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(If you aren't already familiar with the now famous illustrated document in it's entirity, I strongly urge you to check it out by clicking here.

Today the President gives his annual address. As the election battle begins, how does his first term add up?
20 January 2004
Information.dk

501: Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the beginning of the war - so far

0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender to the Allies in May 1945

0: Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home from Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed to be photographed

0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for soldiers killed in Iraq

100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice-President Dick Cheney in 2003

10 million: Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, setting an all-time record for simultaneous protest

2: Number of nations that Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into the White House

16,000: Approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start of war

10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi cililians killed since the beginning of the conflict

$100 billion: Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to American citizens by the end of 2003

$13 billion: Amount other countries have committed towards rebuilding Iraq (much of it in loans) as of 24 October

36%: Increase in the number of desertions from the US army since 1999

92%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that had access to drinkable water a year ago

60%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that have access to drinkable water today

32%: Percentage of the bombs dropped on Iraq this year that were not precision-guided

1983: The year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs

45%: Percentage of Americans who believed in early March 2003 that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 11 September attacks on the US

$127 billion: Amount of US budget surplus in the year that Bush became President in 2001

$374 billion: Amount of US budget deficit in the fiscal year for 2003

1st: This year's deficit is on course to be the biggest in United States history

$1.58 billion: Average amount by which the US national debt increases each day

$23,920: Amount of each US citizen's share of the national debt as of 19 January 2004

1st: The record for the most bankruptcies filed in a single year (1.57 million) was set in 2002

10: Number of solo press conferences that Bush has held since beginning his term. His father had managed 61 at this point in his administration, and Bill Clinton 33

1st: Rank of the US worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per capita

$113 million: Total sum raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, setting a record in American electoral history

$200m: Amount that the Bush-Cheney campaign is expected to raise in 2004

$40m: Amount that Howard Dean, the top fund-raiser among the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls, amassed in 2003

28: Number of days holiday that Bush took last August, the second longest holiday of any president in US history (Recordholder: Richard Nixon)

13: Number of vacation days the average American worker receives each year

3: Number of children convicted of capital offences executed in the US in 2002. America is only country openly to acknowledge executing children

1st: As Governor of Texas, George Bush executed more prisoners (152) than any governor in modern US history

2.4 million: Number of Americans who have lost their jobs during the three years of the Bush administration

1,000: Number of new jobs created in the entire country in December. Analysts had expected a gain of 130,000

1st: This administration is on its way to becoming the first since 1929 (Herbert Hoover) to preside over an overall loss of jobs during its complete term in office

9 million: Number of US workers unemployed in September 2003

80%: Percentage of the Iraqi workforce now unemployed

55%: Percentage of the Iraqi workforce unemployed before the war

43.6 million: Number of Americans without health insurance in 2002

130: Number of countries (out of total of 191 recognised by the United Nations) with an American military presence

40%: Percentage of the world's military spending for which the US is responsible

$10.9 million: Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet

88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes

$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to enjoy this year as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes

$42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001

$116,000: Amount Vice-President Cheney is expected to save each year in taxes

44%: Percentage of Americans who believe the President's economic growth plan will mostly benefit the wealthy

700: Number of people from around the world the US has incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

1st: George W Bush became the first American president to ignore the Geneva Conventions by refusing to allow inspectors access to US-held prisoners of war

+6%: Percentage change since 2001 in the number of US families in poverty

1951: Last year in which a quarterly rise in US military spending was greater than the one the previous spring

54%: Percentage of US citizens who believe Bush was legitimately elected to his post

1st: First president to execute a federal prisoner in the past 40 years. Executions are typically ordered by separate states and not at federal level

9: Number of members of Bush's defence policy board who also sit on the corporate board of, or advise, at least one defence contractor

35: Number of countries to which US has suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court

$300 million: Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes

$1 billion: Amount of new US military aid promised Israel in April 2003 to offset the "burdens" of the US war on Iraq

58 million: Number of acres of public lands Bush has opened to road building, logging and drilling

200: Number of public-health and environmental laws Bush has attempted to downgrade or weaken

29,000: Number of American troops - which is close to the total of a whole army division - to have either been killed, wounded, injured or become so ill as to require evacuation from Iraq, according to the Pentagon

90%: Percentage of American citizens who said they approved of the way George Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 26 September, 2001

53%: Percentage of American citizens who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 16 January, 2004

As we experience the crisis of community at home, we are witnessing the effort to repudiate 225 years of American consensus on what our nation's place should be in the world.

Since the time of Thomas Paine and John Adams, our founders implored that we were not to be the new Rome. We are not to conquer and suppress other nations to submit to our will. We were to inspire them.

The idea of America using its power solely for its own ends is not consistent with the idealistic moral force the world has known for over two centuries.

We must rejoin the world community. America is far stronger as the moral and military leader of the world than we will ever be by relying solely on military power. We destroyed repressive communist regimes without firing a shot, not simply by having a strong military, but because we had a better ideal to show the world.

Every American President must and will take up arms in the defence of our nation. It is a solemn oath that cannot -- and will not -- be compromised.

But there is a fundamental difference between the defence of our nation and the doctrine of preemptive war espoused by this administration. The President's group of narrow-minded ideological advisors are undermining our nation's greatness in the world. They have embraced a form of unilateralism that is even more dangerous than isolationism.

This administration has shown disdain for allies, treaties, and international organizations alike.

