posted on December 13, 2001 11:19:08 PM
"The attacks of September 11th wrought a profound spiritual and psychological transformation upon the citizens of the United States of
America. In the vernacular of the media, everything changed. We became aware of our vulnerabilities, and were faced with the dismal
fact that the comfortable reality we had grown used to had been shattered forever.
Fights with loved ones became more stressful; we had to make up and say everything that needed to be said, because we no longer
knew if we would meet again after that person went to work. Airplanes became fearful symbols as they cut contrails across the sky,
and ambulance sirens were harbingers of disaster. The mail was dangerous. Arab-Americans were potentially lethal, and even the most
kind-hearted found themselves profiling total strangers they saw on the street.
There are not enough hours in any lifetime to list all the ways American life has changed, but the simple fact of those changes stares
back you from your bathroom mirror every morning. You are a different person, and so am I. Your soul is different. Your nation is
different.
There is one person in America who is not different, who has not changed, whose priorities are exactly the same as they were on
September 10th, 2001. His name is George W. Bush.
For example, when White House budget director Mitch Daniels came to Bush recently and informed him that America was in a
recession, that the government was diving back into deficit spending that would amount to approximately $100 billion by 2005, and that
Social Security would have to be tapped to cover the shortfall, Bush responded thusly:
"Lucky me. I hit the trifecta."
This comment refers to his statement, made during the campaign of 2000, that he would not tap the Social Security fund until the advent
of war, recession, or national emergency. September 11th has come to embody all three, and Bush feels lucky to have it, apparently. The
attack covers up the fact that he would have had to tap that fund to pay for his ruinous tax cut. He has avoided facing the truth of a
broken vow.
More than that, it reveals the fact that September 11th has changed Bush not at all. He is still the maladroit, inappropriate corporate
profiteer he was in August. "Lucky me," says Bush, in the face of a horrendous torrent of woe that will sweep across all but the most
fortunate and fortune-fattened few. America lives in terror today, both of their lives and of their jobs - not to mention those Americans
who live in terror for the lives of their loved ones serving in Afghanistan - and George W. Bush is feeling lucky.
This is our war leader. This is the man who is supposed to be the penultimate representative of the people. There he sits, feeling lucky
that his mistakes are covered by the death of thousands. Are you feeling lucky to have him where he is?
Let us review a list of all the benefits George W. Bush has garnered since the September 11th attack:
1. His odious fiscal mismanagement has been all but forgotten. Before September 11th, Bush was discovering himself to be in the
unenviable position that Yasser Arafat finds himself in today. Arafat has been trying to balance himself between those who wish to
make peace with Israel (the moderates) and those who wish to drive the Jews into the sea (the hardliners). Such a balance is doomed to
fail, because both sides cannot be appeased at the same time.
Bush was attempting much the same trapeze act on September 10th, between the moderate majority and the hard Right constituency to
whom he owed his success, with the same dearth of success. This was becoming more and more obvious as the recession numbers
rolled in after his ruinous corporate/rich people tax cut was passed. The recession we are now buried in began in March, roundabout the
same time the Clinton budget surplus was gutted by that very tax cut. Things started to slide, and Bush's mismanagement became
manifest. He had no answers and the wolves were circling. Now, that truth is gone.
2. Along the same vein, the fact that his tax cut basically kick-started this recession has been forgotten completely. America is so
traumatized by September 11th that they have rallied behind Bush in an unprecedented fashion, giving him a 90% approval rating. The
American people are nothing if not loyal in times of crisis, which essentially means that a ham sandwich would get a 90% approval rating
if it were put in charge of this mess, and was made to look as if it were doing something.
That 90% rating means Bush can blame this recession on the terrorists, and no one will call him on it, even though he is only half-right in
that statement. Anyone who dares to do so will be labeled treasonous and smashed.
3. He can bury the shameful legacy of Ronald Reagan and his own father. Short of Nixon's crew, no more criminal and murderous a
mob has ever occupied the White House than those who came in under the Reagan/Bush flag. Many of those players are working for
George Jr. today. The wretched truth of their legacy was set to be exposed some weeks ago with the release of the Reagan Papers, but
Bush put that on hold with an absurdly over-reaching Executive Order that buried them forever. The War on Terra has made this
possible - no one in the media is paying attention to his actions, and it will be forgotten.
.or maybe not. An organization called Public Citizen has sued Bush over his actions in regards to these papers. Interesting.
4. In the long term, Bush has erased the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by eviscerating the budget with his tax cut, thereby
denying funds to social programs the Republicans have long desired to destroy. The September 11th attack has also erased this history,
and given him further justification to loot the Treasury to give money to corporations operating safely in the black while the unemployed
are sent to go pound sand.
5. Perhaps most importantly, Bush has managed to dramatically expand the powers of the same Federal government he and his
Republicans have spent so many years denigrating. Those powers now have mastery over citizens' rights as described in the 1st, 4th,
5th, 6th, 8th, and 13th Amendments to the Constitution - those pesky parts about freedom of speech, zealous representation by counsel,
security in person, home and thought, and the importance of avoiding cruel and unusual punishments.
This trick has been accomplished with nary a cry of hypocrisy, and very little complaint from a cowed American populace. The early
draft of the ruinous PATRIOT Anti-Terrorism Bill had a line item rescinding the right of habeas corpus, something that has not
happened since the Civil War. As DU poster Warren Pease so eloquently put it, this is happening "as John Ashcroft rubs his hands in
glee and imagines a new American Inquisition designed to resolve the secular humanist question once and for all."
