Friday, July 27, 2007

Why We Are In Danger

The people running your country right now are dangerous. Not simply to the terrorists. Not just to the "rogue nations". Not even just to criminals within our own borders. They are dangerous to you, and to me, and to all Americans. And it’s important to emphasize the word Americans, because the Bush Administration has been one of the most lawless, most immoral, and most un-American in our nation’s history.


These people are neither true Republicans nor true conservatives. They are neo-cons. Theirs is a belief system that rates people like them superior to people not like them. This is true. They feel that we need them to steer us in the right direction. They also feel that we must trust them implicitly, and never, ever question anything they tell us. And they feel that lying to the governed is not only a necessary part of governing, but entirely, morally acceptable. Now are you going to tell me that this is how the government of the greatest experiment in independent self-governance in the history of humanity is supposed to behave?


As if that weren’t bad enough, it’s actually much worse than that. These people have perverted the very nature of governance into something that would make the Founding Fathers weep. They have used every means at their disposal, both legal and illegal (this is a fact), to advance an agenda that is anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-child, and anti-American. In all disputes between Corporate America and Labor Unions, they have reflexively sided with Corporate America. In all policies regarding polluting the environment, they have sided with the wishes of Corporate America, namely to not make them pay for cleaning up the messes they make.


Their “No Child Left Behind” Act, for which they illegally paid Armstrong Williams to promote, was modeled after the system Bush began as Governor of Texas. The problem was that the program in Houston encouraged kids who were failing to drop out of school, so that those who continued on to graduate had a skewed overall grade average. The students who dropped out were not factored in. They then used the “results” to tout how well the program worked, and took it to the state level where the same “cheating” of the system occurred. This is what they have applied to the national level, and it does not work there either.


Because they don’t know what they are doing! They are choosing the policies they choose and the programs they run, to do things that are not in the interests of the people of the United States, but often its corporations and its wealthy. And when I say "wealthy", I'm talking about the kind of people who if they had to pay an extra million dollars in income tax each year, would not even miss it (that kind of wealthy). And they do it proudly, shamelessly, and unapologetically.


As despicable as I find their philosophies about humanity to be, if they were doing what they did because they genuinely had a concern for the benefit of humanity in general, or even just Americans in particular, I might be able to find a way to forgive them, or understand them. This is not the case. They do what they do to remain in power and to benefit from holding the power they hold. I wish it were the tiniest bit noble, but it isn’t. And they truly believe that they are the only ones who know what must be done to make the world “a better place.” But for whom?


I think the primary flaw in their thinking is that they think that everyone else in the world will approach the solution to a problem in the same way that they would, and treat everyone else as such. And when the opposition to them turns out to have the facts on their side, rather than re-examine their own beliefs for possible ties to reality, they attack their attackers. They cannot accept that the model upon which their socio-political philosophy is based is incorrect. So they lash out, and claim that their detractors are “unpatriotic”, that they are “aiding the enemy” (whoever that happens to be at the moment), and, when they are really desperate, that they want to “put your children at risk!” Like I said, they are shameless.


In short, they forget that we all need each other in order to survive. They are capitalists (almost to the point of being fascists, which means they favor complete deregulation of corporations), and they do what they do for the money. They do not believe in altruism, as there is no money in it, and nothing material to be gained for yourself. So to them, it is pointless. They don’t even view giving away free merchandise to promote a product as any kind of altruism, it’s just "smart marketing and advertising techniques”. Even when they do the right thing, they can’t do it for the right reasons. And that is why they are dangerous, and must be removed from office in the most peaceful way possible. Impeachment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bravo, Wayne!

I actually have more to say, but I'll send a message through facebook.

Zooey

willyloman said...

There is a really interesting article in the Nation called "Outsourcing Intelligence" about how this administration has stuck all of these "green badges" agants into the intel divisions that are current employees of major corporations. It is probably what Gonzo is trying to keep from being looked at with the emails. These guys have access to nation security documents and some wonder if it is they who are really running the secret spying programs to gain advantages on competitors.

Nice article, Wayne. Keep it up.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hillhouse