In doing so they would throw aside our nation's role as the inspirational leader of the world - the beacon of hope and justice in the interests of humankind. And instead, they would present our face to the world as a dominant power prepared to push aside any nation with which we do not agree.

Our foreign and military policies must be about America leading the world, not America against the world.

America Two Years After 9/11: 25 Things We Now Know

By Bernard Weiner

Last year, close to the time of the first anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks, I wrote "Twenty Things We've Learned One Year After 9/11." Now we're approaching the second anniversary, and it's time for an update.

Things we could only speculate about a year ago have taken place -- to name just three: an invasion and occupation of Iraq (based on misleading intelligence and outright lies), an administration that may have committed the treasonous act of deliberately revealing the identity of a CIA agent, and shocking revelations about the computer-screen voting system now being put into place around the country for the 2004 election.

The abbreviated list below can be used both as a reminder to all of us why we're fighting this good, oppositional battle, and as a place to start from when organizing and talking to others about why you will be voting for someone other than George W. Bush in the presidential vote next year.

Here are the topics and here's what we've learned, all factually validated by -- or strongly suggested in -- journalistic reports.

THE IRAQ WAR

1. We know that a cabal of ideologically-motivated Bush officials, on the rightwing fringe of the Republican Party, were calling for a military takeover of Iraq as early as 1991. This elite group included Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Woolsey, Bolton, Khalizad and others, all of whom are now located in positions of power in the Pentagon and State Department.

They helped found the Project for The New American Century (PNAC) in 1997; among their recommendations: "pre-emptively" attacking other countries devoid of imminent danger to the U.S., abrogating agreed-upon treaties when they conflict with U.S. goals, making sure no other country (or organization, such as the United Nations) can ever achieve parity with the U.S., installing U.S.-friendly governments to do America's will, using tactical nuclear weapons, and so on. In short, as they put it, the goal is "benevolent global hegemony."

All of these extreme suggestions, once regarded as lunatic, are now enshrined as official U.S. policy in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, published by the Bush Administration in late 2002.

2. We know that Bush and his highest officials -- notably Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and, to a lesser extent, Powell -- lied outrageously about Iraq's weapons capabilities in order to get their war plans endorsed by the Congress and the American people. The biggest of many whoppers involved were the made-up stories about nuclear "mushroom clouds" over America, unleashed by the Iraqi drone air force.

These lies may have fooled many Americans at the time, but other countries, especially in Europe, smelled the rotten evidence and the imperial ambitions and would have nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, denouncing the Bush Administration to its face. Up to 10 million citizens (mostly organized via the internet) marched worldwide on the same day to try to stop the invasion -- before the war had even started! -- something that had never happened before in world history.

3. We know that Rumsfeld wanted to move on Iraq just a few hours after 9/11, even though he was quickly informed that it was an al-Qaida operation and that there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement. When the CIA and other intelligence agencies said the same thing about a supposed al-Qaida link -- and Iraq's alleged nuclear program and other WMD -- Rumsfeld set up his own intelligence-gathering unit inside the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans, and installed a number of PNAC hardliners to tell him what he wanted to hear. Their cooked-books "intelligence" became the basis for invading Iraq.

4. We know that Bush and his highest officials, their lies having been exposed by their own contradictory words, as usual first decided to blame others: The patsy this time was the CIA, and Tenet fell on his sword, sort of, in accepting the blame. (Angry elements in the CIA then began leaking damning information about Bush&Co. involvement in other WMD lies.)

When Karl Rove and the others snookered the media into focusing on a mere 16 words in Bush's State of the Union Speech about supposed uranium sales to Iraq, they looked at the polls showing a majority of Americans not caring about the lies as long as the evil Saddam had been removed, and began telling even more whoppers. (Meanwhile, in the U.K., Blair could lose his job because he lied even more blatantly than did Bush, if such is possible -- he trumpeted that Iraq could launch biochemical agents at British sites within 45 minutes -- and now he's been found out as well.)

5. We know that Bush and Blair felt compelled to "sex up" their justification for going to war against Iraq by focusing on the WMD issue because the real reason -- to bomb and take over a weak nation in that area of the world as a demonstration warning to other Middle East, oil-rich countries that they'd better come on board or face the same consequence -- would never win the support of the American people. Americans aren't big on overt imperial rule, and the bullying and arrogant militarism that go with such rule, preferring more subtle means of influence and control.

6. We know that although the U.S. promised that there would be a swift turnover of civil rule to the Iraqis, that promise has been revoked. The U.S. occupying authority has appointed its own governing council of hand-picked Iraqis, over which it has veto power, and is hoping that gesture will suffice long enough to set up the Western looting-system. Such behemoth Republican-supporting corporations as Halliburton and Bechtel are making out like bandits with reconstruction contracts awarded by the Bush Administration (in the case of Cheney's old firm Halliburton, with no competitive bidding!).

7. We know that the PNAC cabal, which relied on Iraqi exile fantasies, believed that the citizens of that invaded country would welcome the American & British forces with kisses and flowers. Instead, major factions of the country are engaged in nightly guerrilla warfare against their "liberators" and have killed and wounded more U.S. soldiers after Bush declared the end of major hostilities than were killed in the invasion battles. Oil pipelines and water systems are blown up regularly. There is the familiar odor across Iraq of a Vietnam-type syndrome; you know what I mean: just a little more force and we'll have them on the run/are those friendlies or bad guys? don't take chances, fire!/the troops will be home by Christmas/send another 100,000 soldiers quick.

