on plans to overcome difficulties in rebuilding Iraq.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]The Pentagon's Office of Special Plans:[/b][/i] For failing to plan for the reconstruction of Iraq, [i]elbowing aside experienced intelligence professionals [/i] http://www.newyorker.com/fact... and ignoring the State Department study on rebuilding Iraq.
[i][b]Kids:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] - [i][b]Kids:[/b][/i] For being so [i]darn cute[/i] http://www.pbase.com/image/24... .
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]House Majority Leader Tom Delay:[/b][/i] For [i]using poor children [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... as a pretext to circumvent the law and funnel charitable contributions to wine and dine corporate fat cats for partisan political purposes.
[i][b]National Security:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] - [i][b]The CIA:[/b][/i] For writing the [i]National Intelligence Estimates [/i] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs... that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice did not read before putting inaccurate claims into the President's major national security speeches.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]Condoleezza Rice:[/b][/i] For saying the government didn't have warning about 9/11 on the same day the White House admitted it was warned about hijacked planes weeks before 9/11;[i] for not reading memos[/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... and thus allowing the President to make false nuclear claims in his State of the Union address; for refusing to testify before the independent 9/11.
[i][b]Reconstruction Efforts:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]Morocco:[/b][/i] For offering 2000 [i]landmine-detonating monkeys [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... to join the coalition of the willing in Iraq at no charge.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]Halliburton:[/b][/i ] For receiving [i]more than $2 billion [/i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Ira...,2763,912515,00.html in no-bid government contracts, and then overcharging the government by at least another $61 million. In return, it fed soldiers serving in Iraq [i]unsanitary food[/i] http://www.taipeitimes.com/Ne... .
[i][b]Taxes:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] – [i][b]Gov. Bob Riley (AL): [/b][/i]For trying to avoid crippling fiscal crisis while giving a hand to the working poor by narrowing the state's incredible income inequality and [i]shifting the tax burden [/i] http://www.usatoday.com/news/... http://www.washingtonpost.com... to big corporations.
[u][b]NAUGHTY[/b][/u] – [i][b]Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and Dick Armey:[/b][/i] For twisting the truth and leading a well-financed charge to defeat the tax proposal,[i] leaving wealthy corporations rich and the state budget[/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com... drowning in red ink.
[i][b]Troops:--[/b][/i]
[u][b]NICE[/b][/u] - [i][b]U.S. Troops:[/b][/i] For being named [i]TIME's Person of the Year [/i] http://www.time.com/time/pers... "for uncommon skills and service, for the choices each one of them has made and the ones still ahead, for the challenge of defending not only our freedoms but those barely stirring half a world away."
[b][u]NAUGHTY[/u][/b] - [i][b]The Bush Administration:[/b][/i] For trying to [i]roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay [/i] http://www.armytimes.com/arch... (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for American troops.
[b]For the entire [/b][i][b]Naughty & Nice 2003 [/b][/i][b]list refer to [/b] http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Troubling Report From The Pentagon ... |
| 12.27.03 (8:08 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are being defrauded & deceived by the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]regarding their so-called "[i]progress[/i] (sic)" in Iraq[/b]. The situation there is dire [ http://www.antiwar.com ]-- and while Iraq posed no threat to the U.S.A. prior to the neo-con's immoral & illegal invasion, these mendacious [i]spin-meisters [/i]in the corrupt neo-fascist Bush regime are dispensing neo-orwellian propaganda to persuade the [i]not-terribly-bright [/i]sleepy-headed American public, that capturing Saddam Hussein will [i]speed-up [/i]the so-called "[i]democratization[/i] (sic)" of Iraq ... It has done no such thing ... indeed, the incidents of violence in Iraq are skyrocketing ([i]over 8 U.S. Soldiers have been killed in Iraq over the Christmas holidays http://www.tblog.com/template... , and there is no end-in-sight[/i]!)
Of course, the Iraqi people recognize that the neo-imperial Bush regime are not really interested in "[i]democracy[/i]" ... but instead, intend to economically exploit their country, by raping them of their oil and businessess ... just as the immoral & rapacious Bushies are doing here at home in America ... The Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]are neo-fascists who are interested in installing their Global Corporate Empire to enrich themselves, while they ruthlessly turn the rest of us into miserable impoverished neo-slaves ...
In "[i][b]Troubling Report from the Pentagon[/b][/i]", published by [i]The Center for American Progress [/i]on http://www.americanprogress.o... , they cite some of the appallingly horrific consequences of the incompetent & recklessly criminal Bush regime's [i]botched-up [/i]war turned bloody guerrilla quagmire in Iraq:--
In mid-November, the Bush Administration announced plans to turn over power to Iraqi authorities on July 1, 2004. On that date, the Coalition Provisional Authority will dissolve and a Transitional Assembly is supposed to assume full sovereign powers for governing the country. With only six months to go, the CPA is hustling to meet the deadline.
Monday morning on NBC's Today Show, CPA Administrator Paul Bremer said he wasn't worried about meeting the ambitious six-month deadline. But the Center for American Progress has received an [i]unclassified Defense Department report [/i]entitled, "[i][b]Draft Working Papers: Iraq Status[/b][/i]" and dated December 15, 2003, that might cause Bremer and his colleagues in the Bush Administration to reconsider and start worrying.
[b][i]Consider these facts from the report[/i][/b]:
[b]Security Forces[/b]: The document reports that the CPA is fully 50 percent short of its current goal of training and staffing the critical Iraqi Border Police Service. Some 12,600 – out of a goal of 27,500 – trained officers are on line, with only 100 in training. This fact, taken together with reports of defections from the first trained units of the new Iraqi army and difficulties in recruiting soldiers, reinforces the view of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, who has said that July 1 is too optimistic a date for Iraqis to "[i]be able to provide for the external and internal security of the country[/i]." General Ricardo Sanchez has similarly remarked that American forces will be in Iraq for "[i]a couple more years[/i]."
