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February 5, 2006

State of the Union: Disaster

By Jack Hughes

In every area of federal governance...the Bush administration's incompetence has been of truly historic magnitude. And why should we be surprised, since the only two imperatives for this regime has been a) tax cuts, and b) personal loyalty to George W. Bush.

::::::::

President Bush predictably delivered his laundry list of bromides,
distortions and outright lies during his one constitutionally mandated
report to Congress; the State of the Union address. Predictably, the
partisan Republican majority in Congress interrupted his speech with
hysterical applause and standing ovations on occasions too numerous to
count. Predictably, news analysts parsed the speech afterwards, with the
inevitable sophists reporting dutifully that "the president hit a home run"
and other metaphors for brilliant success.

But also predictably, not one of the nation's paid punditocracy in our
mainstream media - the "watchdogs for our democracy" and the "guardians of
truth" -- would state the obvious fact: the state of our Union is nothing
short of disastrous.

In every area of federal governance - foreign policy, national security, the
military, the economy, the balance of trade, budget deficits, unemployment,
health care, energy, the environment and response to natural disasters, the
Bush administration's incompetence has been of truly historic magnitude. And
why should we be surprised, since the only two imperatives for this regime
has been a) tax cuts, and b) personal loyalty to George W. Bush.

Consider the enormity of both the misfeasance and malfeasance of this
administration:

· Inherited healthy surpluses from the Clinton administration, but
their irrational tax policies have resulted in trillion-dollar deficits

· Ignored repeated warnings of impending Al Qaeda attacks, but were
asleep at the switch (at best) on the morning of September 11

· Has facilitated the decline of America's manufacturing capacity
with the loss of millions of high-paying American jobs

· Has done nothing to rebuild New Orleans or to meet the long-term
needs of Katrina evacuees

· Has protected the interests of the pharmaceutical and health-care
industries instead of the increasing number of Americans who lack health
insurance

· Has cut funding for education making college more unaffordable for
millions of young Americans.

· Has enacted policies that have made the middle class poorer and
more indebted while further enriching the already wealthy

· Allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora

· Spun false rationales for going to war with Iraq, with the result
of thousands of Americans GIs killed, tens of thousands maimed for life, as
many as a hundred thousand innocent Iraqis killed and as much as $2 trillion
wasted

· Created new cadres of anti-American resistance fighters (aka
"terrorists") in Iraq where none existed before, and is now threatening to
do the same in Iran

· Employs the routine use of torture against suspected terrorist
sympathizers

· Engages in surveillance and wiretapping of American citizens in
direct violation of the US Constitution and federal law

And of course, there are the lies. Since this administration's policies are
so egregiously bad (except for the narrowest of plutocratic and theocratic
interests), they must resort to lies and distortions to sell them to the
American people. Always. One would be hard pressed to list a single Bush
policy that was sold on its unambiguous factual merits.

Yet despite five years of the absolute worst governance in American history,
with extremes of mis- and malfeasance beyond all historical precedent, there
is a surreal Orwellian avoidance of the obvious by our blow-dried patrician
Commentariat. In their shallow omniscience, they authoritatively proclaim
"They all do it. Politics as usual." I beg to differ. This ain't politics
as usual.

Previous administrations lied to cover-up their mistakes and misdeeds. The
Bush administration lies not only to conceal its many policy debacles, but
to conceal its true agenda!

One could expect the constitutional concept of divided government to put a
brake on the excesses of the Bush regime. But as we've seen with the
confirmation of Samuel Alito, whose adherence to the principle of the
"unitary executive" will give the president virtually unchecked dictatorial
powers, the Senate has abdicated both its constitutional responsibilities
and its power to George W. Bush. They might as well go home.

Did the K-Street Project generate enough cash to buy these guys off, or did
the NSA's wiretaps collect enough useful dirt to keep enough Senators
compliant?

From the partisan judicial coup that put this regime into power in 2000, to
the stolen elections of 2002 and 2004, we now know that the democratic
process alone will not remove these incompetent ideologues from power. We
must also sadly concede that the Democratic Party is now a force for
political opposition in name only.

The Dems' complacency regarding the ease of hacking electronic balloting in
light of the tainted 2004 election results is simply inexplicable.
Apparently, the Dems will only believe they were screwed out of the
presidency in 2004 if the news media tells them so. But of course, the
corporate media treats the very idea of election theft as ridiculous,
despite all evidence to the contrary (as if men who advocate the routine use
of torture would balk at a little election theft).

When the 2006 elections come and go, the losing Democratic Party (but not
the corporate media) will scratch their heads in sad confusion, wondering
how - in spite of an economy in the tank, unemployment rolls rising, no end
in sight for the debacle in Iraq and an overwhelming lead in opinion
polls -- the GOP somehow (mysteriously, some will say) managed to again
snatch victory from the jaws of defeat to retain power.

That's already a well-defined pattern. If Senate Republicans threaten to
eliminate the filibuster, it's because they do not fear ever being relegated
to minority status again. The fix is in and they know it. Somebody should
explain it to the Dems.

But while the Republicans have demonstrated a ruthless genius for seizing
power, they have proved themselves utterly inept at governance. In just
five short years, their radical ideology has bankrupt our economy, crippled
our volunteer military, increased the risk of terrorist attacks, reduced the
prosperity of the vast majority of the American people, eroded our civil
liberties and, by any objective measure, degraded the state of our Union.

Jack Hughes is the editor, graphic artist, webmaster and resident crank at
www.evilGOPbastards.com. He can be reached at
jack.hughes@evilGOPbastards.com

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.


While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.

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