8. We know that elements of the PNAC/Bush cabal appear anxious to move on to another country, though it's still unclear whether the next target for control (and perhaps "regime change") will be Syria or Iran -- with North Korea becoming more and more bellicose off to the side.

9. We know that two high officials of the Bush Administration leaked to a conservative newspaper columnist the name of a covert CIA agent -- which is a felony. The agent is the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man sent by Cheney to Niger last year to see if there was anything to the story that Iraq supposedly was trying to buy "yellowcake" uranium; Wilson reported back saying that the story was "highly unlikely." After the Bush Administration continued to use this lie in various public speeches -- even though they knew the documents were forgeries -- Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, documenting his version of events. Wilson has since said that by naming his wife, the Bush Administration is sending a warning to other potential whistleblowers in the Administration not to speak up or risk unpleasant consequences. The FBI says it may investigate the matter. Sure it will.

10. We know that just prior to the launch of the Iraq war, the U.S. announced its "road map" for Middle East peace in order to lower the possibility of upheavals in the Arab world. Since the U.S. refuses to fully and energetically engage in the peace process -- to do so would mean leaning heavily on Israel to make major concessions and remove its permanent settlements on Palestinian land -- there is not likely to be genuine and lasting peace in that tortured area of the world. Abbas can't control his extremists, Sharon has his own extremist streak -- the perfect ingredients for more slaughter, and more anger in the Arab/Islamic world against the U.S. and its Israeli proxy. And more fertile soil in which young terrorists can be grown.

THE 9/11 COVERUP

11. We know that the inner national-security circles of the White House knew an attack was coming from al-Qaida, with planes used as weapons, aimed at American icon targets. (These warnings were coming from other governments -- sometimes directly to Bush -- as early as the Spring of 2001 and intensified greatly during the Summer. That is the period, you may remember, when Bush went to ground in Texas for a month and Ashcroft would no longer fly in commercial jets. Even with this advance warning, the Bush Administration did nothing to interdict, stop or otherwise interfere with the terrorist attacks they knew were coming.

12. We know that Bush and Cheney, early on, approached the leaders of the House and Senate and urged them not to investigate the pre-9/11 activities of the Administration.

13. We know that, to this day, the Bush Administration has stonewalled and delayed turning over essential information to both the Congressional committee and to the blue-ribbon independent panel investigating the pre-9/11 period. When the Congressional report recently was released, the Administration redacted 28 pages dealing with the role of Saudi individuals and government officials in financing the terrorists, and, what's perhaps even more vital, redacted all papers related to the May 6 presidential briefing document from the CIA about the likelihood of a domestic terrorist air-attack in the United States.

14. We know that the coverup continues today, from the first days after 9/11, when Condeleeza Rice claimed that the Administration had no idea that planes could be used as weapons against buildings, to the blaming of the FBI for "not connecting the dots." The incoming Bush Administration, including Rice, had been warned by the outgoing Clinton Administration that the #1 national-security threat was al-Qaida terrorism; other Islamic terrorists had tried to use planes as weapons previously, and the chief defendant in the 1993 WTC bombing had admitted that al-Qaida wanted to bomb key buildings, including the Pentagon and the Congress, in future attacks.

The independent 9/11 commission has publicly expressed its frustration at how their investigation -- which must submit its final report in just a few months -- is being hampered by the consistent stonewalling and delaying tactics of the Bush Administration. Likewise, the victims' families are appalled by and angry at those examples of foot-dragging, denials and lying.

DOMESTIC ATROCITIES

15. We know that the Bush Administration paid off its backers (and itself) by giving humongous tax breaks, for 10 years out, to the already wealthy and to large corporations. This was done at a time when the U.S. economy was in recessionary doldrums and when the treasury deficit from those tax-breaks was growing even larager from Iraq war costs. So far as we know, the Bush Administration has no plans for how to retire that debt and no real plan (other than the discredited "trickle-down" theory) for restarting the economy and creating jobs. More than 2,000,000 citizens have lost their jobs since Bush was installed in the White House.

16. We know that the HardRight conservatives who control Bush policy want to decimate and eviserate popular social programs from the New Deal/Great Society eras, including, most visibly, Head Start, Social Security, Medicare (and real drug coverage for seniors), aspects of public education. Since the programs are so well-approved by the public, the destruction will be carried out stealthily with the magic words of "privitization," "deregulation," "choice" and so on, and by going to the public and saying that they'd love to keep the programs intact but they have no alternative but to cut them, given the deficit and weak economy.

17. We know that those with a vested interest in energy policy (the Kenny Lays of America) had major impact in writing that policy, with no consumer-group input; this basically gave these energy cartels carte blanche to rob the states and the public blind. The push for "deregulation" led to gross and illegal manipulation of the energy markets in state after state, and has nearly pushed California, for example, into bankruptcy, with the Bush Administration not lifting a finger to help. And Cheney continues to refuse to tell the courts who attended those energy-policy meetings and what was discussed.

18. We know that Bush environmental policy -- dealing with air and water pollution, national park systems, and so on -- is an unmitigated disaster, more or less giving free rein to corporations whose bottom line does better when they don't have to pay attention to the public interest.

19. We know that in general, the public interest plays little role in the formulation of policy inside the Bush Administration. Those on the inside who have left have revealed that political considerations are at the heart of all decision-making, with little if any discussion of what might benefit the people. Further, they say, there is little or no curiosity to think outside the political box, or even to hear other opinions -- in other words, don't bother me with facts, my mind's made up.

