Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Those who thought they could profit from slavery's cheap labor were aware after the death and destruction of the real cost of exploiting human beings for monetary profit.

World War II, which cost some estimated 50 million lives, recognizes the cost in human suffering and death was colossal.

Hitler tragically was aided and abetted by some bank loans for pig iron from the U.S.A., as well as some corporations supplying airplane parts; all for profiteers, whose ill gotten gains often failed to be held accountable.

The Vietnam War debacle cost 1.4 million lives, with 6 percent of those coming from U.S. armed forces, approximately 54,000 personnel.  Those who were anti-Vietnam War protesters were labeled unpatriotic.  It was not the courageous men in combat that the anti-war protesters were attacking, but the leadership that placed U.S. servicemen in this horrifying war quagmire.

Robert McNamara failed to reveal how hopeless the Vietnam War was until years after the conflict, when he wrote a book revealing the he knew long before the seemingly endless Vietnam War was over, the futility and hopelessness of this tragic conflict.

One might think that Vietnam would teach our governmental leaders to never place precious U.S. service personnel in an untenable, deadly war like Vietnam again.  But it is glaringly apparent that the current White House resident, along with his cohorts, are seemingly oblivious to the lessons of history and are acting as if they have done nothing wrong in triggering the Iraq War.

Sadly, it is not just the current crew in Washington that is ignoring history.  Both Democrats and Republican approved world trade - labeled the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  

On CNN October 30 it was reported there may be as many as 80 million children in India working in sweat shout 10 hours a day - children as young as 10 years old.  Generating profits for big business, including some of America's leading corporate giants.

These foreign workers are not given safety protection and other work regulations that America's unions fought for way back when child labor exploitation was alive and well in the U.S.A.  The brave soldiers who fought and died in the Civil War are being betrayed by both corporate giants along with those who are obtaining hefty profits from their stock, garnered at the expense of exploiting children.

People should be protected from economic exploitation.  As the Iraq War rages on, Bush along with Dr. Condoleezza Rice and sometimes Cheney chase around the world, still acting as if they did nothing wrong to launch a war against a nation that had never threatened us.  The whole world knows now the lies about "weapons of mass destruction" and nuclear threats - all media blitz propaganda.

Terror suspects are kidnapped, interrogated, and on occasion tortured without trial, ignoring the U.S. Constitution, which Abraham Lincoln held sacred.  If Alan Greenspan's assertion, "The Iraq War is about oil" is accurate, who will pay the price for Iraq oil acquisition?  If the U.S. ever can get the Iraqis to sign long term leases for 63 of Iraq's 80 oil wells, the oil barons will have realized their bonanza.  

The Iraq death count is estimated at between 600,000 and 1 million while 3,800 U.S. service personnel have died in the conflict.  The New York Times in an October 24, 2007 article reported about Representative Pete Stark criticizing Bush.  Bush was sharply rebuked.  Stark minced no words in referring to the White House resident.

Congressman Stark bluntly stated:

"You don't have money to fund the war on children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

These incendiary remarks prompted the robot Republicans to hastily try to obtain a House majority to adopt a resolution to censure Congressman Stark.  The New York Times reported the results of this attempt to censure Pete Stark:

"By 196 to 173 the House voted against adopting a resolution to censure Mr. Stark, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Health for what he said, as the House sustained the veto of a bill to expand a children's health insurance program."

Could Congressman Stark have been thinking about the revealing comment Bush made that was picked up on the White House video recording system as the first bombs were falling at the beginning of the Iraq War?

Amid a ruthless shock and awe attack that cost the lives of many Baghdad civilians, Bush thrust his fist into the air, exclaiming, "Feels good!"

Shame on the 173 House members who voted in favor of the resolution to censure Stark for doing no more than telling the blunt truth about Bush.