Now Americans really need to understand how divisive, harmful and unfair the absurdly huge income disparity and disproportionate distribution of wealth is, and we also need to understand how much worse Bush made it by serving the interests of the wealthiest people who invested in him. They certainly received their reward, but the rest of us were betrayed. The Reaganite unfairness, inequity and disproportionate distribution of wealth was continued and made even worse by the Bush Administration. Thus the U.S. political-economic system enables and rewards greed and selfishness more than it ever has. It allows, enables and ensures the unfair and inequitable accumulation of excessive surplus wealth, and enables employers to pay average employees far less than they deserve, and to pay low income employees less than a living wage.
That is why money totally rules in America, and it is why we are essentially ruled by the wealthiest few and their corporations. Corporate financial power is dominant because it is so immense, which is why it has been so successful in putting right-wing conservative puppet politicians in office. Of course, the so-called "Christian" Right has helped them significantly, but it's the wealthiest few who have enabled them most. After all, in recent elections 80 percent of the financial contribution to their political campaigns have come from the wealthiest one percent of the population.
However, George W. Bush would not have been able to gain the power of the presidency with just the power of the money that he got in campaign contributions from the richest one percent of the population. That money was certainly part of the reason he was able to get people to vote for him. But money alone was not enough. The only way Bush was able to gain the power of the presidential throne was by hook and by crook.
Bush used the "hook" of his original campaign promises, which, as I said, were to unify the country, put an end to partisanship, and serve as a so-called "compassionate conservative." Of course, his using that misleading term was actually an unwitting acknowledgment that conservatives had proven themselves rather heartless and selfish in the 1980s and 1990s. (In fact, Bush's father did something similar when he campaigned for the presidency, saying that he wanted a "kinder and gentler nation," subtly acknowledging that his predecessor Ronald Reagan had not been very kind or gentle.) But the fact is that George W. Bush's campaign promises have been proven to be very empty and false, because he has done quite the opposite. He has caused greater division and more bitter partisanship, and he has shown little compassion in his actual initiatives, actions and policies, the impact of which belie his desperate efforts to try to defend and justify himself, and improve his image on television.
Bush also won the presidency by crook, because he actually stole the 2000 presidential election. Of course, Bush and the Republicans deny the facts about that. But the facts fly in their face, and should make them ashamed. For example, it's a fact that Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote by at least 400,000 votes in 2000, and he surely would have won electoral vote (and even more of the popular votes) if all the ballots in Florida had been hand-counted as the law called for. All indications but one showed very clearly that Gore had won, and that one single indication to the contrary was due to the faulty machine count that rejected 179,914 Florida ballots, most of which were undoubtedly in Gore's favor because they were in heavily Democratic regions. Therefore, if Bush were an honorable man and truly meant what he had said during the campaign about putting an end to partisanship, he would have either conceded the election to Gore on the day after the election, or, if he really thought he had won, he too would have insisted on a hand-count of ballots to try to prove he was the winner.
It should be obvious that Bush did not do that because he knew Gore had actually won. That is why, instead of doing the honorable and fair thing, Bush and the Republicans fought to stop the hand vote count in Florida, and they managed to do that. They actually stole that election by "legal" partisan maneuvers and a lot of skulduggery and misleading street theater, thereby dividing and polarizing the American people even more, along even harder and more bitter partisan lines. Those are the facts that right-wing conservative Republicans don't want to face. (And it is poetic justice that Bush will leave office in disgrace while the man he stole the presidency from, Al Gore, has received an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize for his good works.)
Now, in Bush's second term it became obvious that his attitude comes not only from arrogance and self-righteousness, but also from defensiveness and denial. After all, for him to actually believe that he deserved to be president, and believe what he says, would require extraordinary indulgence in rationalization and blatant denial of a lot of widely known facts that have been and are increasingly pointed out by critics. I think he has refused to face facts, though, because they are contradictory to his staunch right-wing imperialistic view of the world. He has tried very hard to create the impression that he is right and the facts are somehow not factual but wrong. He has even tried to mislead people with his contrived view of the world, which is based not on facts but on a hidden agenda to rule and control the world by military force in the name of Christian "divine right," just like many kings, popes and emperors have done during the last sixteen centuries. After all, in his self-delusion he believes he is "doing God's will" and fulfilling prophecies. That is extremely ironic, because while he is certainly not doing God's will, he IS fulfilling prophecies as the "beast-king of Babylon" who lives by the "sword" (gun and bomb) trying to rule the world.
Unfortunately, hypocritical, inappropriate and improper imposition of "religion" into official governmental affairs is not the only thing Bush has done that is damaging to democracy. Equally damaging to democracy is Bush's right-wing conservative political ideology which, as I will show you, requires a hidden agenda and a false front. As I've said, the only way Bush could have gained power was by hook and by crook. That is why the reality and the actual purpose behind Bush's deceptive words and actions must be exposed, because Bush is wrong and deceptive in both his foreign policy and domestic policy.
