Please Vote For A Return to Logical Reason In America

The attack of 9/11 was a terrible thing. But, just because we were attacked, we can't lose focus on our own homeland and the economy as we defend ourselves. Our commander and chief has to be able to chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. (Something comes to mind about pretzels and riding a bicycle.) Accusing anyone of being Un-American because they don't share the views of an administration that has already shown several failed attempts at policy decision is another attempt at being stubborn without reason. Following a paranoid leader who is grasping at straws as he plummets to his destruction, especially when he can't admit his own mistakes, has been the undoing of many a society (I am reminded of Nazi Germany before World War II). See, the NeoCons right there will be jumping up and down and saying I called George Bush a Nazi, even though that was nothing like what I said. They are so ready to jump at anything they consider a verbal faupaux now, because their spin and twist everything said to make anyone who doesn't agree with them sound like an idiot or a conspiracy theorist, not to mention a treasonous traitor.

In a fragile economy, with jobs on the increase at about one tenth of the rate needed, we are told things are getting better. That is like telling us that after a huge tornado, with death and destruction laid for miles in front of us, the only thing the people responsible for relief have to say is, "Gee, ain't it grand the wind stopped blowing? Everything is all better now."

George Bush says this is the bottom line: "ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?"

And the answer is: "HELL NO!" With a jobless economy, when wages are decreasing for those who have jobs, when benefits and health care have all but disappeared, and now they are messing with overtime for U.S. citizens who work overtime. Ask yourself, "Who is benefitting from laws that deny you a decent wage, benefits, and overtime?" Our country is beginning to look like it is a society of corporate facism. If you want to ask about what farm workers and migrant laborers think, when the Bush administration is supposedly working to help illegal immigrant workers, then, go check the AFL-CIO website. They have a section called the Bush Watch. Do George Bush and Dick Cheney really believe that we think a war created at a convenient target (especially since we now know it wasn't a security issue), in order to "act" like they are doing something about national security is going to distract us from the real issues that middle class parents in the U.S. are facing?

During the Ronald Reagan administration they borrowed massive amounts of money from foreign banks to "look like" we hadn't blown the national economy on a lost cause (the Viet Nam War) and that we were still the richest nation in the world. They were afraid that would cause us to lose faith in our government. That is where the disagreement starts. Looking good financially because we are doing so on credit doesn't make us the richest nation, we just look like we are. The problem with that kind of administration is that they leave the debt for future administrations to pay back. They never admitted that is what they did. They left office without anyone noticing they lied, so, why admit mistakes now?

That is the biggest part of the problem with our economy now. Let me explain the difference, using an analogy that the average person should understand: If I were president of a small business and I told my employees that business was booming, although the amount of money needed to run that business was ten times what the business was really making, then, I would be lying. If the money that was really coming in was mostly from loans and I didn't divulge these transactions and kept telling my employees that everything was just fine then, I would be lying.

Now, here is a financial plan that worked during that time. The plan was not one of improvement. It was a plan of destruction. There were several countries we didn't really like, but payed to do some fighting for us and bands of terrorist cells were created and aimed at the U.S.S.R. When the Soviet government was bankrupt they went broke trying to fight that war on all fronts. Like what is happening to us now. It is almost like a cruel joke someone played our own dirty politics trick back on us and we fell for it. So, that is how America "looked like" it was still the richest nation in the world, but..., we were lied to. Just like Enron found out, a business can't just "SAY" that it has money in order to look good on paper.

Now, if I could retire in eight years and let the future owners take over the business as it was about to go bankrupt and say, "Gee, everything was fine while I was on the job", then, I would be lying. Some people call lying to the public and telling them that everything in the economy is getting better, as if it was already improved to the point that "everyone here" should be seeing the improvement, is being "positive". The rest of us call that what it is. It still is "LYING".

