I am one angry W.A.S.P. - an acronym redefined here to mean White Anglo Saxon
Progressive - and there are millions of us and other Progressives from all creeds and
colors in America. Modern Progressives tend to be intelligent humanists, and we
are emerging from the “shock and awe” wrought by four years of Bush Administration policies and Rebublican Congressional legislation that is surely doing serious damage
to the Middle Class - and the whole country. Mine is just one citizen’s own considered
opinion, but actually it is NOT OK to steal elections - raid the Treasury - lie - intimidate -
foul our nest - and operate a “protection racket” on the American people.
A lot of us are ANGRY and more than ready to “toss the bums out” on November 2 -
if you are not, why not? I can think of at least 10 good reasons why you should be:
1. What’s up with all the lying?
Dishonest government is not okay! Everything with this Administration is spin spinning
spin - it is wearing thin and the top will topple. I was around for the numerous lies of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton - and for four years we have had:
George WMD Bush - the worst liar of them all - and he and his Administers are still lying.
It seems pathological - lying about everything from tax cuts to “intelligence” to victory banners to democracy then “sovereignty” in Iraq. The “smoking gun mushroom cloud”
was a lie. Professional confidence man and VP Cheney said Iraq was IN FACT on the verge of making nuclear weapons and could hand them over to terrorists any day - while inspectors on the ground were finding nothing. So Bush told the Inspectors to get out in 48 hours so he could start bombing. Even I know that Intelligence is NEVER reliable without corroboration - even when it’s honestly vetted. The W Administration is one of secrecy,
fear and intimidation. Truth is ignored as accountability is avoided and dissent is muted.
Letting Osama and al-Queda escape while misleading America into that illegal Iraq invasion- at a massive cost of many lives and limbs - the White House has lost international respect and we have less national security. So far, Iraq has cost 200 Billion dollars (that they have admitted to) and they are about to request 70 billion more. I predict the US taxpayers will foot the bill of well over a TRILLION dollars before it is done. When you consider the fact that Iraq was a very weak nation (no longer a threat to even it’s own close neighbors), then you consider how much more expensive a stronger nation or combiNation would be to subdue and control - these Oil Wars that the neocons peddle are quite unaffordable and unwinable. The White House Executors ruthlessly trash the TruthTellers - but the stakes
and the costs are just too high for lies. Just how many more soldier’s lives extinguished - now over 1100 in Iraq - will we accept for these lies?
2. What’s up with all the thievery?
These “elite” people think We the People are a bunch of chumps - they don’t think enough of us will catch on to the truth to stop them.This Administration cooks the books and conjures up a huge projected fictional surplus to justify THREE TRILLION dollars in tax cuts - mostly to the wealthy - that will cripple Federal and State budgets for at least the next ten years. The Middle Class is bearing a major portion of that burden and all of America will suffer cuts in education, social services, infrastructure investment and homeland security. With more tax
cuts in a Bush second term, the economic future of the next generation will be stolen.
The MegaCorps cook the books and evade their taxes while CEOs steal everything they can get their hands on - including the worker’s pensions - and the Bankers and Accountants and Regulators are in on it. After the bubble burst Congress passed some reform, but to this day the DemReps on both sides of the aisle still have not enacted all the needed reforms . So far, after a few perp-walks, the elitist criminals are enjoying their yachts, private jets and mansions with continuing political access while the MegaCorps dodge taxes and outsource millions of jobs - yet another big hit to the Middle Class, the Poor and the whole Economy.
Allowing MegaCorps to trash our environment is another heavy cost that is passed on to the Public - while stealing our common assets. The polluting of our environment is not included in the price of manufacturing, and the Public pays to clean up the mess.Cheaply selling off and burning through our dwindling national natural resources is a policy that makes our country much less safe and less prosperous. Until we wean ourselves off of Oil, it would be the height of strategic stupidity to suck all our domestic oil out of places like the Arctic National Refuge now, just to allow a quick and easy profit for a greedy few. That and our other irreplaceable resources should be conserved in reserve - as a future asset - as much as possible. Hopefully these resources will never need to be fully tapped - because we will be clever enough to tap into clean renewable energy sources instead. We certainly do not want to be a country that is totally bankrupt of vital domestic natural resources forever - for all the unknown future.