20. We know that there seems to be a "faith-based" view of reality. For example, when there was public clamor for policy to deal with the effects of global warming, the Administration said that was a "controversial" issue that would need more study; it appointed a scientific panel to review the situation. When that panel reported that global warming was real and needed to be dealt with on an urgent basis, Bush denounced the scientists that he himself had appointed as little more than "bureaucrats" and dismissed their conclusions; he also deleted the section on global warming from the annual EPA report. EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman resigned, one would imagine at least partially out of total frustration in dealing with these Neanderthals.

21. We know that the Patriot Act -- which was rushed through Congress in the days right after 9/11, with few legislators having had a chance to read the final draft -- has generated a huge groundswell of public opposition. More than 130 towns and cities have passed resolutions opposing it in part or in whole. The main objections centre around the removal of all sorts of constitutional guarantees of due process of law, such as lawyer-client confidentiality and the sanctity of home privacy, and which authorizes wiretapping and snooping into personal computer files without you ever knowing about it. Even though Ashcroft already has thrown U.S. citizens into military prisons, thus removing them from judicial review, he appears to be desirous of even more outrages in Patriot Act II, including the exiling and deporting of American citizens deemed to be "terrorists."

We know that the Bush neocons were able to get these and similar bills passed by invoking the patriotic buzzwords "national security" and "homeland defence." Most members of Congress went along so that they wouldn't be tarred with the "unpatriotic" brush. And, in general, the Administration constantly has manipulated post-9/11 fears in the population, because it serves their electoral/policy purposes to keep folks jittery and looking to the central government for assurance and stability. (There ARE bad guys out there who wish us harm, but it's possible to deal with that reality without all the Constitution-shredding and psychological manipulation.)

22. We know that more and more, the permanent-war policy abroad and police-state tactics at home -- with the shredding of Constititutional rights designed to protect citizens from a potential repressive government -- are taking us into a kind of American fascism domestically and an imperial foreign policy overseas. As a result, we are beginning to see more alliances between liberal/left forces and libertarians/traditional conservatives horrified that their party has been hijacked by extreme ideologues.

23. We know that the response to the 2000 Florida election debacle -- going to touch-screen computer voting machines -- may turn out to be even worse. Three outfits dominate the computer-voting market, all companies owned or supported by Republicans, and that they refuse to permit their software to be examined by outsiders, even though tests have revealed major flaws in their systems: The votes can be manipulated easily without any evidence that the count has been tampered with, and with no verifiable paper trail to check against the final tallies. (There are suspicions that this may actually have happened in the 2002 elections in a number of states, where Democrats were leading in the last-minute polls going into the election but lost when the computer votes were added up.)

Given what happened in Florida, the 2004 vote must be honest and fair and, perhaps even more important, must be SEEN as honest and fair by the citizenry at large. Another disputed election and democracy in America may well die a quick death -- or lead to revolutionary discontent about the need to restore our Constitution.

24. We know that the Bush Administration continues to nominate ideologically-minded conservative judges, especially for the all-important appellate courts. The Democrats fall for the bait -- opposing the handful of nominees who are truly repellant extremists -- and, to show how fair they are, approve the 100+ others. Thus, the neoconservatives lock in approval for their HardRight policies for years, maybe even decades, to come.

25. We know that after a long, quiescent snooze, where the ostensible opposition party, the Democrats, played obedient lap dog to Bush&Co., things are starting to shift. Many Democrats have suddenly discovered their spines and are opposing HardRight initiatives, though not as consistently and as firmly as they should (Daschle, for example, is a notorious wimp). The Democrats see the Bush Administration as more vulnerable with the voters today as a result of the disastrous and duplicitous way they bamboozled American citizens and Congress into approving the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Having a number of tough-speaking presidential contenders aim their darts at Bush&Co. policies certainly helps generate more opposition.

Well, those will do for starters. No doubt, you have plenty more to add: The possibilities seemingly are endless when it comes to Bush&Co. misdeeds, scandals, incompetencies, lies and crimes.

As the presidential election run-up approaches, and if we do our jobs correctly, more and more citizens will add up what has happened to their country since the terror attacks of two years ago, and decide that Bush&Co. has to go -- preferably by resignation, but, if not, by impeachment or by the voters.

*****
- Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught government & international relations at various universities, was a writer-editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly two decades, and now is co-editor of the progressive political website The Crisis Papers (http://www.crisispapers.org).

...So if jobs are scarce and wages are flat, who's benefiting from the economy's expansion? The direct gains are going largely to corporate profits, which rose at an annual rate of more than 40 percent in the third quarter. Indirectly, that means that gains are going to stockholders, who are the ultimate owners of corporate profits. (That is, if the gains don't go to self-dealing executives, but let's save that topic for another day.)

Well, so what? Aren't we well on our way toward becoming what the administration and its reliable defenders call an "ownership society," in which everyone shares in stock market gains? Um, no. It's true that slightly more than half of American families participate in the stock market, either directly or through investment accounts. But most families own at most a few thousand dollars' worth of stocks.

A good indicator of the share of increased profits that goes to different income groups is the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the share of the corporate profits tax that falls, indirectly, on those groups. According to the most recent estimate, only 8 percent of corporate taxes were paid by the poorest 60 percent of families, while 67 percent were paid by the richest 5 percent, and 49 percent by the richest 1 percent. ("Class warfare!" the right shouts.) So a recovery that boosts profits but not wages delivers the bulk of its benefits to a small, affluent minority.