First, and I might sound cold-blooded for saying this but, previous to the fifties, war was considered a manner of natural selection of our population. At one time, when our population was not as irresponsible about "booming" with babies that we couldn't afford as it is now, our population stayed down. War thinned out the number of young men available to be in the workforce so jobs weren't a problem. The draft took all but the disabled and the elite. After WWII, the number of jobs created was more than the men who returned. Then, the Rosey the Riveter type females wanted to keep the jobs they had filled during the war. Two things, 1) ERA, the equal rights of women who wanted to take jobs that were previously only for men, and 2) the volunteer army or a lack of a selective service draft into military service caused the job growth to be decreased. There just aren't as many jobs as there are people. After Viet Nam, several people were disillusioned with our military and it showed that pouring more money on defense problems doesn't work. LBJ tried. Nixon tried. We backed out. Some people here are misguided enough to think we won the war in Viet Nam. Here is some bad news, the other guys think we lost. When you fly away with the other side still shooting at you and run home, it is considered a loss. Get over it. Since we vowed to quit using nuclear weapons in World War II, we don't scare anyone.

Now, this is going to be the complicated part for some people to understand:
When the guy whose unemployment ran out three years ago and still can't find a job hears on the news that the Dow is doing better today, as if he supposed to be overjoyed that some people who can afford to own shares are going to let the money trickle down to him is expected to be grateful for this, don't expect it. Let me break that run-on sentence down for those who might have missed something.

Picture this: You want to be a tax-paying, hard working American. You always have been. You lose your job because of a disability to work in your chosen field and through no fault of your own. You are now a displaced worker. You are still looking for work and unemployment insurance ran out three + years ago. Some idiot on the news is telling you that unemployment is going down. You know that is because people like you, who can't file for unemployment anymore, are being ignored by the statistics. You are angry at the government for making it sound like the problem is going away instead of getting worse. Even though you have marketable skills for some reason you still can't find a job. You look at the "help wanted" ads in the local newspaper. For some reason the employers in your state are being so picky about who they hire that they are almost NOT hiring anyone except minimum wage and temporary positions. You remember that four years ago the help wanted section was about 25 pages long and now everything in that section of the paper has almost diminished. You went back to college and spent almost three years of your life re-educating yourself for a future goal in an expanding business field. Immediately after graduation you found out that the career that you studied so hard for and that was so available, in the good old U.S.A., land of opportunity, got sent overseas under the guise of "free trade" agreements (which you now know really means cheap labor used instead of paying American workers a fair wage and benefits). You have studied the economy in college and realize the statistics being published don't make sense in all this lack of jobs. You remember when you went to the investment seminar where the guy speaking told you said, "All you have to do is invest that "EXTRA Ten Thousand Dollars" in the stock market." You and almost everyone else there was looking around at each other wondering, "WHAT is he talking about?? What is an EXTRA TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS? If I had that much extra I wouldn't need to be worried about money." Then the stock market crashes. Now, some smiling idiot in a bow tie comes on television and tells you how the economy is doing great because the DOW went up a couple of points. The one thing you want to scream at this smiling idiot is that HE HAS A JOB. He is one of those people with an "extra ten thousand" and he doesn't understand who you are and what you are going through.

Welcome to George Bush's America. He thinks he owns it and doesn't have to answer to anyone for his actions. I am not even going to go into the quagmire of the debate about the war, that is subterfuge. The Swiftboat Veterans who might as well call themselves Liars Paid For By Bush Cronies are another example of how his own politics have blown up in his face. The war in Iraq is a smoke screen to avoid the real issues that President Bush is avoiding. There is NO plan for the Bush administration. To try to get America back on track and offset the damage the Bush administration's funding cuts have done to health care, John Kerry came up with a plan. It would be expensive to get started. George Bush is going to leave you without health care under the guise of saving the tax payers' money while spending BILLIONS of the tax payers' money on a war that he himself admitted can't be won. But he thinks that is a better plan.

I heard a message on a political anouncement today in which the president said, "We need to focus on developing jobs in America. We need to focus on providing affordable health care to everyone in America." To that I say, "No, we needed to continue to do that four years ago, using the same policies that the previous administration had already implemented, but this administration didn't want to do anthing the "other guys" did and that attitude has cost us the present problems with our economy. Being stubborn and not admitting mistakes is not being strong. It is continuing in a wrong direction. That helps no one.

If you doubt what I say is true, look it up. And if you think the present administration is out for the good of the country, ask them why the issues have been the same since the Clinton Administration and why the Bush Administration hasn't addressed them, except verbally, in the past four years.

Please vote for a return to reason. Thank You.

Posted by azmildman_1 at 4:34 PM MDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Wednesday, 13 October 2004 4:48 PM MDT

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