Musings of a patriotic mule...

Everyone Wants Their 15 Minutes of Hate
Hitler had Jews, communists, homosexuals, intellectuals, and dissenters. Stalin had Trotsky.
Big Brother had Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, and the Republicans have Clinton.

These "enemies of the state" become the focal point for a nation's anger. A cunning dictator uses the anger created by injustice within the oppressed society, and blames the token "enemy of the state" for the creation of the bad conditions.

After World War I, Germany endured a harsh depression. Hitler galvanized the German people's anger, frustration, and humiliation by blaming the Jews, the failed German state, and others for Germany's sad state of affairs. Stalin blamed Trotsky for his failings, and of course we have the Bush administration.

September 11th happened because of Clinton. The recessionary sagging economy is also Clinton's fault. Everything is Clinton's fault in the eyes of the Bush administration. Their media outlets continue to harp on Clinton, the Democrats, and liberals for the current shortcomings in America.

All of this, of course, is nonsense, but focusing the anger of the people against a domestic enemy is a means to unite them in favor of a dictatorial individual.

A free society asks questions and holds its leaders accountable, but it also must look at all options to better itself. Totalitarianism does not allow questions of the government, and if asked will find blame with the token "enemy of the state," or create a new one.

To get a better idea of how this works, I'd recommend reading George Orwell's, "Animal Farm." I have jokingly called it the feel good book of the 20th Century, but its a good insight into how revolutions become distorted, and how they become subverted.

Back in the USSA

"In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One. "
Yakov Smirnoff

We lost. We buried the Soviet Union, and now we've become it... sort of.

America is becoming a one party state, the corporate party. The GOP has almost succeeded in killing off the Democratic Party, and the Dems are uncertain what to do. If Kerry loses in November, the game will just about be over. (Sort of like the Fourth Quarter, 5 minutes left, and the home team is down by 10.)

The GOP will control the White House, maybe Congress, and will get the opportunity of a lifetime (or two) to get nominate young conservative neo-con judges to the Supreme Court. It'll be the neo-con / conservative wet dream, "Bedtime for Democracy."

Growing up, I remember Yakov Smirnoff, and laughing at his jokes, or I should say grimacing to his jokes about life in the Soviet Union. See with the USSR around, it was easy to poke fun at a country like Russia, which was way worse off than the US. Now, that the Soviets have gone to history (although Putin may make a retro-comeback with Russia) the GOP is concentrating on organized labor, workers and the Middle Class here at home.

You'd have thought America was moving toward a prosperous new future, but after September 11th, and the media scrambling over itself to kiss Bush's backside, we're toast. All major media is concentrated into the hands of a few mulitnational corporations, which are major contributors to Mr. Bush's presidential campaign.

So much for the Fourth Estate. A toothless watchdog, blind in one eye, and more concerned with sniffing it's own butt.

At least I can say I grew up in a free country, can't say I'll grow old and die in one. Too bad the people gave in to ignorance and apathy. Maybe there'll be hope to emigrate to a country and tell America jokes, a la Yakov.

"In America, there's thousands of channels to watch, but nothing to see."

Man, how bad have things gotten, that Bush has made me lose hope in my country.?

Please, vote the bastard out.

First Rule of Holes
If you dig a hole, and the hole gets too deep to climb out of, you stop digging.

Now, if a president were to engage our country in a war with no exit strategy, and our troops are mired in a no-win police action, and if that same president racked up record deficits and debt for the country, you'd think he's stop digging holes that were too deep to climb out of.

Worse, if the voters actually paid attention to this knucklehead, you'd think he'd stand a snowball's chance in Hell of actually winning a second term.

Now, it seems my fellow country persons are bound and determined to re-elect that idiot. Do I blame the idiot or those who follow and vote for him when my country goes from bad to worse?

Or as Ben Kenobi said to Han Solo, "Who's more foolish, the fool, or the one who follows the fool?" See, I live in the United States, which has a very illiterate population. Yes, I know most Americans can read around the 7th to 8th Grade level, but I think their comprehension is around the 3rd to 4th grade level.

I can see what Bush and his cronies are up to, its scary, sick, and wrong. I guess the fools that follow him will figure it out, and those that failed to stand up against this crap will feel worse once Mr. Bush gets his and his neo-con way.

As the cliche goes, its always darkest before the dawn, but I think things are going to get much worse. History if riddled with societies going downhill, and then into the oblivion of history. Mr. Bush and his administration, are gung-ho to make sure the world only serves his elitist few for centuries to come, that is if the human race can make it that long once they've entrenched themselves in power.