There is no America without a vibrant Middle Class. These corpoligarchs are practicing a predatory supranational hyper-capitalism. In their frame of reference, Nation States are vehicles to customers, workers and resources. It seems apparent that America has been
largely written off as a liability - an expensive aging work force with expensive social entitlements and too many worker and environmental laws. They seem to think that they
can just move the jobs to China and India for cheap wages, resources and billions of potential future consumers. Apparently most American consumers will be left to the FoodCorps, ServiceCorps, MediaCorps, MedCorps, PharmCorps and PrisonCorps.
3. The PRETENDER - George WMD Bush
What happened to our Constitutional checks and balances of power between the branches of government? The Executive branch is WAY too powerful. Bush quietly issues powerful
Executive Orders that trash environmental and worker protections and he appoints corporate cronies to government agencies that oversee their own former industries. He casually canceled long standing international treaties, that were ratified by Congress, and now he wants to cancel the treaty that reserves outer space for only peaceful purposes. Bush has alienated our allies with his rude arrogance and soiled America’s reputation by allowing systemic policies engaging torture tactics of prisoners. He can commit our military
to be deployed anywhere in the world at a whim - or lie to start a war. Maybe this was useful when nuclear “mutually assured destruction” was the defense strategy - but the Soviet Union is long gone. Turns out, Communism never really was the “as advertised” threat to the United States, yet Bush still insists spending billions of dollars on Old War Cold War Star Wars.
Now it looks like Bush has been played like a fiddle by everyone all along - Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Cheney, Chalabi, the neocons and faithbasers all took full advantage. We should seriously reconsider the CEO model for Commander in Chief. The truth is, an overpowerful Executive branch enhances the chances for the Military Industrial Congressional Complex and other MegaCorps to maximize their bottom lines at taxpayer expense. The danger is that the current Administration is not simply bought off by mega corporations - they ARE Corporate Oligarchs. The Executive should be strong but always accountable. These guys take no blame and admit no mistakes while loudly taking credit for all the good news that they say is not being reported by the liberally compliant mainframe media.
The truth is, George Weaker Bush is not a very strong person - emotionally or intellectually. His handlers try very hard to keep him away from any unscripted encounters with anyone. He had to have VP Cheney chaperone his appearance with the 9/11 Commission. He fell apart and whined when faced with a few semi-tough questions from an Irish journalist.
His performance in the Debates with John Kerry was so embarrasingly weak - good thing for him his media mogul supporters own and control all the major outlets.
Prediction: if George W Bush wins a second term - he will be impeached by 2006.
4. The SUPREME Courtesans
Then there is that pesky little fact that Bush was not elected, but unconstitutionally selected by partisans in black robes.This Supreme Court was disgraced for all future history when they installed Bush by halting the recount of votes in 2000 - they should simply have ruled that EVERY VOTE in Florida must be recounted. Actually,we have all been embedded
in a simmering Constitutional Crises for over 60 years - since the War Powers Act set the stage for Executive Extremism. It is finally coming to loggerheads now - with the total incompetence, greed, radical ideology and lack of wisdom this Administration displays.
A second term for these guys will lurch Federal Courts far to the right - radically unbalanced.
Do not misunderestimate the damage of 2 or 3 GWBush Supreme Court appointments.
We need to get the checks and balance of powers right - or lose our civil rights!
5. Ashcan of Liberty
America has suffered a long line of J Edgar Hoover types who want to stifle civil rights.
To them, the pursuit of happiness is only acceptable if it does not involve too much fun or violate their own puritanical sense of what is proper. Turns out, a lot of these hypocritical thugs have some pretty cluttered closets of their own. Now we have J Adolph Ashcroft.
To him, it is a big problem if too much free speech is exercised that disagrees with what the Administration wants to hear. Dangerous concepts - like humanitarianism and environmental protection - must be vigorously surpressed - especially if they might impinge upon any MegaCorp profits or religious ideology. Debate and dissent are a nuisance - nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of the radical right wing agenda - including The Bill of Rights. If it takes outing a few intelligence agents, foreign or domestic, to win the election - so be it.