[b]Running Low on Fuel[/b]: The DoD "Iraq Status" report reveals that the CPA is failing to meet its own production goals on diesel fuel (54% of target goal), liquefied petroleum gas (45% of target goal); kerosene (45% of target goal), and gasoline/benzene (64% of target goal). The Pentagon, meanwhile, is [i]forced to rely on fuel shipments from contractors like Haliburton, which is under investigation by DoD auditors for overcharging taxpayers by nearly $100 million[/i].
[b]Energy Crisis[/b]: National electricity production stands at less than 3500 megawatts, far short of the CPA goal of 5,000 megawatts, according to the DoD status report. As the Boston Globe reported last week, the energy crisis is "[i]disrupting the lives not only of the poor but of the middle class, and raising anti-American rage among the people hitherto most inclined to support the US military's seizure of Iraq[/i]." According to the article, the CPA has been unable to fully explain the shortfall and continues to cite an [i]array of problems [/i]ranging from "[i]seasonal adjustments[/i]" to "[i]black market manipulations[/i]."
[b]Phone Connections[/b]: The DoD document reports that "Iraqi Telephone and Posts Company telephone cable splicing efforts [are] falling behind schedule; [and] may delay connecting subscribers several months." As reported in the LA Times last week, "[i]Nearly nine months after much of Iraq's infrastructure and industry was wrecked during the U.S.-led invasion and the rioting that ensued, there is still no way to make a simple telephone call… The lack of service is slowing the recovery of every public and private enterprise and further alienating Iraqis, who are already skeptical of Washington's vision for democracy in their nation[/i]." The [i]Pentagon's decision to investigate the awarding of licenses to those with close ties to Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi has also prolonged the delays[/i].
[b]Education[/b]: DoD reports that "1,812 schools out of 11,939 schools damaged in some way" have been rehabilitated. The document omits references to news reports about "[i]slipshod and wasteful" work on schools by the Bechtel Corporation which holds a USAID contract to rehabilitate more than 1,200 schools[/i]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "[i]One frustrated American, Maj. Linda Scharf, a civil affairs officer, ordered a survey of 20 Bechtel-repaired schools in her area. She found dangerous debris left in playgrounds, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets. ‘The work was horrible,' she said[/i]."
[b]Donor Assistance[/b]: A DoD graph indicates that less than $1 billion out of a total $15 billion pledged by international donors has actually been committed. After the October donors' conference, the Administration touted "billions of dollars" pledged to aid the reconstruction of Iraq. However, the New York Times recently reported, "[i]Six weeks after organizers of an international donors conference in Madrid said that more than $3 billion in grants had been pledged to help Iraq with immediate needs, a new World Bank tally verifies grants of only $685 million for 2004[/i]."
Ambassador [i]Bremer's upbeat remarks are particularly curious [/i]in light of a Philadelphia Inquirer report that he has told the [i]Administration he may need as many as 1,000 additional CPA personnel in order to meet the July 1 deadline[/i]. The article says that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is "[i]resisting Bremer's request, arguing that the provisional authority should be slimming down, not beefing up, in anticipation of the sovereignty handover[/i]." However, at the same time, the Washington Times cites an internal Pentagon report on the CPA as saying, "[i][b]Resources, particularly personnel, are unavailable or poorly matched to needs[/b][/i]."
[i][b]The DoD status report once again demonstrates the stark contrast between the Administration's rosy public statements and the realities on the ground in Iraq[/b][/i]. The Pentagon – and its Office of Special Plans under Douglas Feith – had access to the extensive analysis done by experts at the State Department. Yet [i]they ignored its recommendations and warnings, failed to plan and built up unrealistic expectations[/i]. This has already cost American taxpayers $87 billion and is likely to cost billions more over the next five years – none of which has yet been requested from the U.S. Congress. Being open about the difficulties in Iraq would be a strong first step to regaining the full trust of the Iraqi people, the men and women of our military, and American taxpayers.
[i][b]For links to specific articles and sources [/b][/i]... http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Will 2004 Be The Year of Issues or Personalities? |
| 12.26.03 (12:26 pm) [edit] |
[b]Will 2004 be the year of[i] issues [/i]or [i]personalities[/i]? ...[/b]
For the future health & well-being of our nation, we had better demand that the media and the press report on the [i]former[/i] ([i]issues[/i]) ... and, then there is a good chance that Bush will be defeated in the 2004 election next November ... but if the mass-appeal of the [i]later[/i] ([i]celebrities and personalities[/i]) becomes the dominating issue, then we are in huge, huge trouble --
Dubya's cynical "[i]handlers[/i]" tell him to say "God Bless America" in order to attract superstitious & lazy Americans, practically every time he fumbles, bumbles & stumbles, through one of his imbecilic screeds ... Dubya, we are told, is a man of God ([i]although he has massacred hundreds of Americans & tens of thousands of innocent Afghanistanis & Iraqis, in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, etc[/i].) ... Dubya is a phony stage prop who poses with other phony stage props in cynical publicity stunts designed to fool us into thinking that he knows or cares[i] what the hell is going on [/i]-- when instead, Dubya neither knows, nor cares [i]what the hell is going on[/i], so long as he enriches his sordid family, corrupt corporations, and squalid campaign contributors.
[b]"We the People" must take a stand in 2004 that will either change the course of history for the better to save our nation ... or remain with a corrupt neo-fascist regime in the process of undermining our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights -- destroying our economy by swindling, plundering & looting our U.S. Treasury -- and, dismantling our Republic For Which It Stands[/b].
Consider "[i][b]New Year's Resolutions[/b][/i]" by [i]Dr. Paul Krugman,[/i] N.Y. Times, on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/1... :
During the 2000 election, many journalists deluded themselves and their audience into believing that there weren't many policy differences between the major candidates, and focused on personalities (or, rather, perceptions of personalities) instead. This time there can be no illusions: President Bush has turned this country sharply to the right, and this election will determine whether the right's takeover is complete.
But will the coverage of the election reflect its seriousness? Toward that end, I hereby propose some rules for 2004 political reporting.
