Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

With such disdain for George Bush's "reign of error," those voodoo dolls might be selling briskly.  But I think that sticking pins in a George Bush voodoo doll is not the solution to the monumental problems facing America today.

Could it be that the death and destruction being generated daily by the continuation of the Iraq War is precisely what the polls prove that the majority of Americans hate the most?  

They see all the war horror on TV and in newspapers daily when the Democratic Congress they voted to end the Iraq War ignored democracy in the U.S.  All this occurs while leaders claim the Iraq War is being fought to bring democracy to a distant Mideast nation.  How hypocritical!  

Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, wastes no words as to what the Iraq War is all about in his book "Turbulent Times."  Greenspan says it all in one three letter word - oil!

With over 3,800 U.S. service personnel returning in coffins and over 55,000 combatants and non-combatants wounded, with estimates of 600,000 to 1 million Iraqis dead, could such a debacle generate hate?  It sure isn't the way to win friends and influence people, is it?

Bush has ranted on repeatedly about how well the U.S. economy is doing - linking what he boasts about to the tax cuts he put in place for the very rich.  It was October 30 when Warren Buffet objected, saying he was taxed less than his secretary.  Wasn't it Reagan who boasted that money would trickle down after he cut taxes for the richest Americans?

George Bush has created a national debt greater than all the nations' debts since the U.S.A. was founded.  Future generations will be held in economic bondage to pay off this gigantic national debt.  

Use the rallying cry election slogan in 2008, "It's the economy, stupid."  The stock market drops are drastic.  Job layoffs throw thousands out of work, as the U.S. outsources manufacturing jobs to Mexico, India and China.

Remember that it was none other than that highly touted Republican former movie star, President Ronald Reagan, who tripled the national debate and they named a Washington, D.C. airport after him.  It was under Ronald Reagan's Republican administration that the Taliban was placed in power in Afghanistan.  This was done to guard those oil pipelines across Afghanistan.  

These pipelines carried that precious oil to the sea, where ships could carry it to the U.S.A.  Oil has been the mainstay of the American lifestyle featuring SUV's and other notorious gas guzzlers that have allowed Americans to travel in style without too much worry about the cost of green house gas impact.  

That thought was an inconvenient truth.  How many Hummers does Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California own?

The U.S. provided the Taliban with stinger missiles, which they used to shoot down Russian planes.  Now, since the U.S. decided to dispose of Taliban power, U.S. service personnel are facing death or injury with the high tech weapons we provided the Taliban not so long ago.

Fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in a sort of slick manipulation that some call a back door draft with the U.S. National Guard being heavily employed, we are going for broke in this war funded by driving the U.S. ever deeper in debt.  It's like a credit card spree of a compulsive spending Congress.  

Baby boomers, 75 million of them, that are waiting anxiously for their Social Security checks and Medicare to fund their needs, are learning that Social Security funds have been used recklessly for years to balance budgets.  

Now, with billions blown on the Iraq War, they are concerned that the world has watched in shock and awe as Bush has blown billions on the Iraq War while 2 ½ million Iraqis flee for their lives to Syria, Jordan and Iran.

Remember all that democracy and freedom propaganda disseminated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice?  What is the brutal reality?  Are Iraqis better off than before the first wave of shock and awe unleashed on Baghdad?  

The deaths and high number of refugees who have hastily fled Iraq tell a far different story than the neoconservative spin machine led by Cheney-Bush Administration propaganda network Fox News and others would have us believe.

All this expenditure and tragedy have turned the Middle East into a tinder box, while 75 million senior citizens are desperately anxious about their retirement money, about Medicare paying their medical bills, and about soaring drug costs.  

The Vietnam War folly with approximately 56,000 U.S. service personnel paying the price with their lives along with over 2 million deaths occurring during that tragic chapter of U.S. history provides a tragic lesson, but one that the neoconservatives of this administration have not heeded.  

The reason is that this tragic result does not conform to their selfish interests.  When the facts do not conform, the neocon spin machine merely manufactures new facts.

Robert McNamara told the awful truth about continuing the war when it was known that it was hopeless.  Sadly, no matter how moving the stunning Washington tribute monument with the names of the courageous, truly brave and patriotic service personnel, can ever fully compensate for what they willingly gave their lives for, a non-winnable war.  

Did those responsible for launching the Vietnam War and continuing it when they recognized how hopeless this entire situation was ever pay the price?  No way!

The so-called North American Free Trade Agreement represents a betrayal of the brave soldiers, 650,000 of whom died in the Civil War to keep the U.S.A. united and end slavery on American soil.

Now NAFTA allows big business in the U.S.A. to exploit on foreign soil with slave labor conditions generating income from foreign countries that enrich U.S. big business and appeal mightily to some U.S. stock investors.

It is time for the U.S.A. to retrieve what this great nation once represented, to be true to its founders' inspired vision.  With more lobbyists chasing around Washington than there are congressional members handing out cash as campaign contributions which often amount to bribes to vote the way big business wants, ethics, honesty and truth get lost.

Ignoring Geneva International Convention Rules of War, which condemn any nation launching a war against another country unless a reasonable threat of attack exists, have been ignored by the Bush rush to launch the Iraq War.

When the 2006 election demonstrated that the American public wanted to end the Iraq War and the democratic Congress ignored the people's demand, they trashed democracy and followed Bush's wishes to continue the Iraq War.

No wonder more than two out of three Americans are dismayed about the Iraq War as Bush and the Democratic Congress ignored what they voted for in November 2006.

Could this be one reason for the sudden popularity for Bush voodoo dolls?