At some future time historians will look back at U.S. elections and marvel that anyone could have believed that democracy could somehow survive as millions of seriously disillusioned Americans cast votes for candidates who had no intention of serving them or their republic. Bush is the most egregious and obvious example of such an official. His motive for seeking high office was never other than enriching himself and his cronies. His gross shortcomings were faithfully celebrated by a corporate owned and operated media, and as a result millions of Americans believed his lies that led to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Bush could count on a news media that supported every imbecilic move he made, whether the move was stripping Americans of their Constitutional rights, torturing detainees, or opening wide the Treasury Department’s door for all the fat boys to help themselves. Indeed, the right wing media was instrumental in twice installing an unelected president.
Incredulous Historians will study the complete lack of restraint on media. How was it that Americans came to accept programming that was so obviously biased and patently false? It defies belief that Americans so easily accept media claims that are absent any evidence or factual base. Rupert Murdock’s Fox News routinely manufactures lies that serve to promote Rupert’s anti American agenda If Fox stands to gain from certain candidates, its reports are slanted to cast those candidates in the best light. The opposite is of course true if certain candidates are not voting in the best interests of Fox. Congress must pass legislation that penalizes news programming that presents falsehoods as truth. Democracy can’t survive if the media is permitted to lie with impunity. The media must be closely regulated so that Americans hear the truth, and not the opinions or the manufactured lies of such propaganda as Fox. Americans must know the truth if they are to make informed, intelligent choices in their leadership.
Today, the republican owned media tells Americans that many billions must be handed over to the nation’s financial industry. This is the only way the economy can recover Americans are told. But why are the very people who caused the economic collapse trusted with hundreds of billions to ostensibly repair the economy? There was a time when the SEC would have stopped the fat boys from manipulating the market, but the Security and Exchange Commission had its teeth pulled years ago during Reagan‘s deregulation craze.
Millions of Americans, if the last election teaches anything, learned nothing from the Bush disasters and were ready to multiply the nation’s problems by electing an angry old man, one of the Keating five, and a woman from Alaska who is so stupid she thought of herself as an expert on international relations because her state bordered Canada, and Russia lay a few hundred miles to the north. Only an obscenely ignorant electorate could stay with a party that was so ruinous to the nation’s financial health and international standing. Bush, asked how he thinks history will regard him quips, “I won’t be around to read it.” Plainly, he could care less. He assumed office and took a wrecking ball to everything that Americans hold dear.
Bush was an embarrassment that refused to go away. As he leaves, he unsurprisingly declares his presidency a great success. Cheney brags that since 9-11 there’s been no terrorist attacks on the U.S. But gosh Dick. There weren’t any on your watch before 9-11. But you and your incurious friend ignored every intelligence warning from Russia to Israel, from Germany to Britain. The warnings were deafening. An FBI agent raised the warning that possible terrorists were taking flight lessons but didn‘t care to learn landing procedures. Yeah, Dick. You‘re a real genius. You’re a real on the ball guy. Take your bloody money Dick. The idealistic youth of America enriched you as their blood was spilled in foreign lands. Your contrived war made you rich as Halliburton’s no bid contracts ricocheted back to you. You Dick, are of the lowest characters to ever plague a nation that allowed you its trust. Choke on it, Dick. But don’t try to sell your fat, mentally ill self as an attribute to a nation of decent people.
In absolute fairness to Bush it must be said that he’s credited with demonstrating firsthand the abject failure of democracy as a credible system of governing. Ironically, Bush showed how socialism enriches certain groups within a nation by excusing them of their tax obligations while picking the pockets of the middle and the poorer classes and sending the money up the economic ladder. The insatiable greed of those at the top of the economic pile dragged the nation down. They gambled with other people’s money, but never exposed themselves. Now. Unbelievably. They’re being rewarded with vast sums of free government money if only they’ll do something to help put Humpty Dumpty back together again. With their usual arrogance they refuse to accept the money if any strings are attached, and Congress meekly capitulates to them. Offshore accounts, corporations run out of mailboxes in Bermuda, and hundreds of subsidiaries that channel money through a complex maze so taxes need not be paid are but a few of the tricks the fat boys employ to keep the government away from their money, and business. These are not the kinds of people Americans should invest their trust in.