• [b]Don't talk about clothes[/b]. Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event: the man who won the popular vote in 2000 threw his support to a candidate who accuses the president of wrongfully taking the nation to war. So what did some prominent commentators write about? Why, the fact that both men wore blue suits.
This was not, alas, unusual. I don't know why some journalists seem so concerned about politicians' clothes as opposed to, say, their policy proposals. But unless you're a fashion reporter, obsessing about clothes is an insult to your readers' intelligence.
• [b]Actually look at the candidates' policy proposals[/b]. One key proposal in the State of the Union address will, we hear, be the creation of new types of tax-exempt savings accounts. The proposal will come wrapped in fine phrases about an "ownership society." But serious journalists should tell us how the plan would work, who would benefit and who would lose.
An early version of the plan was floated almost a year ago, and carefully analyzed in the journal Tax Notes. So there's no excuse for failing to report that the plan would probably reduce, not increase, national savings; that it would have large long-run budget costs; and that its benefits would go mainly to the wealthiest few percent of the population.
• [b]Beware of personal anecdotes[/b]. Anecdotes that supposedly reveal a candidate's character are a staple of political reporting, but they should carry warning labels.
For one thing, there are lots of anecdotes, and it's much too easy to report only those that reinforce the reporter's prejudices. The approved story line about Mr. Bush is that he's a bluff, honest, plain-spoken guy, and anecdotes that fit that story get reported. But if the conventional wisdom were instead that he's a phony, a silver-spoon baby who pretends to be a cowboy, journalists would have plenty of material to work with.
If a reporter must use anecdotes, they'd better be true. After the Dean endorsement, innumerable reporters cracked jokes about Al Gore's inventing the Internet. Guys, he never said that: it's a malicious distortion of a true statement, and no self-respecting journalist would repeat it.
• [b]Look at the candidates' records[/b]. A close look at Mr. Bush's record as governor would have revealed that, the approved story line notwithstanding, he was no moderate. A close look at Mr. Dean's record in Vermont reveals that, the emerging story line notwithstanding, he is no radical: he was a fiscally conservative leader whose biggest policy achievement — nearly universal health insurance for children — was the result of incremental steps.
• [b]Don't fall for political histrionics[/b]. I couldn't believe how much ink was spilled after the Gore-Dean event over Joe Lieberman's hurt feelings. Folks, we're talking about war, peace and the future of U.S. democracy — not about who takes whom to the prom.
Political operatives have become experts at manufacturing the appearance of outrage. In the last few weeks the usual suspects have been trying to paint Howard Dean's obviously heartfelt comments about his brother's death in Laos as some sort of insult to the military. We owe it to our readers not to fall for these tricks.
• [b]It's not about you[/b]. We learn from The Washington Post that reporters covering Mr. Dean are surprised — and, it's implied, miffed — that "he never asks a single question about them." The mind reels.
I don't really expect my journalistic colleagues to follow these rules. No doubt I myself, in moments of weakness, will break one or more of them. But history will not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape this crucial election.
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| Promise Them The Moon! |
| 12.24.03 (9:30 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" surely are not complete idiots! Or, are we?[/b]
In their infinite cynicism and boundless corruption, the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc [i]junta[/i] recently[i] launched a neo-orwellian "trial balloon"[/i] to see how dumb we really are:-- recognizing that their [i]neo-rapacious economic policies [/i]for the rich, are going to [i]blow-up in their faces politically, not financially as they've enriched themselves (and tragically in our faces economically ...)[/i]... and that their [i]neo-hitlerian foreign policies [/i]are the cause of [i]increased danger, terrorism here at home & abroad, and the slaughter[/i] of tens of thousands of innocent human beings ... they figured that they needed a [i]"good news" stunt[/i] to fool us into thinking that they've got "[i]noble goals[/i] [sic]" ... Ha ha ha ha ha!
The Bushies announced that we may go to the moon, again? (Many certainly do wish that[i] they [/i]would go to the moon ...)
For what purpose? ([i]When Kennedy announced the vision of putting a man on the moon: (1) It had never been done, (2) New technological inventions were created that later benefitted our society, (3) We wanted to beat the Russians to the moon, since they had launched the 1st man into space ...) http://www.historymole.com/cg... [/i]
What will we achieve?
Moreover, who will pay for this? Dubya [i]really does need [/i]a course in 'The Basics of Economics 101' http://www.tblog.com/template... , as he does not seem to realize that he has squandered, plundered & looted our U.S. Treasury for [i]all-it-is-worth-and-mo re [/i]in order to enrich his [i]corporate-take-all [/i]campaign contributors ... creating the largest deficit in our nation's history! Where will the money come from? What is the [i]cost/benefit [/i]analysis? Shouldn't we demand answers to all of these questions? Why should we pay for [i]another imbecilic publicity stunt [/i]to [i]prop-up [/i]the idiot Dubya and his criminal regime of thugs & goons?
Maybe the congenital ne'er-do-well, the Mad King George should plan a "[i]great project[/i]" a little closer to home: [i][b]Universal Health Care, for example?!?!?![/b][/i]
"[i][b]Promise Them The Moon[/b][/i]" published by [i]TomPaine [/i]on http://tompaine.com/op_ads/op... , also [i]makes the point[/i]:
In a desperate search for a bold plan to galvanize the country, the White House recently floated the idea of sending a man to the moon. Again.
But imagine how this country would be transformed if the president rallied the nation to truly accomplish what's now just one of many unfulfilled promises: "leave no child behind."
Twelve million children live below the poverty line and the numbers are increasing even for those [i]whose parents [/i]work. More than 9 million kids under the age of 19 have no health insurance. Thousands of the nation's schools are doomed. Pediatric asthma rates are rising along with air pollution. And massive federal debt looms over future generations.
A White House acting on behalf of our children would craft its policies to address these issues. It would begin by abandoning its efforts to weaken Head Start and dismantle health insurance for poor children. It would fully fund its own No Child Left Behind Act (the president has proposed spending billions less than he promised). It would guarantee that every kid had access to pre-kindergarten education and comprehensive after-school care. And the Clean Air Act would be strengthened, not gutted.