The Patriot Act is “Exhibit A” of many laws and policies designed to consolidate power into the hands of ambitious politicians who represent the selfish interests of elite oligarchs and corporate conglomerates - and they keep pushing for more police powers permanently. Since 9/11, with all these powers that diminish our civil rights, Ashcroft has managed only a handful of VERY questionable domestic terrorist arrests - non of which have panned out. Meanwhile, local police departments all across America are being trained in paramilitary tactics. Instead of using Homeland Security to protect us against terrorists, the police are ordered to attack US citizens that are legal peaceful demonstrators. The FBI is now even visiting the homes of people that they suspect maybe just MIGHT attend a protest rally.
The Secret Service is ejecting civil rights supporters from Bush/Cheney campaign stops.
Is it really the terrorists that hate our freedoms?
Are you getting angry yet? There are plenty more reasons why you should be:
6. Con- servative Republican’ts
I have been monitoring C-SPAN pretty closely for several years now, and the DemReps really put on quite a show. The debates in the Senate and the House are real eye openers if you open your ears and mind. The “new” Republicans are mean-spirited and not really conservative in the least. The “new” Democrats are hawkish and not very progressive. Both parties deceive their way to the mythical middle while being enriched by various special interests. The debate on the 2004 Medicare reform bill is a case in point. The Republicans stood at the podium, and with a straight face tried to justify no government negotiations with the Pharmaceutical Drug Companies for a Medicare group price - and also no buying of them for a lower price from other countries like Canada. I was so embarrassed for our democracy - shamelessly sold out to special interests by our elected legislators- mostly Republican but with help from some Democrats. The bill was strong armed through by the Republican leadership while they lied about the true cost of the program.
I shudder to think about what would happen if the RadReps manage to get hold of 60 seats in the Senate and hold a majority in the House - total control that they will not delay to ruthlessly pursue. Already they are abusing majority power by excluding the Democrats - sometimes rudely (and even spyed into their computers). The House is a crime scene of Republican bribery and coercion. Meanwhile, most Democrats quietly muddle around the cautious center. They are also beholden to their own set of special interest groups - that fortunately include labor unions and minorities - forcing them to be somewhat more fair.
The consequence of incompetence by Bush has finally jolted Democrats to oppose him.
Truly honest conservative Republicans should worry about the Bush Spending Orgy and his Big Brother/ Big Government tendencies. They should think long and hard about what these exclusively pro-corporate and neocon allegiances are going to do to the future of their own reputations and electability. As the TRUTH slowly comes out - as it finally is - the People are going to get very angry at this gang over all the unsustainable policies and redistribution of wealth that has occurred. The Republican party will be marginalized for many years - if not permanently. Recent indictments of some Republican leaders is a sign of a new era. There are still some honest conservative Republicans remaining, and I hope they can get their party back some day soon -because we NEED balance and real debate on real issues.
Predictably, the RadReps hid behind the curtain at the Repugnantcan Covenshun.
7. The christian- unright
The separation of church and state is one of the founding edicts of America - that is not
even a subject for debate - it in is the Constitution. Unfortunately and unconstitutionally,
this defining principle has been violated since the Cold War was launched against the fictional communist threat. In the 1950s, our “wise” politicians decided that America had to be protected from Communist Atheists, so they passed laws adding “under god” to the pledge of allegiance and they placed the words “in god we trust” on our money (even though I was taught in my Lutheran Sunday School that the love of money was at the root of all evil). Apparently they did not have much faith in our democracy to withstand any competition from other political philosophies. Or maybe the concept of sharing wealth
with too many people was too much of a threat to capitalist philosophy. In any case, to disagree would be considered both immoral and unpatriotic.
Now the Bush administration is pushing their “faith-based” initiative that allows religious organizations to receive tax payer funding. All religious organizations should vigorously oppose any proposal to combine church and state in any way whatsoever - unless they want to eventually start paying property taxes. The current gang of politicians in power are supporters of fundamentalist Christian groups and allow them to affect policy - but that could change. Someday YOUR religion might be out of favor with the government. As the Founders realized - better to keep issues of religion and government completely separate. Some of the right-wing fundamentalist christian leaders and some politicians conspire to enrich each other, try to force their version of morality on us all and seemingly attempt to do their best to stimulate the coming of their concept of Armageddon - what’s up with that?