The bottom line, then, is that for most Americans, current economic growth is a form of reality TV, something interesting that is, however, happening to other people. This may change if serious job creation ever kicks in, but it hasn't so far.

The big question is whether a recovery that does so little for most Americans can really be sustained. Can an economy thrive on sales of luxury goods alone? We may soon find out.

Rhetoric vs. Reality

George W. Bush the candidate promised to put the nation's needy atop his agenda. But, while discretionary spending has balooned, funding for programs that benefit the poor and at-risk has been cut or frozen. MotherJones.com takes a quick look at how Bush's 'compassionate' talk measures up against his spending priorities.

Death By a Thousand Cuts: Bush Economics Hits Home

In order to understand why George W. Bush doesn't get it, you have to take several strands of common Texas attitude, then add an impressive degree of class-based obliviousness. What you end up with is a guy who sees himself as a perfectly nice fellow -- and who is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people.

On the few occasions when Bush does directly encounter the down-and-out, he seems to empathize. But then, in what is becoming a recurring, almost nightmare-type scenario, the minute he visits some constructive program and praises it (AmeriCorps, the Boys and Girls Club, job training), he turns around and cuts the budget for it. It's the kiss of death if the president comes to praise your program. During the presidential debate in Boston in 2000, Bush said, "First and foremost, we've got to make sure we fully fund LIHEAP [the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program], which is a way to help low-income folks, particularly here in the East, pay their high fuel bills." He then sliced $300 million out of that sucker, even as people were dying of hypothermia, or, to put it bluntly, freezing to death.

Sometimes he even cuts your program before he comes to praise it. In August 2002, Bush held a photo op with the Quecreek coal miners, the nine men whose rescue had thrilled the country. By then he had already cut the coal-safety budget at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which engineered the rescue, by 6 percent, and had named a coal-industry executive to run the agency.

The Reverend Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal, a network of churches that fight poverty, told the New York Times that shortly after his election, Bush had said to him, "I don't understand how poor people think," and had described himself as a "white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to." What's annoying about Bush is when this obtuseness, the blinkeredness of his life, weighs so heavily on others, as it has increasingly as he has acquired more power.

There was a telling episode in 1999 when the Department of Agriculture came out with its annual statistics on hunger, showing that once again Texas was near the top. Texas is a perennial leader in hunger because we have 43 counties in South Texas (and some in East Texas) that are like Third World countries. If our border region were a state, it would be first in poverty, first in the percentage of schoolchildren living in poverty, first in the percentage of adults without a high school diploma, 51st in income per capita, and so on.

When the 1999 hunger stats were announced, Bush threw a tantrum. He thought it was some malign Clinton plot to make his state look bad because he was running for president. "I saw the report that children in Texas are going hungry. Where?" he demanded. "No children are going to go hungry in this state. You'd think the governor would have heard if there are pockets of hunger in Texas." You would, wouldn't you? That is the point at which ignorance becomes inexcusable. In five years, Bush had never spent time with people in the colonias, South Texas' shantytowns; he had never been to a session with Valley Interfaith, a consortium of border churches and schools and the best community organization in the state. There is no excuse for a governor to be unaware of this huge reality of Texas.

Take any area -- environment, labor, education, taxes, health -- and go to the websites of public-interest groups in that field. You will find page after page of minor adjustments, quiet repeals, no-big-deal new policies, all of them cruel, destructive, and harmful. A silent change in regulations, an executive order, a funding cutoff. No headlines. Below the radar. Again and again and again. Head Start, everybody's favorite government program, is being targeted for "improvement" by leaving it to the tender mercies of Mississippi and Alabama. An AIDS program that helps refugees in Africa and Asia gets its funding cut because one of the seven groups involved once worked with the United Nations, which once worked with the Chinese government, which once supported forced abortions.

So what manner of monster is behind these outrages? I have known George W. Bush slightly since we were both in high school, and I studied him closely as governor. He is neither mean nor stupid. What we have here is a man shaped by three intertwining strands of Texas culture, combined with huge blinkers of class. The three Texas themes are religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo. They all play well politically with certain constituencies.

Let's assume the religiosity is genuine; no one is in a position to know otherwise. I leave it to more learned commentators to address what "Christian" might actually mean in terms of public policy.

The anti-intellectualism is also authentic. This is a grudge Bush has carried at least since his college days when he felt looked down on as a frat rat by more cerebral types. Despite his pedigree and prep schools, he ran into Eastern stereotypes of Texans at Yale, a common experience at Ivy schools in that time. John F. Kennedy, the consummate, effortlessly graceful, classy Harvard man, had just been assassinated in ugly old Dallas, and Lyndon Johnson's public piety gave many people the creeps. Texans were more or less thought of as yahoo barbarians somewhere between the Beverly Hillbillies and Deliverance. I do not exaggerate by much. To have a Texas accent in the East in those days was to have 20 points automatically deducted from your estimated IQ. And Texans have this habit of playing to the stereotype -- it's irresistible. One proud Texan I know had never owned a pair of cowboy boots in his life until he got a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard. Just didn't want to let anyone down.