Our country has always risen to great leadership. We could send another man to the moon. But we'd be better served if President Bush had the vision to send millions of healthy, well-educated children into the future.
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| Beyond Joblessness: The Bushies Economic Program Benefits Corporations, Not Workers |
| 12.24.03 (8:55 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" spend more on credit than any other nation in the world ... [/b]The corrupt neo-fascist corporations and neo-imperial plutocrats encourage fiscal recklessness, rather than financial probity, in order that they can swindle us out of our hard-earned dollars, while their gluttonous greed is the cause of [i]our [/i]dangerous record-level deficits here at home ([i]Dubya spends & We pay the bills[/i]!), and [i]their[/i] immoral & illegal war-mongering for blood-thirsty war-profits abroad.
The tyrannical Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] have purposely engineered a ruthless [i]train-wreck of an economy[/i] here at home, and insane [i]neo-hitlerian wars[/i] abroad-- massacring tens of thousands of innocent human beings in order to profit over-bloated [i]corporate robber-barons[/i], the[i] Bush & Cheney families & cronies[/i], and the [i]richest-of-the-rich top-dogs & fat-cats[/i].
Meanwhile, in the near future ([i]say, just after the 2004 elections in November[/i]), we will face the worst recession in our lifetime ... [i]Prices will skyrocket ... Job losses will continue ... Unemployment benefits will be slashed ... No health care will be available for tens of millions of us ... Poverty and homelessness will become even more prevalent ... and, the rate of Crime, out of desperation, will increase ... [/i] Is this the kind of society that we really want to live in?
[b]Why do the corrupt Bushies want this miserable fate to befall us? [/b][i][b]Because it will drive people to desperation, and force them to become their neo-slaves working for neo-slave wages in their neo-fascist Global Corporate Empire, their Neo-Feudal Slave State[/b][/i].
[b]"We the People" must reject this worst regime in our nation's history in November 2004, for the sake of our nation's health and well-being.[/b]
Consider "[i][b]Un-American Recovery[/b][/i]" by [i]Harold Meyerson[/i] in the Washington Post, on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
Why is the Bush recovery different from all other recoveries? A slump is a slump is a slump, but it's during recoveries that the distinctive features of a changing economy become apparent. And our current recovery differs so radically from every other bounce-back since World War II that you have to wonder whether we're really talking about the same country.
After inching along imperceptibly for quarter after quarter, the economy is, by some measures, roaring back. The annual growth rate last quarter topped 8 percent, while productivity increased by more than 9 percent. To be sure, employment is still down by 2.4 million jobs since Bush took office, but it's finally begun to rise a bit.
And there are some indices that make even the productivity increases pale by comparison. Corporations have been having a bang-up recovery all along, it turns out; they are about to experience their seventh straight quarter of profit growth. The operating earnings of the 500 companies on the Standard and Poor's index, researchers at Thomas First Call in Boston estimate, will rise by 21.9 percent over last year. Who could ask for anything more?
Well, the American people, for one. Since July the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002 -- the slowest wage growth we've experienced in 40 years. Economists at the Economic Policy Institute have been comparing recoveries of late, looking into the growth in corporate-sector income in each of the nine recoveries the United States has gone through since the end of World War II. In the preceding eight, the share of the corporate income growth going to profits averaged 26 percent, and never exceeded 32 percent. In the current recovery, however, profits come to 46 percent of the corporations' additional income.
Conversely, labor compensation averaged 61 percent of the total income growth in the preceding recoveries, and was never lower than 55 percent. In the Bush recovery, it's just 29 percent of the new income coming in to the corporations.
Someone with an antiquarian vocabulary might rightly note that this is a recovery for capital, not labor; indeed, that it's a recovery for capital at the expense of labor. But we are none of us antiquarians, so let's just proceed.
There are only a couple of ways to explain how the capacity of U.S. workers to claim their accustomed share of the nation's income has so stunningly collapsed. Outsourcing is certainly a big part of the picture. As Stephen S. Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, has noted, private-sector hiring in the current recovery is roughly 7 million jobs shy of what would have been the norm in previous recoveries, and U.S. corporations, high-tech as well as low-tech, are busily hiring employees from lower-wage nations instead of from our own.
The jobless rate among U.S. software engineers, for instance, has doubled over the past three years. In Bangalore, India, where American companies are on a huge hiring spree for the kind of talent they used to scoop up in Silicon Valley, the starting annual salary for top electrical engineering graduates, says Business Week, is $10,000 -- compared with $80,000 here in the States. Tell that to a software writer in Palo Alto and she's not likely to hit up her boss for a raise.
That software writer certainly doesn't belong to a union, either.
Indeed, the current recovery is not only the first to take place in an economy in which global wage rates are a factor, but the first since before the New Deal to take place in an economy in which the rate of private-sector unionization is in single digits -- just 8.5 percent of the workforce.
In short, what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery more than it does any period of prosperity between the presidencies of the second Roosevelt and the second Bush. The great balancing act of the New Deal -- the fostering of vibrant unions, the legislation of minimum wages and such, in a conscious effort to spread prosperity and boost consumption -- has come undone. (The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 1997.) And the problem with pre-new deal recoveries is that they never created lasting prosperity.
The current administration is not responsible for the broad contours of this miserably misshapen recovery, but its every action merely increases the imbalance of power between America's employers and employees. But the Democrats' prescriptions for more broadly shared prosperity need some tweaking, too. With the globalization of high-end professions, no Democrat can assert quite so confidently the line that Bill Clinton used so often: What you earn is a result of what you learn. This year's crop of presidential candidates is taking more seriously the importance of labor standards in trade accords, and the right of workers to organize. But they've got a way to go to make the issue of stagnating incomes into the kind of battle cry it should be in the campaign against Bush. If they're not up to it, I say we outsource 'em all and bring in some pols from Bangalore.
[b]Other Sources[/b]:
"A Glut of Greenbacks" on http://www.washingtonpost.com...
