Monday, April 17, 2006
Required reading - a great synopsis about the Bush administration: "If you don't mind, Why don't you mind?"
This says it as articulately as anything I have read about why I am so upsetwith this administration. Please take the time to read it and pass it along.Thanks to Dale for sharing this with me. This truly is a Must Read, in myopinion. --tj
-----------------------------------------------------
Published on Saturday, April 8, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
If You Don't Mind, Why Don't You Mind?
by Todd Huffman
A favorite line of song, penned by the Canadian band The Magnetic
Fields, poses the question: If you don't mind, why don't you mind? Where
is your sense of indignation? To anyone who isn't yet appalled by the
extent of the disaster that is the Bush presidency, I could not think of
how better to ask it: Why don't you mind?
Not a day goes by without some new disclosure, some new bit of headline
evidence that the Bush presidency is the most catastrophic presidency in
the history of our great country. The consequences of this fact will
effect not only yours and my personal future and fortunes, but those of
our children and theirs. Where is your sense of indignation?
What can be safely said is this: Poverty is up by nearly 50 percent
since this president took office. Somewhere between five and ten million
Americans have lost their health insurance. Income inequality is the
highest since the 1920s. Real median income has declined five
consecutive years, the longest such streak since the Great Depression.
And the Bush budget cuts have left Americans with the most threadbare
social safety net since that dreadful era.
Almost 30 percent of American manufacturing jobs have been lost over
these past five years. Manufacturing now accounts for less than 13
percent of our Gross Domestic Product, while the finance, insurance and
real estate sector accounts for greater than 20 percent. Under Bush,
moving money around has surpassed making things as the greatest share of
our GDP.
Bush inherited massive budget surpluses but has turned those into
massive deficits. While our net foreign indebtedness took over 200 years
to reach $1 trillion, just since 2001 it has increased by another $3
trillion. While just five years ago our national debt stood at just over
$5 trillion, now it stands at over $8 trillion. America has become a
rentier nation, living off unearned income and racking up millions more
debt every second of every day. Why don't you mind?
The trade deficit has exploded to over $800 billion per year, and the
United States is having to borrow more than $2 billion per day to pay
for our profligacy. And it is China - our greatest strategic adversary -
that loans us much of those sums. Never could anyone have imagined that
the most powerful and arguably democratic nation the world has ever
known would give its most threatening competitor and the world's largest
remaining communist nation such direct control over its economic
destiny. Where is your sense of indignation?
It does not matter, not much anyway, to Bush Republicans that their
out-of-control spending and their tax cuts for the rich have driven this
nation into a downward spiral of debt. The spend-and-spend, big
business, cheap labor, big government, socially regressive Republican
Party has also become the political vehicle of the radically religious
who, believing Jesus is coming at any minute, believe therefore that
long-term fiscal responsibility is of little concern, to say nothing of
social and environmental responsibility.
Under Bush, the United States has become the world's leading crusader
state, led by a congregation of born-again politicians enriching the
rich under the guise of Christian compassion, and brandishing Bibles as
public policy guides. Rather than public policy based on the national
interest, our government's public policy is now largely based on faith.
Faith-based social policy, faith-based war, faith-based science,
faith-based education, and faith-based medicine, all are leading our
nation down a road to ruin.
Why don't you mind?
Corruption is rampant. Money spent each year by lobbyists in Washington
has doubled to $3 billion in just the past six years. Cronies with
little experience are given high-ranking positions, or offered Supreme
Court judgeships, or given no-bid contracts worth tens of billions of
dollars.
The Republican majority leader in the House is under indictment and was
forced to resign his leadership position, and, on April 4th, his House
seat. The Republican majority leader in the Senate is under
investigation for insider trading. One Republican congressman has been
convicted on bribery charges, and more indictments of GOP members are
expected this year as lobbyist-in-disgrace Jack Abramoff spills his guts
to the FBI in return for a reduced sentence. Where is your sense of
indignation?
The Vice-President's Chief of Staff resigned under indictment for
leaking the name of a covert CIA operative. Special Prosecutor
Fitzgerald is continuing an investigation that, before the year is out,
might conceivably lead to indictments of the two White House pit bulls:
Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. Bush himself has now been
implicated as Leaker-in-Chief. Meanwhile, the White House smite squad
tears down all who dare disagree with its policies, or leave the
congregation under protest, and blames the media when it all too
occasionally goes off-message and reports the real news.
And let's not forget that President Bush was asleep at the switch before
9/11, ignoring a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside
the United States". He was asleep at the switch before Katrina washed
away a major American city and almost as many people as who died on
9/11. And he is asleep at the switch as the world faces a potential
catastrophe in global warming. Why don't you mind?
