Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Don't think the American public stood by and refused to act in righteous indignation and outrage.

There were anti-Iraq War marches in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and many other cities throughout the U.S.  But this had no effect. Perhaps if someone high up in the administration had sex at high noon on the White House lawn it might have captured their attention.

Sexual conduct of an inappropriate nature is an American attention grabber, that is for sure.  But apparently U.S. service personnel returning in coffins was conveniently not show much on TV.  And the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could not get this congressional conscience to act.

No way!  The U.S. was busy building the largest U.S. Embassy in the world, and trying feverishly to negotiate for 50 U.S. bases in Iraq, along with long term leases on 63 of 80 of Iraq's oil wells.

That, no doubt, whetted the appetites of the oil barons who socked it to the U.S. public with sky high oil prices.  In the meantime, the U.S. was hastily demolishing the infrastructure of Iraq and 2 ½ million Iraqis fled to Iran, Syria and Jordan.  Some big business cheats were flying down to earth with "golden parachutes" when they left their jobs.

The Exxon-Mobil big shot exited with nearly a $400 million bonus plus a mere million a year consulting fee, country club dues paid, and use of the company jet, of course.

All this occurred while in Nigeria, where Exxon-Mobil obtains much of its oil, its citizens are not able to earn a decent living or have clean drinking water.  Sadly 80% of the oil wealth goes to 1% of Nigerians.  

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who formerly headed Goldman-Sachs, fared very well working there, having accumulated approximately $700 million.

Shearson-Lehman, a company that had been around 150 years, was carried to collapse by none other than Richard S. Fuld, Jr.

The New York Times on October 7 reported this:

"Richard S. Fuld, Jr. blamed the news media.  He blamed the short-sellers.  He blamed the government as well as what he characterized as an extraordinary run on the bank.

"Instead in his first public appearance since Lehman's collapse, Mr. Fuld said in sworn testimony before a congressional panel on Monday, that while he took full responsibility for the debacle, he believed that all his decisions 'were both prudent and appropriate given the information he had at the time.'"

Fuld approved nearly $20 million in exit bonuses for a couple of departing executives.  

While all this money is leaving with these executives at collapsing Shearson-Lehman, how many millions are being lost in lifetime savings by their customers, or don't they count?

The November 8 Seattle Times tells how busy Mr. Bush is these days, cutting Medicaid services for outpatients in an article by Robert Pear of the New York Times:

"In the first of an expected avalanche of post-election regulations, the Bush administration narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people, under Medicaid's outpatient services.

"John Bluford, president of Truman Medical Centers in Kansas City, Mo., said:  'This is a disaster for safety-net institutions like ours.  The change in the outpatient rule will mean a five million hit to U.S. Medicaid accounts for about 55 percent of our business.'"

Bush has signed more executive orders than all the other presidents since the U.S.A. was founded.  

How sad that he has also spent the U.S. into near bankruptcy with a national debt nearing $10 trillion, greater than all prior national debts combined, but at the same time had cut health care for the poor.