"Fat cats' pay is the result of greed, not competition: Interchangeable CEOs use imaginary markets to inflate their salaries" on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1112455,00.html
"Savings dwindle as Americans spend, spend, spend" on http://www.forbes.com/persona...
"Ax post-holiday debt - 'Feel-good' spending now may not feel so good later" on http://www.nj.com/business/le...
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| It's Greed, Not Ideology, That Rules the White House |
| 12.23.03 (6:51 pm) [edit] |
[b]A person's [i]actions[/i], and not their [i]words[/i], reveal their true [i]motives[/i] ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i] true[i] motives [/i]have been clear, [i]to all those who closely study their domestic & foreign policies[/i], for a long, long time now ... and as their [i]actions[/i] are criminal, their true [i]motives [/i]are greedy & rapacious ...[/b]
The neo-fascist Bush regime's agenda is strictly profit-oriented ... They have ruthlessly betrayed their oaths of offices ([i]public servants of "We the People"[/i]) in order to enrich themselves, their corporate cronies & their filthy rich campaign contributors ... They have manipulated our tax system for their own squalid private interests, and award massive tax cuts to corporations and the richest among us-- They have swindled, plundered & looted our U.S. Treasury, creating a record-level deficit that will lead us into a miserable recession over the next few years ... with the American middle-class and working people bearing the brunt of their sordid crimes.
Regarding their insane neo-con aggressions into sovereign nations who posed no threat to us ([i]e.g. Afghanistan & Iraq ... the neo-con "crazies" lust for neo-hitlerian wars with Syria, Iran & North Korea ... but Karl Rove has told them to wait until after the 2004 elections![/i]) ... again, it is imperative to "[i][b]Follow the Money[/b][/i]" ...
Consider "[i][b]It's greed, not ideology, that rules the White House - Why the US wants Iraq's debts cancelled - and Argentina's paid in full[/b][/i]" by [i]Naomi Klein [/i]on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1112024,00.html : ................ -[i] Excerpt [/i]-
... The Kissinger transcript proves that the US gave money and political encouragement to the generals' murderous campaign. And yet, despite its now irrefutable complicity in Argentina's tragedy, the US has opposed all attempts to cancel the country's debt. And Argentina is hardly exceptional. The US has used its power in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to block campaigns to cancel debts accumulated by apartheid South Africa, Marcos in the Philippines, Duvalier's brutal regime in Haiti and the dictatorship that sent Brazil's debt spiralling from $5.7bn in 1964 to $104bn in 1985.
The US position has been that wiping out debts would be a dangerous precedent (and rob Washington of the leverage it needs to push for investor-friendly economic reforms). So why is Bush so concerned that "the future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt"? Because it is taking money from "reconstruction", which could go to Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon and Boeing.
It has become popular to claim that the White House has been hijacked by neo-conservative ideologues in love with free-market dogma. I'm not convinced. If there's one thing the Wolfowitz/Baker dust-ups make clear, it's that the ideology of the Bush White House isn't neo-conservatism, it's old-fashioned greed. There is only one rule that appears to matter: if it helps our friends get even richer, do it.
Seen through this lens, the seemingly erratic behaviour coming out of Washington starts to make a lot more sense. Sure, Wolfowitz's contract-hogging openly flouts free-market principles of competition. But it does have a direct benefit for the firms closest to the administration. Not only are they buying a debt-free Iraq, but they won't have to compete with their corporate rivals in France and Germany.
The entire reconstruction project defies more neo-con tenets, sending this year's US deficit to a cartoonish $500bn, with plenty handed out in no-bid contracts, creating the kind of monopoly that allowed Halliburton to overcharge by an estimated $61m for importing gasoline into Iraq.
Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: [b]for the men who rule our world, rules are for other people. The powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food while they dine on that most rarefied delicacy: [i]impunity[/i][/b].
[i]Read Naomi Klein's excellent expose on the U.S. Government's policy with regards to Argentina & Kissinger's role therein, and the parallels with Iraq, published in the U.K. Guardian on[/i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1112024,00.html .
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| Dubya Needs An Open University Course in the 'Basics of Economics 101' |
| 12.23.03 (9:13 am) [edit] |
[b]Dubya seems to need an [i]Open University [/i]course in the [i]'Basics of Economics 101' [/i], as even his own Congressional Budget Office are deeply concerned about the future financial chaos that the United States of America will be forced to endure [/b]... once the proverbial[i] ' chickens come home to roost'[/i] ... ([i]Of course, the corporations, wealthiest 5% of the plutocrats, the Bush & Cheney families, and other filthy rich robber-barons have nothing to worry about since they have swindled, plundered & looted the U.S. Treasury to amasse their ill-gotten riches[/i] ...)
It is "We the People" who must bear the back-breaking brunt of the Mad King George's neo-fascist economic policies representing "[i]Welfare for the Rich[/i]" while the rest of us face the heart-breaking consequences of:--
* [i][b]Record level deficits, as far as the eye can see[/b][/i], since Dubya has squandered trillions on corporate interests, insane neo-con 'pre-emptive' ([i]neo-hitlerian[/i]) incursions waged based upon lies, deceptions & falsehoods ... and immoral [i](& illegal[/i]?), anti-christian boondoggles, tax loopholes & tax cuts for corporations & the filthy rich ... Dubya has run-up a $560 billion deficit in 2003 alone and nearly $1.9 trillion for his [i]insane term-in-office[/i].
* Between [i][b]9-15 million unemployed [/b][/i]citizens searching for jobs ([i]that aren't coming back ... only a few jobs are 'trickling' back ...[/i]!) and whose support and aide ([i]unemployment benefits[/i]) are being slashed by the callous & corrupt Bushies ... Dubya wiped out over 3 million jobs (compare that with Clinton who created over 22 million jobs).
* Over [b][i]35 million families living below the poverty line [/i][/b](established in the 1960s ... it is much, much worse) ... Dubya is ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable in our society.
* Over[i][b] 3.5 million citizens are homeless [/b][/i]... Dubya refuses to conduct a new census because experts agree the problem is worse than reported.