The extent of the disaster that is the Bush presidency is almost beyond
cataloguing. Readers can easily and will undoubtedly come up with many
more examples of incompetence, corruption, deceit, and neglect. But my
space is limited, and allows only one more: Iraq.
The war on Iraq, based at best on faulty intelligence and at worst on
outright lies has proved a gigantic distortion of national priorities.
It has grievously, perhaps irreparably, damaged America's moral standing
in the world. It has caused nearly 2400 American deaths and tens of
thousands of Iraqi. It has consumed our treasury to the tune of half a
trillion dollars thus far, with no end in sight.
The war on Iraq has sapped our military, our credibility, our economy,
and our morale, and has alienated much of the world. The illegal
detention and abuse by American soldiers of detainees at Abu Ghraib,
Bagram, and Guantanamo have led the Muslim world to believe that
democracy is just another costume for tyranny. And, worst of all, the
war on Iraq has diverted our attention from destroying the chief culprit
of 9/11, and has allowed the greater threats to our country - North
Korea and Iran - to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs out of
fear of being next on Bush's "axis-of-evil" hit list. Where is your
sense of indignation?
So what can you do? It is easy to feel helpless, or to lapse into
indifference. But what these perilous times cannot bear is indifference.
We can no longer stand on the sidelines and wait for some non-existent
catalyst to suddenly appear and mobilize a movement that we can then
join.
It is past time to take action. The profile of courage required is in
the mirror.
This is an election year. Write letters to the editor. Write letters to
your congressional representatives. Call your congressional
representatives. Join your local and state Democratic Party
organizations.
Talk to your family, friends, co-workers, and fellow members of your
congregation about writing, calling, and joining together. Good people
of all political persuasions opposed to what the Bush Republicans are
doing to our country must not rest until we take back the Senate and
House this November. We must not rest until in 2008 we take back the
White House, the people's house, and hang on it a banner reading
"Mission Accomplished".
It will most certainly not be easy. But "not easy" is not a synonym for
"let's give up". Rather, it just means "we have to be more imaginative
and work harder and do more and work together to make things right
again". We must come alive with the immediacy of our challenges. The
time for turning our great nation away from the road to ruin is fast
passing.
Todd Huffman (doctortodd@att.net) is a
pediatrician and writer living in Eugene, Oregon. He is a regular
columnist for the Springfield (OR) News, and a regular contributor to
the Portland
(OR) Oregonian, the Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, the University of Oregon
Daily Emerald, the Washington (Seattle) Free Press, and the Columbus(OH) Free Press.
-----------------------------------------------------
Published on Saturday, April 8, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
If You Don't Mind, Why Don't You Mind?
by Todd Huffman
A favorite line of song, penned by the Canadian band The Magnetic
Fields, poses the question: If you don't mind, why don't you mind? Where
is your sense of indignation? To anyone who isn't yet appalled by the
extent of the disaster that is the Bush presidency, I could not think of
how better to ask it: Why don't you mind?
Not a day goes by without some new disclosure, some new bit of headline
evidence that the Bush presidency is the most catastrophic presidency in
the history of our great country. The consequences of this fact will
effect not only yours and my personal future and fortunes, but those of
our children and theirs. Where is your sense of indignation?
What can be safely said is this: Poverty is up by nearly 50 percent
since this president took office. Somewhere between five and ten million
Americans have lost their health insurance. Income inequality is the
highest since the 1920s. Real median income has declined five
consecutive years, the longest such streak since the Great Depression.
And the Bush budget cuts have left Americans with the most threadbare
social safety net since that dreadful era.
Almost 30 percent of American manufacturing jobs have been lost over
these past five years. Manufacturing now accounts for less than 13
percent of our Gross Domestic Product, while the finance, insurance and
real estate sector accounts for greater than 20 percent. Under Bush,
moving money around has surpassed making things as the greatest share of
our GDP.
Bush inherited massive budget surpluses but has turned those into
massive deficits. While our net foreign indebtedness took over 200 years
to reach $1 trillion, just since 2001 it has increased by another $3
trillion. While just five years ago our national debt stood at just over
$5 trillion, now it stands at over $8 trillion. America has become a
rentier nation, living off unearned income and racking up millions more
debt every second of every day. Why don't you mind?
The trade deficit has exploded to over $800 billion per year, and the
United States is having to borrow more than $2 billion per day to pay
for our profligacy. And it is China - our greatest strategic adversary -
that loans us much of those sums. Never could anyone have imagined that
the most powerful and arguably democratic nation the world has ever
known would give its most threatening competitor and the world's largest
remaining communist nation such direct control over its economic
destiny. Where is your sense of indignation?
