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 Lemmings to the Front!;

by Jon Faulkner

OpEdNews.Com

Bush and Co have no intention of giving up power just because a few voters want them to. There were millions of protesters against the invasion of Iraq and he dismissed them as “focus groups.”

Bush will manage to slither into office again in November. There will be a few accusations of electronic vote fraud and some obviously scrubbed voter lists, but the democrats will go down whimpering again. The corporate media will do its job resurrecting “Soreloserman” and “Get over it” homilies while gleefully celebrating another humiliating defeat of the Democratic Party. Kerry will orate ad naseum and his long-winded, perfectly predictable resignation speech will bore the Hell out of anyone who’s listening. When he’s finished squeaking, the right wing will get back to business.

Millions of Americans are going to have their social security taken from them. Retirees will be told some clumsy lies like the ones they swallowed about Medicare. All anyone needs to know about the new Medicare bill is that it prohibits the government from negotiating lower costs for the uninsured. Imagine that. After Bush and Co. are installed for another four years they won’t even bother concealing the lies. Why should they? A good lie is expensive and time consuming and it’s plain there’s a lot of folks out there who’ll believe anything. Besides, when government gives the social security trust fund to the private sector old folks will be retiring to luxury condos in Bora Bora, complete with docking facilities for their new yachts! And how about that Halliburton? They’d love to have the chance to serve senior citizens!  You know your money will be safe – just look at Halliburton’s work in Iraq. And don’t forget; none other than Dick Cheney was the CEO, and is still a stockholder. Halliburton is not an investment house? No problem! The Bush/Cheney administration has lots of friends in banking and investment. Just check a list of their campaign contributors. For a fee, Halliburton will make sure the trust fund gets into the right hands. 

Republicans will see to it that average Americans can’t get their day in court. After stealing the 2000 election Bush and Co put Tort Reform at the top of their “to do” list. But then, with Iraq and other distractions, they got too busy. During their second term there will be plenty of time for the Republican Congress to rubber stamp a Tort Reform bill. The cap they intend to put on damage awards will stop many lawsuits from ever arriving in court. Average Americans don’t have the money to litigate against a corporation and with a cap on awards trial lawyers will no longer accept contingency cases. If the cap is $250,000, the corporation simply drags its feet and plaintiffs lawyer has soon spent more on the case than it’s possible to collect. You won’t hear about any of this. You won’t hear about Firestone, Ford Motor Corporation, chemical and pharmaceutical industries and hundreds of other corporations that have been held accountable and punished for selling faulty or dangerous products. These corporations have been sued by trial lawyers and forced to bring their products into conformity with public safety. Without recourse to the courts, Americans would still be getting blown up by unsafe fuel tanks. They’d still be riding around on Firestone Tires that cause rollovers when the tread separates. Today, with Bush and Co busy de-funding and de-regulating government watchdog agencies, it’s a slam-dunk against fairness and justice as the courts are priced out of the reach of average Americans. You won’t hear this side of the story. You will hear about the woman who sued McDonald’s after being scalded by hot coffee that she spilled on herself. Then you’ll hear the sound of the courthouse door slamming shut.

 Bush will get himself installed again because there’s simply too much to lose. A new administration would go poking around the cobwebs and discover God knows what kind of records detailing the horrific extent of Bush and Co crimes. Besides that there is too much money left to steal and democrats would throw it away on really dumb things like repairing the infrastructure, cleaning up the environment, salvaging what’s left of successful social programs, sending a few corporate bums to the pokey and so on. There will be some small comfort in Bush’s re-installment. We won’t have to listen to Tom Daschle drone on about cooperation and bi-partisanship and how democrats are ready and eager to help Bush advance any insane, whimsical fantasy he’s lately hallucinated about. The Democratic National Committee, after conceding to Bush, will slink back under their rock and undaunted, carefully plan their next humiliation.

Mr. Racoon watched from the edge of the wood as the Lemmings ran to the cliff top. “Hurry! Hurry!” he heard them call to each other. “The sky is falling! Just like the chicken said!” Mr. Racoon shook his head as the first of them began jumping. “You’re committing suicide!” he yelled after them. “No we’re not!” a fading voice called back. “We’re falling faster than the sky is!”

Jon Faulkner Stockholm, ME beatduhbush@usadatanet.net Bio: I’m a licensed mariner and a life-long liberal democrat. I think taxes are a good idea if it means I can drive on good roads that are kept plowed so I can bring my kids to school safely.