For most of us who grow up in the "boonies" and go to school in the East, it's like speaking two languages -- Bill Clinton, for example, is perfectly bilingual. But it's not unusual for a spell in the East to reinforce one's Texanness rather than erode it, and that's what happened to Bush. Bush had always had trouble reading -- we assume it is dyslexia (although Slate's Jacob Weisberg attributes it to aphasia); his mom was still doing flash cards with him when he was in junior high. Feeling intellectually inferior apparently fed into his resentment of Easterners and other known forms of snob.

Bush once said, "There's a West Texas populist streak in me, and it irritates me when these people come out to Midland and look at my friends with just the utmost disdain." In his mind, Midland is the true-blue heartland of the old vox pop. The irony is that Midland along with its twin city, Odessa, is one of the most stratified and narrow places in the country. Both are oil towns with amazingly strict class segregation. Midland is the white-collar, Republican town; Odessa is the blue-collar, Democratic town. The class conflict plays out in an annual football rivalry so intense that H.G. Bissinger featured it in his best-selling book, Friday Night Lights. To mistake Midland for the volk heartland is the West Texas equivalent of assuming that Greenwich, Connecticut, is Levittown.

In fact, people in Midland are real nice folks: I can't prove that with statistics, but I know West Texas and it's just a fact. Open, friendly, no side to 'em. The problem is, they're way isolated out there and way limited too. You can have dinner at the Petroleum Club anytime with a bunch of them and you'll come away saying, "Damn, those are nice people. Sure glad they don't run the world." It is still such a closed, narrow place, where everybody is white, Protestant, and agrees with everybody else. It's not unusual to find people who think, as George W. did when he lived there, that Jimmy Carter was leading the country toward "European-style socialism." A board member of the ACLU of Texas was asked recently if there had been any trouble with gay bashing in Midland. "Oh, hell, honey," she drawled, "there's not a gay in Midland who will come out of the closet for fear people will think they're Democrats."

The machismo is what I suspect is fake. Bush is just another upper-class white boy trying to prove he's tough. The minute he is questioned, he becomes testy and defensive. That's one reason they won't let him hold many press conferences. When he tells stories about his dealings with two of the toughest men who ever worked in politics -- the late Lee Atwater and the late Bob Bullock -- Bush, improbably, comes off as the toughest mother in the face-down. I wouldn't put money on it being true. Bullock, the late lieutenant governor and W's political mentor in Texas, could be and often was meaner than a skilletful of rattlesnakes. Bush's story is that one time, Bullock cordially informed him that he was about to **** him. Bush stood up and kissed Bullock, saying, "If I'm gonna get ****, at least I should be kissed." It probably happened, but I guarantee you Bullock won the fight. Bush never got what made Bullock more than just a supermacho pol -- the old son of a bitch was on the side of the people. Mostly.

The perfect absurdity of all this, of course, is that Bush's identification with the sturdy yeomen of Midland (actually, oil-company executives almost to a man) is so wildly at variance with his real background. Bush likes to claim the difference between him and his father is that, "He went to Greenwich Country Day and I went to San Jacinto Junior High." He did. For one year. Then his family moved to a posh neighborhood in Houston, and he went to the second-best prep school in town (couldn't get into the best one) before going off to Andover as a legacy.

Jim Hightower's great line about Bush, "Born on third and thinks he hit a triple," is still painfully true. Bush has simply never acknowledged that not only was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth -- he's been eating off it ever since. The reason there is no noblesse oblige about Dubya is because he doesn't admit to himself or anyone else that he owes his entire life to being named George W. Bush. He didn't just get a head start by being his father's son -- it remained the single most salient fact about him for most of his life. He got into Andover as a legacy. He got into Yale as a legacy. He got into Harvard Business School as a courtesy (he was turned down by the University of Texas Law School). He got into the Texas Air National Guard -- and sat out Vietnam -- through Daddy's influence. (I would like to point out that that particular unit of FANGers, as regular Air Force referred to the "**** Air National Guard," included not only the sons of Governor John Connally and Senator Lloyd Bentsen, but some actual black members as well -- they just happened to play football for the Dallas Cowboys.) Bush was set up in the oil business by friends of his father. He went broke and was bailed out by friends of his father. He went broke again and was bailed out again by friends of his father; he went broke yet again and was bailed out by some fellow Yalies.

That Bush's administration is salted with the sons of somebody-or-other should come as no surprise. I doubt it has ever even occurred to Bush that there is anything wrong with a class-driven good-ol'-boy system. That would explain why he surrounds himself with people like Eugene Scalia (son of Justice Antonin Scalia), whom he named solicitor of the Department of Labor -- apparently as a cruel joke. Before taking that job, the younger Scalia was a handsomely paid lobbyist working against ergonomic regulations designed to prevent repetitive stress injuries. His favorite technique was sarcastic invective against workers who supposedly faked injuries when the biggest hazard they faced was "dissatisfaction with co-workers and supervisors." More than 5 million Americans are injured on the job every year, and more die annually from work-related causes than were killed on September 11. Neither Scalia nor Bush has ever held a job requiring physical labor.

What is the disconnect? One can see it from the other side -- people's lives are being horribly affected by the Bush administration's policies, but they make no connection between what happens to them and the decisions made in Washington. I think I understand why so many people who are getting screwed do not know who is screwing them. What I don't get is the disconnect at the top. Is it that Bush doesn't want to see? No one brought it to his attention? He doesn't care?