It does not matter, not much anyway, to Bush Republicans that their
out-of-control spending and their tax cuts for the rich have driven this
nation into a downward spiral of debt. The spend-and-spend, big
business, cheap labor, big government, socially regressive Republican
Party has also become the political vehicle of the radically religious
who, believing Jesus is coming at any minute, believe therefore that
long-term fiscal responsibility is of little concern, to say nothing of
social and environmental responsibility.
Under Bush, the United States has become the world's leading crusader
state, led by a congregation of born-again politicians enriching the
rich under the guise of Christian compassion, and brandishing Bibles as
public policy guides. Rather than public policy based on the national
interest, our government's public policy is now largely based on faith.
Faith-based social policy, faith-based war, faith-based science,
faith-based education, and faith-based medicine, all are leading our
nation down a road to ruin.
Why don't you mind?
Corruption is rampant. Money spent each year by lobbyists in Washington
has doubled to $3 billion in just the past six years. Cronies with
little experience are given high-ranking positions, or offered Supreme
Court judgeships, or given no-bid contracts worth tens of billions of
dollars.
The Republican majority leader in the House is under indictment and was
forced to resign his leadership position, and, on April 4th, his House
seat. The Republican majority leader in the Senate is under
investigation for insider trading. One Republican congressman has been
convicted on bribery charges, and more indictments of GOP members are
expected this year as lobbyist-in-disgrace Jack Abramoff spills his guts
to the FBI in return for a reduced sentence. Where is your sense of
indignation?
The Vice-President's Chief of Staff resigned under indictment for
leaking the name of a covert CIA operative. Special Prosecutor
Fitzgerald is continuing an investigation that, before the year is out,
might conceivably lead to indictments of the two White House pit bulls:
Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. Bush himself has now been
implicated as Leaker-in-Chief. Meanwhile, the White House smite squad
tears down all who dare disagree with its policies, or leave the
congregation under protest, and blames the media when it all too
occasionally goes off-message and reports the real news.
And let's not forget that President Bush was asleep at the switch before
9/11, ignoring a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside
the United States". He was asleep at the switch before Katrina washed
away a major American city and almost as many people as who died on
9/11. And he is asleep at the switch as the world faces a potential
catastrophe in global warming. Why don't you mind?
The extent of the disaster that is the Bush presidency is almost beyond
cataloguing. Readers can easily and will undoubtedly come up with many
more examples of incompetence, corruption, deceit, and neglect. But my
space is limited, and allows only one more: Iraq.
The war on Iraq, based at best on faulty intelligence and at worst on
outright lies has proved a gigantic distortion of national priorities.
It has grievously, perhaps irreparably, damaged America's moral standing
in the world. It has caused nearly 2400 American deaths and tens of
thousands of Iraqi. It has consumed our treasury to the tune of half a
trillion dollars thus far, with no end in sight.
The war on Iraq has sapped our military, our credibility, our economy,
and our morale, and has alienated much of the world. The illegal
detention and abuse by American soldiers of detainees at Abu Ghraib,
Bagram, and Guantanamo have led the Muslim world to believe that
democracy is just another costume for tyranny. And, worst of all, the
war on Iraq has diverted our attention from destroying the chief culprit
of 9/11, and has allowed the greater threats to our country - North
Korea and Iran - to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs out of
fear of being next on Bush's "axis-of-evil" hit list. Where is your
sense of indignation?
So what can you do? It is easy to feel helpless, or to lapse into
indifference. But what these perilous times cannot bear is indifference.
We can no longer stand on the sidelines and wait for some non-existent
catalyst to suddenly appear and mobilize a movement that we can then
join.
It is past time to take action. The profile of courage required is in
the mirror.
This is an election year. Write letters to the editor. Write letters to
your congressional representatives. Call your congressional
representatives. Join your local and state Democratic Party
organizations.
Talk to your family, friends, co-workers, and fellow members of your
congregation about writing, calling, and joining together. Good people
of all political persuasions opposed to what the Bush Republicans are
doing to our country must not rest until we take back the Senate and
House this November. We must not rest until in 2008 we take back the
White House, the people's house, and hang on it a banner reading
"Mission Accomplished".
It will most certainly not be easy. But "not easy" is not a synonym for
"let's give up". Rather, it just means "we have to be more imaginative
and work harder and do more and work together to make things right
again". We must come alive with the immediacy of our challenges. The
time for turning our great nation away from the road to ruin is fast
passing.
Todd Huffman (
pediatrician and writer living in Eugene, Oregon. He is a regular
columnist for the Springfield (OR) News, and a regular contributor to
the Portland
(OR) Oregonian, the Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, the University of Oregon
Daily Emerald, the Washington (Seattle) Free Press, and the Columbus(OH) Free Press.