Today the republicans, once again a minority party, are screaming for help from their government. Their complaints of government had won the American people’s trust. Naïve Americans believed that somehow the republicans would make the nation a money machine if only taxes were outlawed. Americans should have known their character was wanting when they begrudged kids a vegetable at school because isn’t ketchup a vegetable? Get government off the backs of the Free Market and do away with regulations they screamed. But deregulation led directly to the failure of the nation’s S&L’s. That lesson was lost on American voters but was reinforced when the Public Utility Commission of California was deregulated and Californians were forced to open the state’s treasury so Enron and Duke energy could rake the cash out. Now the magical Free Market has disintegrated and the republicans are lining up in Washington with their hands out. Incredibly, there are no rules or regulations for the many billions the Congress gives them for their greed and ineptitude. Congress seems surprised when the cash goes “poof” and disappears from existence. Albert Einstein was one of the world‘s greatest thinkers. "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
Grover Norquist embraces the absurd, half witted fallacy of republicanism. “shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” said Grover. Like many stupid, arrogant people, Grover struggles to connect government’s indispensable role in society even as it bails out Grover’s failed deity, the Free Market. Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and other republican halfwits are in full cry over the government’s largess as it pours money into a vain attempt to salvage what’s left of the ever grasping, sucking republicans of the financial industry. Congress, in democratic hands, bends to their demands, when it should be nailing their worthless hides to the nearest barn door.
The banks and investment houses should shed their thieving, inept management. New, intelligent management would come readily from the nation’s small business’s, and the nation’s colleges. But they’re not experienced the right wing will shriek! And what do they know about running a financial network? They know they couldn’t do worse than what’s already been done by the wizards of finance! Americans are resilient and determined people who don’t approach a task, no matter its difficulty, with notions of failure. Intelligent, talented people would quickly fill the vacuum left by the previous, destructive tenants.
The millions of Americans who are suffering from Wall Street’s greed and incompetence would find some justice in seeing the wizards gone, and their ill begotten gains taken from them. Rewarding the fat boys with billions of taxpayer dollars that disappear into dozens of pockets with no tangible solutions for the nation’s pain is compounding the financial industries criminal behavior. The American people’s confidence in their government and financial institutions may be at least partially restored if the quid pro quo were sent packing. Americans are angry and confused. They can’t see how showering hundreds of billions on the very people who caused the economic catastrophe will help. To keep giving the leaches more taxpayer dollars brings to mind the old adage, “It is a good thing to follow the first law of holes; if you are in one, stop digging.”
The parasites who have been manipulating the market to fleece investors obviously have no regard for their nation’s health. They have been laughing at the naïve stupidity of Americans for years, and now they’re having hysterics that such a nation of fools will reward them for stealing the shirts off their backs. They’ve already taken over a trillion dollars, and there hasn’t been the slightest indication of recovery. Of course, some portion of the money went straight into the wizards pockets as bonuses but under Bush, Americans are not privy to knowing where any of it went. Gee Whiz! Could it be they stuck it in their bottomless pockets?
Banish the leaches and thieves, just as the presidents brother Neil was forever banned from the banking industry for his theft of Silverado Savings and Loan in the S&L debacle. Let them fall. There won’t be much drop because all nature abhors a vacuum and fresh, talented people would quickly step in to take the reigns of the nation’s financial industry. If the current thieves remain in their positions, it’s a sure bet they will keep stealing. They think that stealing is their business . Their outright banishment from the financial industry would go a long way in restoring American’s confidence in their government and financial institutions.
Americans have a right to have talented people working in sincere regard for the economic health of their nation. The current crop of thieves and incompetents have bent their tireless efforts over many years to remove all regulations to clear the way for their theft. If they’re not tossed they’ll only wait until the time is ripe - until America’s short attention span permits another massive robbery.