These guys seem to think God chose them to unleash Global Crusader Pax America.
8. Conspiracy Theory (The War on Terror)
Hillary really got hell when she talked about the “vast right wing conspiracy”. She was harshly ridiculed across the AM radio dial and accused of spreading conspiracy theories
on the cable channels. We are all supposed to “get over” the silly idea that in America,
with all our modern technology, the 2000 election somehow could have been rigged and stolen by a Republican conpiracy. In 2004 we are supposed to believe computer voting machines are OK with secret source codes and without verifiable paper ballot back-ups(?). In recent years, progressive leaders seem to have had the tendency to falling out of the sky flying in small airplanes. To say there could have been collusion to assassinate progressive leaders in the 1960s is to be accused of promoting “just another nutty conspiracy theory”. On the other hand, however, we WERE supposed to believe in the Cold War Communist plots to take over our country. We had to be very afraid - even though we point thousands of nuclear missles at them - and we had to spend many billions of dollars every year to fight that threat. Turns out the Soviet Union imploded and communism simply never was much of a threat to our country or democracy - their people wanted to be more like us.
After the fall of the Communist Threat, we were supposed to be afraid of the evil illegal Drug Czars. So the “War on Drugs” kicked into high gear. This campaign has some uses as a diversionary tactic (from other policies) and as a way to exert police power - and there is a lot of money involved. Ultimately, however, the potential corporate profit margin from waging “The Drug War” is too limited - not nearly enough to sustain the ravenous “Military Industrial Congressional ,Complex”. After all, from a PR point of view, it would be much too controversial to “carpet bomb” Compton, California. Anyway, everyone knows that the REAL money is in making the weapons for warfare, then landing reconstruction contracts to repair the massive destruction wreaked, then making more weapons, etc. etc. etc.
So now we are supposed to believe that we are engaged in a “War on Terror” that will
last for decades - because their are millions of evil terrorists around the world that hate our
freedom. They so hate our culture that they are conspiring everywhere to attack us. It could happen at anytime anywhere, and the danger is so dire that we need to give up most of our civil liberties and treasure (then our government can protect what is left of our freedom). Of course, we must spend untold billions of dollars every year to fight this dangerous global terrorist conspiracy - and that may mean bombing and rebuilding and occupying a few rogue nations of choice along the way.
There really are terrorists and terrorist organizations of course - and they should be tracked down and brought to justice by a new international anti terrorist force. The United Nations must be reformed or replaced. A global international campaign to define and address the reasons causing people to become terrorists must ensue - and that means a much different American foreign policy than has been the case for the last 60 years. There must be a much more balanced access to opportunity and global resources. In the long run, nothing else is sustainable - but there are powerful people that don’t want any of that to happen.
Actually we are in a real war that has BEEN going on for centuries - CLASS WARFARE - or the Battle Between the Haves and Have nots. Also, for decades in America, we have been embroiled in the Culture War between libertarianism and puritanism. An ever increasing global population and ever decreasing global resources will add up to a critical mass deficit of sustainance - eventually - for everyone everywhere (China and India are coming up fast). Food and water will become even more disputed than oil and energy.
That “vast conspiracy” is more like a coalition of smaller conspiracies - including corporate greed heads, power politicians, fundamentalist christian crusaders, neocon “think tanks”, Pentagoners, spooks, etc. These smaller groups have overlapping interests and they do debate and conspire and plan efforts to consolidate control of the future’s political power and resources. Then they issue lockstep marching orders for action to their unquestioning partisan constituents. They find a way to get their way with the collusion of an eager-to-please mass media.
Credibility Gap? The incredible incompetence of W and the gang is making history.
9. Ministry of dis-Information
Mainstream media coverage of the Iraq invasion really served as a wake up call for me - that the defending of our democracy from our own elite oligarchs and global corporate robber barons was - and is - an urgent necessity. When you get right down to it, during the invasion the only real difference between IRAQ TV and American TV was fancier computer graphics - the media in both countries were exclusively extensions of their government propaganda offices. In America every channel on both broadcast and cable TV rushed to cheerlead for the invasion and present the government line - liberal pundits were fired or ignored. This could be the best Reality Show ever. All dissent was muted, because major media moguls were lobbying this Administration to allow them to increase their media monopolies. Even a year and a half after the Iraq invasion, serious investigative journalism is almost totally extinct - because MegaCorps own all the major outlets. However, as Bush looks weaker, like he did in the Debates, the corporate media will proportionately be more willing to expose him - to cover their assets in the future.
