10/26/05 "ICH" -- -- In recent weeks, every morning's newspaper seems to carry another headline documenting the accelerating tailspin of George Bush's administration into disastrous fiasco. Political pundits may attribute the ongoing self-immolation of George Bush to the general ineptitude of the Mayberry Machiavellis with whom he has surrounded himself.
But there is another, more historically correct explanation for the current presidential unraveling: the disaster that is George Bush is the inevitable culmination of the "revolution" wrought by Ronald Reagan.
The Great Charlatan swept into office proclaiming that government was the problem. If only it got out of the way, the energy, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector would be unleashed and a golden economic age would dawn. A rising tide of affluence would lift all boats, and we would all sail off into a rosy sunset.
Now after eight years of the Gipper, four years of Bush I, eight years of Republican Lite under Clinton, and five years of Shrub, we see the truth of the Reagan Revolution. The gradual withering away of the welfare and regulatory state has not unleashed the American entrepreneurial spirit. Rather, it has set loose the predatory greed of the 19th century robber barons, the class cannibalism of Social Darwinism, and the winner-take-all rapacity of laissez faire capitalism.
The bright and shining "morning in America" that Reagan touted has turned into a cold, gray dusk as the sun rapidly sets on the American dream. In the 25 years since Reagan was sworn into office, the middle class is shrinking and the gap between wealthy and poor is reaching Grand Canyon proportions. During this period the average after-tax income of the lowest fifth of Americans has increased by 5%, the middle fifth by 15%, and the top fifth by 48%. The income of the top 1% of Americans, in contrast, has more than doubled, growing from $298,900 to $631,700, an increase of 111%.1
The trickle down promised by supply-side economists has diminished to a slow drip. The tax policies of George Bush have only exacerbated this problem. The combined effect of his tax cuts has been to reduce federal tax revenue to its lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950.2 The inevitable result is the return of Reaganesque tax deficits that Bill Clinton worked so hard to erase. George Bush is mortgaging our future, and the Chinese hold the note.
Reagan came into office promising to shrink government to keep it from stifling private initiative. He and his successors may not have been too successful in shrinking the size of the government, but they have certainly magnified its ineptitude. The government that once put a man on the moon now cannot deliver ice to the Gulf Coast.
The American military that conducted a multi-front war to defeat the formidable powers of Germany and Japan cannot subdue shadowy car bombers in Iraq or the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan. A military logistical system that was able to supply its armies across two oceans somehow can't coordinate the delivery of armored Humvees to troops stationed in Iraq or supply them with up to date bullet proof vests.
Privatization was another of Reagan's sacred tenets. The theory was that privatizing services once provided by government would result in greater efficiencies at lower costs. The Iraq occupation was to be a textbook case for the miracle of privatization. First the American forces destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure (except for the oil industry), then the job of rebuilding was turned over to large, private, well-connected construction firms.
Two years after the American invasion the Iraqis have only intermittent electrical service and inadequate water supplies. But the construction firms did prove efficient in at least one area: ripping off the American taxpayer. Billions of dollars have disappeared into the black hole of Iraq reconstruction, and contract administrators can only shrug and mumble about difficult circumstances.
The Bush administration may have fumbled relief efforts in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But it was well prepared to apply the lessons of Iraq reconstruction to the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. The Katrina clean up could have been one huge WPA project to help alleviate the widespread poverty so cruelly exposed by the monster storm. Instead George Bush rescinded wage and environmental regulations and turned the Gulf Coast into a free fire zone for crony capitalism.
The same well-connected, underperforming firms from Iraq were given the same no-bid, no oversight contracts in Louisiana and Mississippi. As a result, illegal immigrants are being paid at below minimum wage rates to do the work that should be done by displaced residents at Davis-Bacon wage rates. One can anticipate the importation of workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan as New Orleans displacees are shuttled from one government trailer park to another.
Politicians and their supporters love to wax romantic about the legacy they leave behind. Here's the Reagan/Bush legacy: failed wars, support of terrorists, environmental degradation, the income distribution of a banana republic, a credit rating a third world country would be ashamed of, falling health standards, the disappearance of guaranteed retirement pensions, and corporate malfeasance on an unprecedented scale.
George Bush loves to end his speeches with a request for God to bless the United States of America. What he really needs to ask is for God to save us.
David Martin - <damrtn48@ntplx.net>
Notes
1 Figures taken from Congressional Budget Office report, Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates: 1979 to 2002, March 2005.
2 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Tax Returns, A Comprehensive Assessment of the Bush Administration's Record on Cutting Taxes, April 23, 2004.
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George Bush's approval rating is not the only thing that is falling. Support for the U.S. war on terrorism was high after 9/11 and so was George W. Bush's popularity. But now all that appears to be changing and the rivalry between Russia and the U.S. is heating up as both Putin and Bush compete for spheres of influence.
The public utterings from the Bush Administration about tyrants, dictators, human rights abuse, and weapons of mass destruction, doesn't apply to our friends anymore than it applied to Saddam when he was our man in Iraq, even when he was killing Kurds and Shiites; or the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Soviets in a proxy war for us. Except now Bush has other problems. Russia is stepping back into Central Asia to fill a void, much of which has been caused by George W. Bush's terrible foreign policy.