It's hard to be hopeful these days, unless of course you're a CEO, billionaire, or crony of Bush.

The Titanic is Unsinkable, the US Economy is Unstoppable...

I checked out the federal debt from 1950 to 2004. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Ford were terrible with the debt. We're strapped because of them.

Prior to 1970, the federal debt never increased by more than 5% at worst. During the Truman/Eisenhower terms, the debt actually decreased 4 times! The bottom falls out somewhere between 1974/1975. The debt gets wacky from there. (I'd guess the increased oil prices triggered the double digit inflation of the mid to late 70's.) Only Carter and Clinton started to get a handle on the monster, and Clinton (who should be praised for his fiscal policy) while not diddling interns brought the debt back to manageable levels of those in the 50's & 60's.

Bush II, is taking the nod from his Daddy. The federal deficit increases, on average, of ~6.875% per year under Bush II. The last three budgets have been record setting, and averaging them together adds up to ~$500 billion/year. The federal debt should be around $7.39 trillion by 9/30/2004. When Dubya took office, the debt was around $5.7 trillion.

I've estimated four more years of Bush will drag the deficit down to around $9.66 trillion by 2008. (That's assuming an average of a 6.875% increase per year for four years, barring any major conflicts, which could drag the debt down to $10-12 trillion, at a guess.)

If you just look at the percentage increases, Reagan tops the bill. He increased the federal debt by 17.88% in one year. (1984.) The second place record holder for amount of debt racked up would be Bush I. Poppa Bush had to have that war with Iraq, which triggered Dubya and the neo-cons to go for Iraq War II, which gives us around $2.9 trillion of the debt battling Saddam. I hate to think what would happen if we got into a war with a real enemy.

The bottom line is we're going full speed ahead to financial ruin if we don't get a grip on spending at the federal level. The "trickle down" economics of Reagan/Bush/Bush II are ruinous policies. Sure it's nice to get a tax cut now and then (although they've mostly managed to kind of skip over us middle to lower income Americans ) it's bad when you borrow from the treasury to keep government running. It's makes as much sense as paying your bills and covering your expenses with credit cards. Additionally, the more empty dollars put in circulation devalues the currency, which is good for selling things overseas, but bad for American buying power at home.

The two major financial icebergs ahead will be the fact that Baby Boomers begin to retire in 2011. The second iceberg is going to be oil. It's estimated that within the next 20-50 years the world's oil production will hit peak production, which means demand will be greater than supply. At that point, kiss Western Civilization as we know it, good bye.

Sooner or later, the shell game of Reaganomics will crap out, and we're going to be left holding the festering bag of crap, left to us by terrible domestic policy. At least people can say that Reagan, Bush I, Bush II made them feel good and patriotic about America, it's all they're going to have left.

(My source was the government site, http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto4.htm)

Bush the Twerp

It occured to me who Bush reminds me of, that twerpy guy from "The Green Mile." You know, that creepy sinister little guy that was eager to see an electrocution, who got the job because his daddy was the governor of the state or something like that.

I was thinking about how that little guy wanted to see an electrocution go bad, and how Bush must have really wanted to be a war president.

'Cause seeing bodies burned and churned in war is cool. (Insert Beavis & Butthead like chuckles here.)

CNN has/had a post forum for Wolf Blitzer's show asking what Bush would have to do to get my vote. I marked the box as positive, and submitted the following...

Here's a starter list of what Bush would need to do to get my vote:

To win my vote, George Bush would need to become a man of peace and common sense. He'd have to become fiscally responsible, he'd have to stop the nonsense about tort reform, stem cell research, gay marriage, tax cuts for his rich cronies, abandon a reckless foreign policy, admit he fumbled the ball on 9/11, admit the war in Iraq was a major blunder and distraction, get tough with Kim Jong Il and North Korea, work on making health care more affordable, promote a living wage and jobs that pay a living wage in America, give up on the boondoggle of the missile defense system, cut out the talk about his "faith based" initiatives, believe that the separation of church and state is good for everyone's personal freedoms, get rid of the "free speech zones," work to curb the civil rights infringements of the Patriot Act, work to promote small businesses and small business growth, and lastly, make the attempt to really understand and sympathize with the American people and give up his elitist platitudes.

I guess you could say, he'd need to become a "Born Again Democrat." Although I'm not big on Kerry, at least he fits all the criteria I mentioned and then some.