* Between [i][b]45-85 million citizens lack health care coverage [/b][/i]... Dubya and his corporate pimps (HMOs. Health Care Insurance Rackets, Pharmaceuticals, etc.) are increasing the costs of health care making it increasingly unaffordable for middle-class and working people ... while these greedy & corrupt [i]top-dogs & fat-cats [/i]reap the profits ... and the elderly and ill either die, go without health care, or are bankrupted and live in misery. (The U.S.A. is the only 1st-tier country in the world with no Universal Health Care System ... although the Majority of Americans Want A Universal Health Care System.)
These are amongst some of the problems caused by the ruthless Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], who recklessly [i]spend, spend, spend [/i]on the [i]'haves'[/i] ... and ignore the needs of the [i]'have-nots'[/i] ... Sounds like Saddam Hussein, doesn't it! In fact, the GAP between the HAVES and the HAVE-NOTS in the richest nation in the history of the world, is higher than at any time in over 75 years!
"We the People" must take our nation back from these neo-con, neo-fascist swindlers and war-mongers ... They don't represent the best in American values ... indeed, they represent the worst type of criminal elements ...
Consider "[i][b]ECONOMY: The Soft Underbelly[/b][/i]" on http://www.americanprogress.o...%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/031222.HTM#4
[b]According to the Congressional Budget Office[/b] http://www.centredaily.com/ml... , it turns out we can't have our cake and eat it, too. As a new report shows, the country has to either radically rein in spending or increase taxes unless it wants to be hit with giant deficits and "soaring public debt." In fact, the CBO concluded, "Unless taxation reaches levels that are unprecedented in the United States, current spending policies will probably be financially unsustainable over the next 50 years." And while the Bush Administration has said that economic growth will outpace the deficits created by its tax cuts, CBO says "the problem is so immense that economic growth alone will not be enough to solve it." And the country has lost the luxury of time in dealing with the problem: "'The longer that lawmakers delay acting to counter an unsustainable budgetary situation, the larger the spending cuts or tax increases will eventually have to be,' the 60-page study warned." See American Progress's perspectives on current fiscal policies HERE http://www.americanprogress.o... .
[i][b]LEFT OUT IN THE COLD[/b][/i]: Yesterday, "more than 90,000 people who have been out of work for months [lost] their federal benefits" as "the program to aid the long-term unemployed expire[d]." While many progressive lawmakers demanded Congress and the President extend the jobless benefits, both refused, and the cutoffs began on December 21 – and they affect a broad swath of people. According to Maurice Emsellem, public policy director for the National Employment Law Project, "It's a really diverse group of people who are running out of benefits -- higher-income, dot-commers, lower-wage workers, and manufacturing employees. It's people from every industry, from all states...Whatever's going on with the economy, it's not translating into significant job growth."
[i][b]CORPORATIONS TRUMP INDIVIDUALS...AGAIN[/b][/i]: Conservatives like Tom "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes" DeLay claim there is "no reason" to extend benefits to help these struggling Americans. However, at the same time, the House passed an extension for the temporary tax breaks designed to provide relief for corporations during the economic crisis. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "The House approach implies that corporations need continued support amidst a still-weak economy, but that laid-off workers do not. This is despite the fact that firms might not use the tax breaks to hire new workers." Even by Scrooge standards, this doesn't make economic sense: A study by economy.com concluded that, as a general rule, "each dollar of new federal expenditures for unemployment compensation generated an increase in...GDP of $1.73." The study found, by contrast, that "for each dollar used for...corporate tax breaks...GDP would rise less than $0.35."
[i][b]WORKERS TAKE THE HIT[/b][/i]: Why are so many workers being left out of the economic recovery? According to the NYT, "while profits have shot up as a percentage of national income, reaching their highest level since the mid-1960's, labor's share is shrinking. Not since World War II has the distribution been so lopsided in the aftermath of a recession." Employment rolls are down (2.4 million jobs smaller than when the recession began in March 2001), and the average hourly wage is "rising at an annual rate of less than 2%, barely enough to keep up with inflation, mild as it is now." More and more technological jobs are "offshoring" to India and China, where employees will work for about $20,000 less than here in the states. As the bargaining power of labor has deteriorated over the past decade (thanks to union-busters like Wal-Mart), workers as a whole have suffered the hit. "Rather than increasing output per worker, many companies maintained existing output and raised the productivity growth rate by getting rid of workers." Read University of Georgia guest columnist Jeffrey Wenger's "Jobless Recovery" column HERE http://www.americanprogress.o... .
[i][b]HEALTH CARE HARDSHIP[/b][/i]: As workers remain outside of the recovery loop and require more services from the states, decreased tax revenues in the states have made that harder to achieve. In many cases, something's got to give. Unfortunately for six states, that "something" is health care for poor kids. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana and Utah "have stopped enrolling eligible children in their State Children's Health Insurance Programs" due to increased budget pressures. The result? Tens of thousands of kids left uninsured. "Because three of the six states with freezes do not maintain waiting lists, it is impossible to know exactly how many children nationally are affected by the freezes." Florida's waiting list contained more than 44,000 eligible children as of November 14.
[b]Sources[/b]:
Center For American Progress on http://www.americanprogress.o...
"Analysts: Future Budget Outlook Gloomy" on http://www.centredaily.com/ml...
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| Can Dubya Keep His Friends? Hmmm ... |
| 12.22.03 (11:18 pm) [edit] |
[b]Can Dubya [i]keep[/i] his friends? Hmmm ... Dubya can certainly [i]buy[/i] his friends [/b]... however, he seems unable to [i]keep[/i] friends that he does not bribe or pay to remain "[i]loyal[/i]".
The hypocritical Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]have used the U.S. Treasury as their own private ATM to award massive immoral, anti-christian boondoggles, tax loopholes & tax cuts to corporations, the wealthiest plutocrats & their campaign contributors-- while the rest of us are saddled with his back-breaking record-level deficits, heart-breaking job losses, a scandalous health care crisis, skyrocketing poverty & homelessness ... etc. The neo-fascist Bushies have [i]"lined-their-own-pocke ts-with-gold" [/i]... and these ruthless thugs & goons do not give a damn about the working people, the powerless and the vulnerable in our society.