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There can be little doubt that it was British officialdom in Palestine, mindful of the old imperialistic formula of "divide and rule," which encouraged the obstructionist tactics of the British-appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and other Arab leaders. Had the administration there been willing to carry out the mandate given to Great Britain by the League of Nations, had it defined the position between Arabs and Jews in Palestine in the terms of the mandate, the outbreak of riots in 1920, in 1921, in 1929, and again in 1936 could probably have been avoided.
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Ha-Emet
2005-10-26 23:57:46 EST
Where is the American Dream?
The vehemence with which those who defend selfishness and insensitivity, individualism and disdain for the poor tells us a lot about ourselves and who we are as Americans. This "Americanism" is the yardstick by which we measure what has become our uniquely American ethos. The "American Dream" is a fantasy created in another time, the idealized vision of a make-believe parallel universe -- It is a false dream in a golden ghetto.
"The American Dream never did exist for one group of Americans--the poor. And if life has become more difficult for all working people, it is a disaster for the growing numbers thrown on the trash heap in the richest country in the world." (Alan Maass, Case for Socialism, 2003 - Haymarket Bks)
Continued --> http://pnews.org/ArT/ImP/AmeR.shtml
A. Lexus De Toke-ville
2005-10-27 00:07:15 EST
al953 wrote:
> What Reagan Started, Bush Is Finishing
What's that, the destruction of the world?
S*@hotmail.com
2005-10-28 00:27:32 EST
Ha-Emet wrote: > Where is the American Dream? > > The vehemence with which those who defend selfishness and insensitivity, > individualism and disdain for the poor tells us a lot about ourselves and > who we are as Americans. This "Americanism" is the yardstick by which we > measure what has become our uniquely American ethos. The "American Dream" > is a fantasy created in another time, the idealized vision of a > make-believe parallel universe -- It is a false dream in a golden ghetto. > > "The American Dream never did exist for one group of Americans--the > poor. And if life has become more difficult for all working people, it is > a disaster for the growing numbers thrown on the trash heap in the richest > country in the world." (Alan Maass, Case for Socialism, 2003 - Haymarket > Bks) > > > Continued --> http://pnews.org/ArT/ImP/AmeR.shtml
You are one stupid bastard. The poor is who the American Dream was meant for. To be able to start your life being born into a dirt poor family and wind up going to college and moving up to the middle class or higher. That is the dream. You dirtbags don't know what poor is. If your mother asks you why you are crying, and you tell her it is because you are hungry, then you can talk about being poor. You will never understand. You socialist bastards want to drag everyone down to being poor. You disgust me.
Al953
2005-10-30 23:13:04 EST
"A. Lexus (de Toke-ville)" <eat@spam.yum> wrote in message news:8oY7f.14080$MN6.5425@fed1read04... > al953 wrote: > >> What Reagan Started, Bush Is Finishing > > What's that, the destruction of the world?
Broadly speaking; Yes!
Wm James
2005-11-06 23:33:03 EST
On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 21:07:15 -0700, "A. Lexus (de Toke-ville)" <*t@spam.yum> wrote:
>al953 wrote: > >> What Reagan Started, Bush Is Finishing > >What's that, the destruction of the world?
If the democratic party is the world, perhaps. :)
In the eyes of the democrats, the world has ended. At least their world, where they had total power for a generation and the voters were such easy dupes that conservatives in the south and liberals in the north and fruits on the left coast, even the blacks and the KKK both voted democrat. The american people finally had enough. It wasn't Reagan's revolution, however, it was Barry Goldwater who started it all. After seeing freedom eroded, taxes becoming more oppressive, and the US weakened for year after year by the democratic party using tax dollars to buy votes from every group promising everything and delivering nothing but bigger and more intrusive government, it became all too apparent to too many under the incompetence of Jimmy Carter that the democrats were not offering any solutions and in fact were the problem. People aren't so gullible anymore. The days of one newspaper and three TV networks being the only source of news and information is long dead. Politicians can no longer promise opposing groups whatthey want and not be noticed. Socialist programs can no longer be peddled without people calling it what it is. The information age is the democratic party's worse nightmare. And the republicans cannot keep acting like democrats and expect to keep the power they have obtained. They were elected to replace the demoicrats for a reason, and they too will be replaced if they don't earn their positions soon.
William R. James
Wm James
2005-11-21 08:30:07 EST
On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 21:07:15 -0700, "A. Lexus (de Toke-ville)" <*t@spam.yum> wrote:
>al953 wrote: > >> What Reagan Started, Bush Is Finishing > >What's that, the destruction of the world?
If the democratic party is the world, perhaps. :)
In the eyes of the democrats, the world has ended. At least their world, where they had total power for a generation and the voters were such easy dupes that conservatives in the south and liberals in the north and fruits on the left coast, even the blacks and the KKK both voted democrat. The american people finally had enough. It wasn't Reagan's revolution, however, it was Barry Goldwater who started it all. After seeing freedom eroded, taxes becoming more oppressive, and the US weakened for year after year by the democratic party using tax dollars to buy votes from every group promising everything and delivering nothing but bigger and more intrusive government, it became all too apparent to too many under the incompetence of Jimmy Carter that the democrats were not offering any solutions and in fact were the problem. People aren't so gullible anymore. The days of one newspaper and three TV networks being the only source of news and information is long dead. Politicians can no longer promise opposing groups whatthey want and not be noticed. Socialist programs can no longer be peddled without people calling it what it is. The information age is the democratic party's worse nightmare. And the republicans cannot keep acting like democrats and expect to keep the power they have obtained. They were elected to replace the demoicrats for a reason, and they too will be replaced if they don't earn their positions soon.