Big, Intrusive Government is suddenly a good thing, it seems. Lucky for Mr. Bush this is so. If not, people might not be so afraid to
challenge the death of the American Dream he so completely represents.
If you are American and you have a soul, September 11th changed you. It altered your priorities, it rearranged the way you look at the
world. Not so for Mr. Bush. His agenda remains exactly the same as it was the day he took office, and damn the brave new world. Kill
the social programs, give as much as possible to corporations, and hide the stained history that lifted him on high. He is lucky indeed.
His luck is our misfortune. His 'trifecta' is our unemployment, our bread line, our war, our fear, our spiritual and psychological crisis. His
luck is the target on our foreheads, bracketed and braced by terrorists who carry the death wind on their wings. His fortune is our ruin.
posted on December 13, 2001 11:42:09 PM
Exactly. I see our American way of life disappearing at the hands of the Bush family and their cronies. I have never seen nor heard of any other President that has given billions so easily to every corporation, billions for this and billions for that. Where are all these billions coming from? Social security. That raiding of those funds combined with the losing of so many pensions and 401K funds due to the stock market failings mean a lot of folks are going to be living under bridges before long. BUT he keeps giving money to the big business on the pretext of stimulating the economy. The man is an idiot. He has also been quietly undoing all the good things Clinton tried to do for the enviornment before he left office. This man will be not only the ruination of our country but of the entire world if he continues in this vein.
He scared me to death during the election and he scares me more now. I don't want him and Ashcroft being my daddies and looking out for me in the way they want to do.
Everything I feared wold happen has come to pass and it hasn't even been a year yet. I don't see how we as a nation can survive four years with this administration. I hope I am wrong.
Our lives are changed forever and not in a good way and it isn't the terrorists that are doing it.They are just the vehicle that the changes are riding on.
It's bad if your enemy is quick. It's worse if he is patient.
posted on December 14, 2001 06:34:40 AM
Yesterday he invoked executive privilege in directing that Ashcroft refuse the house subpeonas for information. Even the Republican congressmen are threatening to take him to court over it saying things like "This is not a monarchy" and critisizing the administration heavily for distorting and ignoring the constitutionally provided oversight of the executive by the legislative branch.
posted on December 14, 2001 06:39:53 AM
If Bush is not out of office in four years, the entire world is doomed. Surely the people, the Congress and the Senate will rise to the awareness level of Russell Feingold and end the reign of this corrupt, self serving and dangerous administraton.
"Under his authority as commander-in-chief, President Bush seems to have given his Cabinet carte blanche in pursuing suspects, detaining immigrants secretly and establishing military tribunals that could impose the death penalty by a two-thirds vote of the jury without judicial review.
Where are the modern-day Patrick Henrys and Thomas Paines when we need them? Henry was the most celebrated orator of the American Revolution. Every schoolchild has learned his ringing call, "Give me liberty or give me death." And Paine is remembered for his pamphlets on behalf of political equality, tolerance, civil liberties and human dignity.
With strong support in the public opinion polls, the administration obviously feels it is free to proceed in curbing civil liberties.
In their questioning of Ashcroft many of the senators, except for Leahy and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., rolled over. After all, who wants to be called unpatriotic in these times?
Where are the profiles in courage? There are not many on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers seem to be giving up their own rights to set rules on the treatment of immigrants and others in this country who are detained or sought by the government for questioning.
To Bush, Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, I would ask this: Please remember the quote of Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential nominee in the 1950s who said, "Democracy is great not just because the majority prevails but because it is safe to be in the minority."
posted on December 14, 2001 11:34:08 AM
Saabsister,
That's true.......except that members of the house say that the version that they were given to read and review in house is not the version that was submitted at the last minute for vote. They thought that it was, and say that they did not find out that the version they passed was different until well after the bill had been signed into law. Sounds like some fast shuffle went on on the part of the administration.
posted on December 14, 2001 11:56:59 AM
krs, where did you hear about a different version being submitted? I'll admit that this week, I've just skimmed the news. I assume that staff members do most of the reading for Senators and Congressmen, but for so many people to miss it? If so, there must be a method to rectify that - what if someone slipped a payment to a buddy in there at the last minute?
posted on December 14, 2001 12:02:53 PM
LOL! In fact they did slip a payment through, a raise for all of them, but that's not quite the same thing.
There have been several notations in a wide range of media about the claims by representatives that they did not actually get time to read the final submitted version of the subject bill. I've seen it on television, on the net, in news. I Guess I could go dig one of them out...........sigh.
posted on December 14, 2001 12:09:53 PM
Just wanted to add that there are probably many times Senators and Cingressmen suffer amnesia when it comes to bills they've signed.
posted on December 14, 2001 02:22:57 PM
One of the things that the elected representatives are afraid of is another attack.
If any Congressman sinks any of these bills and another attack occurs, there will be political fallout and fodder for his/her opponents. There would be a parade of FBI, INS, and ATF agents at hearings stating that had Congressman so and so not blocked this bill, we would have thwarted this attack.
The same applies to judges. Every judges nightmare is releasing someone and they commit another crime. Is was pure luck that the one hi-jacker caught wasn't released to board one of those planes. But the judge in that case refused to allow the FBI to search the detained suspect's PC and is comming under fire for it and this situation is used as an example for passing these bills.
This stuff happens during every war. Some states made saying the pledge of allegence mandatory for school kids during WWII. The only people that bucked it and went to court were Jehovah's Witnesses. But I don't think their case was settled until after the war.
The mid-term elections and terrorist activity will determine the direction things take.