The neo-cons are reckless gamblers with our nation's citizenry ([i]who are slaughtered by the hundreds & maimed-and-injured by the thousands, in their insane 'pre-emptive' guerrilla quagmires[/i]) and our nation's treasure ([i]that they recklessly squander to enrich themselves[/i]) ... and they will leave a [i]mess[/i] for the rest of us to struggle to recover from:-- our foreign policy is a shambles, since most nation's fear & hate us, because Bush has stupidly squandered the good will of others ... and, economic policies that have enabled corporations & the filthy rich to mercilessly swindle, plunder & loot America's middle-class, lower-income workers and the poor.
Now, it seems that Dubya can't even keep his single "[i]friend[/i]": Tony Blair ... Dubya seems to be one of those despicable type of crooks whom: [i]the more one gets to know him, the less one likes him [/i]... This is hardly surprising, given that he lacks true character, real courage, deep intelligence and any wisdom whatsoever.
"We the People" should beware of Bush's incompetence and inability to deal with leaders on the world stage ... His[i] bully-boy [/i]tactics are becoming increasingly tiresome, boring and dangerous for our nation at home and abroad.
Consider "[b]BUSH AND BLAIR: THE BIG FALL-OUT: Relations in 'deep freeze' since Saddam caught[/b]" published in the[i] U.K. Daily Mirror [/i]on http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk... :
TONY Blair and George Bush's love-in has collapsed over the rebuilding of Iraq.
The two leaders have fallen out over plans for the reconstruction of the country and the heavy-handed action of American troops against the civilian population.
And the rift has been deepened by a Washington ban on a proposed morale-boosting visit by the PM to British troops in Iraq during the Christmas holiday.
According to diplomats, relations between the allies have gone into "deep freeze" since the capture of Saddam Hussein last weekend.
President Bush was incensed that Mr Blair stole Washington's thunder by being the first Western leader to confirm that the former dictator had been arrested by US troops.
Downing Street rushed out Mr Blair's announcement before he had spoken to the American leader early last Sunday, when Mr Bush - six hours behind London - was still in bed.
Whitehall insiders confirmed that Mr Blair's decision was partly out of anger over a US veto on his proposed visit to British troops in Iraq during the Christmas holiday.
Presidential advisers in Washington wanted Mr Bush to be the sole leader to make a Christmas visit to troops in Baghdad and urged Downing Street to postpone any visit.
The US refused to co-operate on security arrangements for a Christmas visit by Mr Blair, who is going to spend the festive season with his family in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.
Mr Blair and Mr Bush have had at least three phone conversations during the past seven days which Whitehall officials described as "increasingly terse".
A Downing Street insider said: "Relations between the two are at the lowest ebb since they first met.
"The PM is not happy at having to deal with Britain's European partners who have been left out of the rebuilding contracts. Of course they are still talking - but the diplomatic temperature is in the deep freeze."
Mr Blair has expressed his concern over Mr Bush's decision to rule Germany, France and other European countries out of the running for lucrative contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The American President declared that countries which didn't support the war will not be awarded any of the rebuilding contracts. Mr Blair has complained that the move severely weakened Britain's strength in the European Union and contributed to the failure of last week's crucial EU summit.
In recent phone conversations with Mr Bush, Mr Blair has also expressed worries about heavy-handed US tactics against Iraqi civilians.
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| 76 Reasons To Impeach Bush/Cheney! |
| 12.22.03 (6:26 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i] has misled us into immoral & illegal incursions turned bloody guerrilla quagmires in Afghanistan & Iraq, and have created a [i]'train-wreck' of an economy [/i]here at home-- both devised to enrich their rapacious corporate cronies, their sordid families and their greedy & squalid campaign contributors.[/b] ([i]Refer to sources listed below[/i].)
"We the People" should demand that our unpatriotic rubber-stamp neo-con Congress http://www.congress.org conduct impeachment hearings in order to [i]oust[/i] the neo-fascist Bush/Cheney thugs & goons from office. Their priorities are focused on enriching corporations, at any cost-- and the damage being done to our economy, our citizens and to the health of this nation is criminal.
[b]You might find the following enumeration of specifics regarding the Bush regime's destructive policies in their first year in office, worth perusing:-- ...
... 76 additional patriotic reasons to impeach Bush/Cheney on http://www.electricemperor.co... are as follows:--[/b]
[b]STATE OF THE PRESIDENT on
[i]In George W. Bush's First year in office he[/i][/b]:
0. After the "Great Appointed", he left the Pentagon open to attack by ending a 16 year multi tiered tatical responce team, began by his father, and added to by President Clinton. Then, too late, calls F-15s from Langley Virginia, 120 miles & 20 minutes away. Instead of Andrews Air Force Base only 10 miles away. At the very least, Criminal Negligence.
1. Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops.
2. Cut federal spending on libraries by $39 million.
3. Cut $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric training.
4. Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.
5. Revoked rules that reduced the acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water.
6. Blocked rules that would require federal agencies to offer bilingual assistance to non-English speaking persons. This, from a candidate who would readily fire-up his Spanish-speaking skills in front of would- be Hispanic voters.
7. Proposed to eliminate new marine protections for the Channel Islands and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii (San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2001).
8. Cut funding by 28% for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks.
9. Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that violated workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws.
10. OK'd Interior Department appointee Gale Norton to send out letters to state officials soliciting suggestions for opening up national monuments for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and logging.
11. Appointed John Negroponte - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure-to the post of United Nations Ambassador.
12. Abandoned a campaign pledge to invest $100 million for rain forest conservation.
13. Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program for public hospitals, clinics and providers of care for people without insurance.
14. Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents.
15. Suspended rules that would require hardrock miners to clean up sites on Western public lands.
16. Cut $60 million from a Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America program for public housing.
17. Proposed to eliminate a federal program, designed and successfully used in Seattle, to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
18. Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement.