For example, most of his domestic initiatives are deceptively named and not what they were touted to be. Consider the very deceptively named "Clear Skies" initiative. It rejects the Kyoto Protocol (which deals with global warming by reducing greenhouse gasses), because Bush chose to serve the interests of corporate polluters. Bush's business-friendly plan does not regulate carbon emissions, and allows far more sulfur and mercury emissions. Bush's plan was designed to help big business and corporate polluters, and consequently it jeopardizes the environment and the lives of many Americans. Moreover, it ignores and denies the fact that global warming is an extremely serious problem that we must address immediately! We must do everything possible to sharply reduce and prevent the future production of "greenhouse" gases that produce global warming, because the polar ice caps are melting and shrinking, glaciers are melting and shrinking, oceans are warming, which makes hurricanes much worse, etc. And if we foolishly continue to ignore this problem, it will be to our peril.
Another example is Bush's deceptively named "Healthy Forest" initiative, which actually allows lumber companies greater access and freedom to further decimate our vanishing natural forests in order to rake in greater corporate profits and avoid greater development of alternative building materials. According to the great and laudable Sierra Club, Bush's initiative gives free reign to the timber industry to cut down trees in all National Forests under the phoney guise of "forest fire fuel reduction." But it will do little or nothing to protect communities and homes from forest fires. Instead, it is designed to decrease public involvement, reduce environmental protection, and increase timber company access to our National Forests and other federal lands. Even worse, Bush initiated a series of new National Forest management proposals to limit the analysis of environmental impacts, repeal the ability of the public to appeal bad projects, and increase the degradation of wild forests. In other words, Bush's proposals will increase harm to forests and forest habitat and wildlife, and will turn scientific forest management back 40 years!
Another example of Bush's deceptive initiatives is his so-called "No Child Left Behind" education "reform" initiative. It was predicated and modeled on a fraudulently touted Texas school program, and I suspect it was secretly designed to gradually undermine public education and make way for a privatized, profit-making education system. I suspect that is the hidden agenda of right-wing conservatives regarding education. That is why they push for "school choice." That is why Bush cut $8 Billion from the promised funds for public education, and then imposed an education law that has created more bureaucracy and more paper work. It wastes public schools' precious time and money, and it endangers many public schools and sets them up for failure. It threatens loss of funding if they do not meet standardized testing requirements that most educators find unrealistic, counterproductive and detract from real teaching and learning. And, while it ostensibly creates "greater accountability," it actually forces attention on very narrowly defined academic achievement. Like "merit pay," it forces teachers to "teach to the test" and focus on test results, which is usually at the cost of wider and more comprehensive learning, and also at the cost of social and emotional character development.
Yet another deceptive, misleading and harmful Bush/Republican initiative is to repeal the federal estate tax. Bush and the Republicans deceptively call it the "Death Tax" and falsely claim it must be repealed to "save family businesses and small farms from being liquidated in order to pay estate taxes," and to "save you from paying half of your net worth in taxes when you die, so that your beneficiaries can receive all that you bequeath to them." But those claims are deliberately misleading, blatantly dishonest, and false! The Bush/Republican call for repeal of the so-called "death tax" is a deceptive ruse designed to create a huge windfall for the wealthiest few. It is very costly to the rest of us, because it reduces revenues even further for both the federal and state governments.
The fact is that only a small fraction of the estate tax has ever been paid on small family businesses and farms, and an estate of any size could be bequeathed to a surviving spouse free of estate tax. Almost all estate taxes come only from the very wealthiest people. Only about two percent of all Americans have estates that are subject to estate tax when they die, and 98 percent of Americans who die face no estate tax whatsoever! So we must save the estate tax because it is actually fair and just. It ensures that about half of the largest fortunes that were produced in the country are returned to the country and thereby to the people who actually generated the wealth. It's the only way we can ensure that at least some of the wealth generated by the people of this country is rightfully returned to the people.
Now, Bush's so-called "Faith-based-Charitable Choice" initiative is not quite as deceptive, but it's just as wrong. It disregards the clear intent of the founding fathers and the ideal of separation of church and state. It provides taxpayer funds directly to religious institutions that provide social services, and it allows the churches of the Christian Right to use those public funds to proselytize and attempt to recruit and convert people to their brand of religion. It would even allow them to discriminate in certain ways on the basis of religious belief. The results would actually harm both government and religion.
We should realize that in the past and until now, religiously affiliated organizations have been able to participate as grantees or contractors in federal charitable programs. That idea is not new. Catholic Family Services and Lutheran Family Services are traditional examples of that, and they have done a wonderful job. However, they have not been able to try to proselytize or "sell" their religious beliefs to those who come to them for help. They have acted more or less like secular organizations, even though they were mostly staffed by people with private religious conviction. Until now, government has been barred from providing direct assistance to religious organizations that are "pervasively sectarian" and that openly proselytize. Bush's "faith-based" initiative changed that, specifically for the benefit of partisan sectarian churches like those on the Christian Right.
It even allows those churches to discriminate against certain program beneficiaries - those who need and ask for help-on the basis of their religious convictions (or lack thereof). This is not the American Way. It damages religious liberty. Even worse, it puts government in the position of choosing which religions and which of their denominations should receive grants. This makes it impossible to make any fair decisions, and any decisions that are made would be harmful to both religion and government. Even worse, it would actually decrease funding for needed social service programs across the board. Additionally, because of Bush's huge tax cuts for the wealthy, it is very likely that federal social service spending will ultimately be cut even further, causing an even greater decrease in funding for needed social service programs.
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