Okay, we cut taxes for the rich and so we have to cut services for the poor. Presumably there is some right-wing justification along the lines that helping poor people just makes them more dependent or something. If there were a rationale Bush could express, it would be one thing, but to watch him not see, not make the connection, is another thing entirely. Welfare, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps -- horrors, they breed dependency. Whereas inheriting millions of dollars and having your whole life handed to you on a platter is good for the grit in your immortal soul? What we're dealing with here is a man in such serious denial it would be pathetic if it weren't damaging so many lives.

Bush's lies now fill volumes. He lied us into two hideously unfair tax cuts; he lied us into an unnecessary war with disastrous consequences; he lied us into the Patriot Act, eviscerating our freedoms. But when it comes to dealing with those less privileged, Bush's real problem is not deception, but self-deception.

1. His "No Child Left Behind" program violates every tenet of historical "local control" in K-12 education and provides arguably the largest federal intrusion into education in U.S. history!

2. His federal budget deficits are larger than any president's in American history; in fact TWICE as large as any previous record! This was achieved through uncontrolled pork barrel spending, huge entitlements to major corporations and no contract bids and tax rebates to his biggest political contributors.

The Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn. Its spending policies have been irresponsible, and its trade strategies have been destructive. The president has been quite willing to sell out the national interest for perceived political gain, whether the votes sought are from seniors or farmers.

The House recently passed a massive $373 billion spending bill, laden with pork-barrel spending and controversial provisions as far as the eye could see. "The size of the measure invites abuse. Spending set-asides for home-state projects have grown to extraordinary levels, filling scores of pages in the Congressional Record." President Bush issued a "personal appeal" to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to "push the spending package through the Senate" without changes after the House passed the pork-laden bill." - AP, 12/8/03, 12/5/03, Wall Street Journal 12/3/08

"For the 2003 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, the government recorded a deficit of $374.8 billion, according to revised figures. In November alone, the deficit swelled to nearly $43 billion." - AP, 12/12/03

3. He has established the beginnings of a Medicare prescription drug plan that ALONE will soon cost taxpayers TWICE as much as federal welfare EVER DID!

The prescription drug plan which provides very little help to most elderly, will actually leave some elderly paying more than they currently do, take away the government's right to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices or purchase drugs cheaper from Canada and yet will still cost tax payers $400 billion dollars over 10 years and 2 trillion the next decade by offering up tens of billions in entitlements to drug companies.

"

What has happened to the moderate republican party that I once knew. The party that stood for "values of individual freedom, limited government and fiscal restraint. I am committed to free markets and trade -- and firmly opposed to unfunded mandates and bloated budgets." How has a party that once embraced america's greatest attribute, the ingenuity of it's individuals gone to one that stifles small businesses in favor of large ones, allow monopolistic practices to run rampant, and allows special interest groups and no bid contracts to circumvent the principles of a free market economy.

It is time for moderate republicans to stand up for the traditional GOP values of individual freedom, limited government and fiscal restraint.

I am committed to free markets and free trade -- and firmly opposed to unfunded mandates and bloated budgets.

"Individual freedom, limited government and fiscal restraint"


These used to be the core values of our party -- and the well spring of economic growth. We saw this not just as good fiscal policy but as a moral obligation, an act of stewardship. This ensured the excesses of one generation would not be visited on the next. Yet this administration has abandoned these economic values for short-term political gain.

Extreme social conservatives are taking over this party-and it is time for freedom-loving moderates to take it back.

The Republican Party was born into the cause of individual liberty, and with my commitment to economic freedom, constitutional rights and limited government, I am prepared to challenge this administration's intrusive, heavy-handed approach to the challenges facing our great nation.


The Decision To Invade Iraq - Unfortunately, I believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake for our country; it was $200 billion that would have been better spent elsewhere. The attention and resources that we have focused on Iraq have come at the expense of our efforts against our real enemy, al Qaeda, and has allowed al Qaeda to lick its wounds and regenerate itself. This Administration has abandoned the prudence and caution that used to be the hallmarks of the Republican Party's approach to national security, and the U.S. is less safe as a result. (More)


The Irrationality Of "No Child Left Behind" - Unfortunately, there are few better illustrations of the degree to which this Administration has abandoned traditional Republican beliefs and caution than the Administration's "No Child Left Behind" educational policy. (More)


Balanced Budget - My Republican party believed that running a budget deficit was immoral. Deficits make future generations pay for the services we use today. Forcing the children of tomorrow to foot the bill for our government today is akin to sending them to debtors' prison. This is bad stewardship. (More)

Free Market - A free market is the best way to create jobs for all Americans and the strongest vehicle for promoting employment and economic growth. A budget deficit massively distorts the free market, costing all Americans money and jobs. We need to have faith that our economy will continue to flourish without this kind of government interference.

The Failure of Neo Coservatism - Unfortunately, this administration has abandoned the prudence and caution that used to be the hallmarks of the Republican Party's approach to national security. We have allowed fascination with an ideology, Neo Conservatism, to dictate how we have fought the war on terrorism, even to the point of rejecting the counsel and experience of the U.S. Military. As a result, we have suffered significant setbacks in the war against terrorism and our nation is less safe. (More)

Environment - Have we really forgotten that 30 years ago, we had rivers that caught on fire and lakes filled with toxic fish? Tremendous strides have been made in the clean-up of great waterways such as the Hudson and Cuyahoga Rivers. The rugged natural beauty of New Hampshire's mountains and rivers should be preserved for future generations. My Republican party considers protecting the environment one of its most critical tasks. Our concern for the environment builds on the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt, who founded our national parks system. Let's not abandon that legacy.