19. Cut $200 million of work force training for dislocated workers.
20. Eliminated funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, which encourages farmers to maintain wetlands habitat on their property.
21. Cut program to provide child care to low-income families as they move from welfare to work.
22. Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees (though it still pays for Viagra).
23. Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public housing.
24. Appointed Otto Reich - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure - to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.
25. Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.
26. Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an animal placed on the Endangered Species List.
27. Rescinded the rule that mandated increased energy-saving efficiency regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.
28. Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker health and safety.
29. Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide, the waste gas that contributes to global warming.
30. Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that offer abortion counseling with other independent funds.
31. Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and Outreach.
32. Nominated David Lauriski - ex-mining company executive - to post of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
33. OK'd Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the coast of eastern Florida.
34. Announced intention to open up Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest to oil and drilling.
35. Proposes to re-draw boundaries of nation's monuments, which would technically allow oil and gas drilling "outside" of national monuments.
36. Gutted White House AIDS Office.
37. Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate workers's rights and safeguards for the environment.
38. Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association in recommendations for the federal judiciary appointments.
39. Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the Interior.
40. Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
41. Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
42. Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana wilderness.
43. Continues to hold up federal funding for stem cell research projects.
44. Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college, though convicted murderers can.
45. Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium-slag heap in Utah.
46. Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit.
47. Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
48. Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills.
49. Appointed a Vice President quoted as saying "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants." (Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press.")
50. Appointed Diana "There is no gender gap in pay" Roth to the Council of Economic Advisers. (Boston Globe, March 28, 2001.)
51. Appointed Kay Cole James - an opponent of affirmative action - to direct the Office of Personnel Management.
52. Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect.
53. Helped kill a law designed to make it tougher for teenagers to get credit cards.
54. Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children.
55. Is pushing for development of small nuclear arm to attack deeply buried targets and weapons, which would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
56. Proposes to nominate Jeffrey Sutton - attorney responsible for the recent case weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act- to federal appeals court judgeship.
57. Proposes to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.
58. Eliminated funding for the "We the People" education program which taught School children about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and citizenship.
59. Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and the U.N. - to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
60. Nominated Linda Fisher - an executive with Monsanto - for the number-two job at the Environmental Protection Agency.
61. Nominated Michael McConnell - leading critic of the separation of church and state - to a federal judgeship.
62. Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
63. Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high mileage cars.
64. Nominated Harvey Pitts - lawyer for teen sex video distributor - to head SEC.
65. Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment programs - for Drug Czar. (Washington Post, May 16, 2001.)
66. Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - for Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
67. Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered Species Act - for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science.
68. Is seeking the dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII.
69. Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not secular equivalents.
70. Reduced by 40% the Low Income Home Assistance Program for low-income individuals who need assistance paying energy bills.
71. Nominated Ted Olson- who has repeatedly lied about his involvement with the Scaiffe-funded "Arkansas Project" to bring down Bill Clinton - for Solicitor General.
72. Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam construction. (Washington Post, May 18, 2001.)
73. Proposes to give government the authority to take private property through eminent domain for power lines and gas pipelines.
74. Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.
75. Plans on serving genetically engineered foods at all official government functions.
76. Forced out Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck and appointed a timber industry lobbyist as his replacement.
"[i]What is the problem, oh Babylon?
Lack of information...mon,
That's all." [/i]
[b]... And this list doesn't even include the many, many crimes & frauds perpetrated by Bush/Cheney ever since![/b]
[b]Sources[/b]:
"76 Patriotic Reasons to Impeach Bush/Cheney!" on http://www.electricemperor.co...
"Leading Economist Confirms That Bush's Economic Policies Are Failing America" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"U.S. Class & Income Inequality Is At The Highest Point In Over 75 Years" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"The Poverty Quagmire in America" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Financial Analysts Confirm That Bush Has Placed The U.S.A. In Economic Peril" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"WANTED: A Real Economic Program - Instead of Mad King George's Swindle of America" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"U.S. Homelessness & Poverty Worsens Under The Rapacious Bush Regime" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Leading Economist Confirms That Bush's Economic Policies Are Failing America |
| 12.22.03 (12:07 pm) [edit] |
[b]One leading economist, amongst many ([i]e.g. Dr. George Akerlof, Dr. Paul Krugman, etc.[/i] http://www.drizzten.com/blarg... ) , confirms that Bush's[i] rapacious economic policies [/i]for the corporations & the rich are [i]failing the United States of America.[/i] [/b]
Our nation is not comprised [i]simply[/i] of corporate top-dogs & fat-cat, rich robber-barons & wealthy plutocrats-- who are the only citizens deserving of the bounty of our collective work, efforts, blood, sweat & tears. Yet, this is how the the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] behave, as they award immoral, anti-christian [i](& possibly illegal[/i]) boondoggles, tax loopholes & tax cuts to powerful corporations and their hyper-rich campaign contributors ... as this neo-con, neo-fascist cabal neglect the dire problems of rising unemployment, poverty, homelessness, our health care crisis, education, social security & our nation's welfare.
"We the People" must take back our nation from these neo-con, neo-fascist tyrants and despots who are swindling, plundering and looting the American middle-class, working people and the most vulnerable among us.
It does not require a [i]nobel-prize [/i]to recognize that when the needs of the people are ignored and the profits from our nation's collective labour are being funnelled into the bulging pockets of the[i] corporate-take-all [/i]robber-barons & the filthy rich plutocrats-- that the masses will suffer in misery. After all, isn't that what the hypocritical Bushies [i]lectured us [/i]on regarding [i]Saddam Hussein's Iraq[/i]?
Consider "[i][b]Economic Recovery Remains Vulnerable to Setbacks[/b][/i]" by Robert J. Shapiro on http://www.americanprogress.o... :
[b]Overview[/b]
My quarterly analysis of the economy shows growth moderating after accelerating sharply in the third quarter, producing respectable gains in the fourth quarter and into 2004. Yet, the economy is also quite vulnerable to setbacks. Despite the recent strong growth, [i]the number of people working, which fell for two years, is rising very slowly[/i]. Despite rising stock prices and confidence, [i]consumption could slow significantl | |