According to law, the politicians keep saying, the media bandwidth is owned by the American People. Then they give it away to huge corporations who make billions of dollars with it every year. In return the public is getting censored news and outright lies - although public interest and access was supposed to be part of the deal. In truth, the media has always had trouble with presenting too much controversy and telling truth to power. Today the degree to which our government and the MediaCorps feed off of each other - at the public’s expense - is dangerous and harmful to our democracy and common welfare.
We get game shows called reality, war that looks like video games and commercial messages that incessantly promote greed, gluttony, deception and waste. From cradle-to-grave we are all being trained to be insatiable consumers, fattened like cattle, worked and taxed in our most productive years, then led to an economic slaughterhouse of HMOs and MediCorp-care and DrugPharm kingpins.
It must be made mandatory for all media outlets to provide free full access for coverage of our campaigns and elections to all political parties (based on membership) in a much shorter
cycle that is completely Publicly Financed. Special interest groups could still purchase a corresponding amount of air time to present their message while bringing dollars to the media outlets. This, along with more educational and public service programming, should be the price for the use of the Public’s media bandwidth.
Every hour of every day MediaCorp is lying to us by distortion, omission and manipulation.
A lot of people are dead and a lot of broadcast liscenses should be scrutinized.
10. Wee the People
I am an Angry W.A.S.P. because the American People are too gullible and not angry enough. How much more wealth will be transferred to the rich and how much more of our treasure will be wasted and how many more lives and liberties will be lost and how much more of the global ecosystem be trashed with this neoRepublican right wing agenda. Even Reagan realized that something should trickle down to the people - even when he was just pissing on us
The Gang of Five in the White House, along with their corporate and congressional friends and associates, have an unquenchable greed and lust for power that is sociopathic and unsustainable. These are 20th century minds with 21st century weapons In a world steadily increasing in population with ever decreasing sustainable resources - and they want to control all of it. In this Class War the controlling factor is promoting fear and “fear itself”.
Nobody wants to be hurt or killed, but the chance of any individual American being attacked by a terrorist on any given day or or month or year is extremely small. It is not worth giving up ANY civil rights for the illusion of safety. As a society, we need to wake up and “grow up” and smarten up - then do what we can to truly improve our security here at home. We must pay attention to electing politicians that pursue a much more inclusive humanitarian domestic and foreign policy - that includes fair trade and environmental protection.This country has been through the Revolutionary War and the Civil War - two wars that killed a lot of Americans on our soil - one established the foundation for the US and the other reconfirmed the union. We cannot allow our freedom, our liberty and our country to be taken away from us because these guys are running a “protection racket” - telling us only they can keep us safe as they pick our pockets, enforce their will and silence their critics. If we don’t throw these bums out tomorrow, then we really are the chumps they think we are.
Even if you agree with the W policies, you should want to fire them all - for incompetence.
So there you have 10 good reasons to be angry, and there are many more. But don’t get mad - get even. All that anger should be focused into an energetic massive effort to elect the Democratic candidates for President and Congress on Tuesday November 2, 2004 - so we can begin to reboot our democracy in 2005. Although we can’t have Angry Howard or Progressive Dennis, we must still vote Democratic. All of us, Progressives, Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, centrist Dems, honest Republicans, conservatives and Independents should join together to achieve a semblance of political balance. Then we can have the urgent national debate about what kind of future this country of We the People will have.
Four more years of Bush will be a Dark Ages for America and the world. As a skeptical optimist, I believe Americans will vote Bush out by a large margin -but this must be the most intensely monitored election of all time. ALL the votes must be counted and there must be too many to steal. Our ongoing Constitutional Crises will go ballistic if there is another rigged election like 2000. I guess maybe then we would find out - the hard way -
if we actually really do still have democracy in America.
I would like to know, wouldn’t you? ....curt!
