P.J.
O’Rouke called it Parliament of Whores, an apt title for a book on the federal-2-party system. They are all slime; only some leave a wider trail of destruction through the garden of life. Jim Hightower describes the Bush camp (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Aschroft, and Bush) as loopy.
“We’re talking bullgoose-loopy, ideological fr3eaks whose snorting rampages
pose a threat to us all and to all we hold dear. It’s not that they’re
a little to the right. No. They’re
insane—zealots dedicated to implementing their plutocratic, autocratic, antidemocratic, militaristic, and imperialistic
vision of American (and the world_--and it’s time we stopped beating around the bush about it. . . . These people must
be stopped and taken away to a very quiet, soothing place where they can no longer do harm.
Think about it. James Hightower warns us that in four short years they
have:
Ø Heisted
$1.3 trillion form our public treasury and doled it out to their richest campaign backers.
Ø Defoliated
our environment protections.
Ø Launched
a class war not only against the poor, but against the middle class as well.
Ø Taken
a weedwacker to our Bill of Rights.
Ø Sought
to castrate labor unions.
Ø Turned
a $240 billion budget surplus into a $520 billion debt.
Ø Attempted
to privatize everything from the Park Service to
Ø Social
Seecurity.
Ø And
hurled our nation into a maniacal, messianic, testosterone-driven global war to make the world safe for Halliburton.”
And as David Sirota and Christy Harvey, they knew Iraq posed no nuclear threat, they knew the aluminum tubes were
not for nuclear weapons {LINK}; they knew the Iraq-uranium claims were not supported; they knew there was no hard evidence
of chemical or biological weapons; they knew Saddam and bin Laden were not collaborating; they knew there was no Prague meeting;
Conclusion: They knew they were misleading America. Strong evidence for followed each of these headings in the article by Sirota
& Harvey. “Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and another
administration official confirmed that the White House was actually looking for a way to invade Iraq well before the terrorist
attacks [of 9/11].”
The evidence contrary to White House claims fits into the
pattern of wanton disregard for a balanced analysis of the evidence. It is like
the arguments of Creationist: every inference in favor of a conclusion is made
as though the were the gospel truths, weak evidence is presented as strong, and the overall conclusion requires an act of
faith by those who have conscientiously evaluated both sides. Moreover, for those
who make the argument, it is an example of the ends justifying the means: for
religion the saving of souls, for our Legislative and Executive branches the perceived need to exert a greater hegemony over
a region that supplies so much of the world’s oil. The Middle East situation
with the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq provides an example of the depth of our involvement in world economics. Every oil producing country has (except during periods of war and preparation for
war with the capitalist powers) maintained policies favorable to the international oil corporations. When truth is in conflict with policy, it is our government’s policy--like
the creationist—to lie.
Our Middle-East propaganda is not the result of an
isolated and special situation, but rather part of a general disregard for truth. Bush’s
administration’s disregard for scientific research has been so repeated demonstrated that a group of over 1000 leading
scientists, including 48 Nobel Laureates have signed a document detail their abuse
of science. Our government proves the quip about politicians: If their lips are moving they are lying.
Our economic, trade, corporate, and military
policies are proof of Plato’s evaluation of democracy: he observed that
it is the second worst form of government—after tyranny. The collection
of articles, which hopefully you are carefully perusing, details just how bad our government is. Popular belief about our government is one more thing which the person of reason—a skeptical person--finds
grossly wanting. How wanting, who far the results are from what could easily
be obtained the ideal is the underlying theme of the collection of paper found in this website and links on the home page.
For those not willing presently to allocate the time to peruse this collection
of articles on our political/economic system, I highly recommend Social Justice: Eight Steps Forward.