Medical Marijuana - If a doctor believes that his or her patient would benefit from the responsible use of medicinal marijuana, then that doctor should be allowed to legally prescribe it. For Americans suffering from debilitating diseases such as cancer, glaucoma, or HIV/AIDS, this is simply a basic form of compassion.

Unfunded Mandates - An unfunded mandate - such as the current "no child left behind" rhetoric -- unfairly forces state and local governments to come up with money for programs dictated by federal lawmakers. A startling example: Police departments nationwide, expecting federal aid for homeland security, deployed extra forces in response to terror alerts. Then the federal government did not make good on its promises. As a result, many local police departments now lack the funds to effectively patrol their neighborhoods. An unfunded mandate is nothing more than drive-by government.

HOUSE BANS TRANSIT DRUG-REFORM ADS


Local transit agencies allowing medical-marijuana and other kinds of drug-reform advertisements would be denied federal funding under a bill passed Monday by the House of Representatives.

Deep within the $373 billion omnibus spending bill is a paragraph that says no money from the bill can go to any bus, train or subway agency "involved directly or indirectly in any activity that promotes the legalization or medical use of any substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act."

That includes marijuana, which voters in California and nine other states have decided should be available for medical use.

Drug reform advocates call the provision censorship, pure and simple. Bill Piper, associate director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, noted the same bill gives the White House $145 million to run anti-marijuana ads in 2004.

"The government can't spend taxpayer money promoting one side of the drug policy debate while prohibiting taxpayers from using their own money to promote the other side," he said. "This is censorship and not the democratic way."

Some Bay Area lawmakers agreed.

"We don't believe it is appropriate for the federal government to use the federal purse string to stifle the free-speech interests of states and local jurisdictions with regard to this issue," said Daniel Weiss, chief of staff to Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who didn't vote on the spending bill.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who voted against the bill, said, "With federal funding for mass transit already abysmally low, this measure makes a bad situation even worse."

But Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who voted for the bill, had no problem with the provision.

"I'm familiar with arguments that some illegal substances provide therapeutic relief for individuals with certain ailments conventional treatments haven't cured," he said. "But it doesn't change the fact that the substances are illegal ."

Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., inserted the provision into the catch-all spending bill after growing irked at marijuana-decriminalization ads placed in the Washington, D.C., Metro transit system by Change the Climate, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit.

Rumsfeld Backed Saddam Even After Chemical Attacks
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent UK

Wednesday 24 December 2003

Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld's personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America's support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.

The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America's condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.

The criticism in no way changed Washington's wish to support Iraq in its war against Iran and "to improve bi-lateral relations ... at a pace of Iraq's choosing".

Earlier this year, Mr Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration regularly cited Saddam's willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people as evidence of the threat presented to the rest of the world.

Senior officials presented the attacks against the Kurds - particularly the notorious attack in Halabja in 1988 - as a justification for the invasion and the ousting of Saddam.

But the newly declassified documents reveal that 20 years ago America's position was different and that the administration of President Ronald Reagan was concerned about maintaining good relations with Iraq despite evidence of Saddam's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels.

In March 1984, under international pressure, America condemned Iraq's use of such chemical weapons. But realising that Baghdad had been upset, Secretary of State George Schultz asked Mr Rumsfeld to travel to Iraq as a special envoy to meet Saddam's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, and smooth matters over.

In a briefing memo to Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Shultz wrote that he had met Iraqi officials in Washington to stress that America's interests remained "in (1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq".

The memo adds: "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."

Exactly what Mr Rumsfeld, who at the time did not hold government office, told Mr Aziz on 26 March 1984, remains unclear and minutes from the meeting remain classified. No one from Mr Rumsfeld's office was available to comment yesterday.

It was not Mr Rumsfeld's first visit to Iraq. Four months earlier, in December 1983, he had visited Saddam and was photographed shaking hands with the dictator. When news of this visit was revealed last year, Mr Rumsfeld claimed he had "cautioned" Saddam to stop using chemical weapons.

When documents about the meeting disclosed he had said no such thing, a spokesman for Mr Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue with Mr Aziz.

America's relationship with Iraq at a time when Saddam was using chemical weapons is well-documented but rarely reported.

During the war with Iran, America provided combat assistance to Iraq that included intelligence on Iranian deployments and bomb-damage assessments. In 1987-88 American warships destroyed Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf and broke the blockade of Iraqi shipping lanes.

Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a non-profit group that obtained the documents, told The New York Times: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and it didn't make any difference to US policy. The embrace of Saddam and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances."

Last night, Danny Muller, a spokesman for the anti-war group Voices in the Wilderness, said the documents revealed America's "blatant hypocrisy". He added: "This is not an isolated event. Continuing administrations have said 'we will do business'. I am surprised that Donald Rumsfeld does not resign right now."

It's a relative term. Considering the hours of work people are putting into Dean's campaign, this isn't a lot to ask to help ensure that Bush gets booted.

In the future, I would appreciate it if the posts were relevent to the subject at hand :p

In any case, I've read just about all these brainstorms you have been posting -- and I have a few suggestions:

1) Do not post while stoned.

2) Do not post ideas that came to you while stoned.

Frank Apisa wrote:

In any case, I've read just about all these brainstorms you have been posting -- and I have a few suggestions:

1) Do not post while stoned.

2) Do not post ideas that came to you while stoned.

This is your political system. And this is your political system on drugs.

Geez, Frank, and you want to legalize the stuff?