June 06, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
RIGHT WING FAILURE
Everything right-wingers touch turns into a ruin. Look at anything: the environment, the economy, civil rights, foreign policy, and our educational system are all a mess thanks to right-wing policies. Just a few days ago a letter writer to The Fresno Bee made the claim that "socialism has never worked." I would suggest that neither has unregulated capitalism, unless you consider the rich acquiring everything the way it should be. In this article Ernest Partridge looks at the massive failure of right-wing policies since Ronald Reagan. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Thus began a grand experiment: Release the American economy from the bonds of government regulation. Individual enterprise and initiative, the profit motive, the free market and open competition will usher in a new birth of freedom and a new era of unprecedented prosperity.
“It’s morning in America.”
Twenty-six years later, what do we have? A dismantled and “outsourced” industrial base, an impoverished work force, a nine trillion dollar debt burden upon future generations, and a degradation of education and scientific research, and a captive media that deprives the public of essential news as it issues outright lies. In addition, the Bush administration, the current keeper of the covenant, has accomplished the trashing of the Constitution and its guaranteed Bill of Rights, a seemingly endless war with no prospect (or even definition) of victory, and the contempt of the peoples and governments of the civilized world.
The grand experiment has failed, and we are just beginning to realize the enormous costs of that failure.
Showing posts with label right wing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right wing. Show all posts
Saturday, December 23, 2006
December 23, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE RIGHT WING PUNDIT CLASS
Well-funded and well-paid right-wing pundits have had a major impact on U. S. opinion, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Some of the worst policy ideas in our history have emanated from think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute. Perhaps the worst U. S. foreign policy disaster in our history came from the "thinkers" at the Project for a New American Century. Loud mouth pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have spewed hate, lies, and intolerance for years. This is an open letter to the right-wing pundit class from Margie Burns is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
You, gentlemen, ceaselessly promoted war with Iraq, regime change, an intensified arms race against lightly armed poor people around the globe, or all of the above. You promoted this dishonesty, greed and bloodshed with collectively hundreds of articles, on-air commentaries, endless panel discussions and quasi-academic or quasi-military conferences. You promoted the candidates for public office who supported your demented policies. You smeared, slandered, rebuffed and rejected candidates, scholars, and journalists who opposed them or even demurred at them, questioned them or tried to get them clarified. It would be far better that you – each of you, members or signatories or officers of the entities listed above – voluntarily shoulder the obligation of providing some small correction. You should go to Iraq -- you yourselves, not a picture – and you should stay there. Go to Iraq and work with your hands, your heads and your hearts for as long it takes.
(N.b.: If you genuinely cared about conservatism, you would have done it already. There is nothing conservative about what is going on now. Genuine conservatives do not police the world; drive a nation into deficit financing even for the sake of reducing a huge, self-confident middle class or working class to submission, debt and dependency; or attack individual civil liberties, the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus. The fact that these policies are not “liberal” does not make them “conservative.” Even states’ rights are a thing of the past, and without a peep from the “Federalist Society.” -- The what Society? The Federalist what? – Were “states’ rights” merely a code for upholding illegal segregation, as some of us suspected?)
MY YEAR IN REVIEW
After Christmas we'll start to get a series of "year in review" segments on the news. We avoided catastrophic hurricanes this year, but New Orleans still lies in ruins from Hurricane Katrina last year. The Democrats regaining control of Congress should get mentioned. We had some successful space shuttle launches, but I worry about the integrity of the shuttle. Space travel is risky enough without the creaky shuttle program we have now. Iraq has turned into nothing but a bloodbath with no good end. Despite right-wing propaganda, the economy is shaky. We owe way too much to other countries, wages are flatlining for most of us, the health care system is a mess, and global warming is an ominous and growing problem.
Personally, I got laid off without any notice, temped for a while, and went back to my old job a few weeks later. During my temping experience I had a truly miserable job at a place called Inland Star Trucking. I was treated worse on this job than any job I've ever had. I had another truly miserable job at a place called Health Comp stuffing envelopes. The manager there might have been a plantation overseer in a previous life. People should remember, but by the grace of the economy, they too might wind up temping somewhere.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE RIGHT WING PUNDIT CLASS
Well-funded and well-paid right-wing pundits have had a major impact on U. S. opinion, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Some of the worst policy ideas in our history have emanated from think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute. Perhaps the worst U. S. foreign policy disaster in our history came from the "thinkers" at the Project for a New American Century. Loud mouth pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have spewed hate, lies, and intolerance for years. This is an open letter to the right-wing pundit class from Margie Burns is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
You, gentlemen, ceaselessly promoted war with Iraq, regime change, an intensified arms race against lightly armed poor people around the globe, or all of the above. You promoted this dishonesty, greed and bloodshed with collectively hundreds of articles, on-air commentaries, endless panel discussions and quasi-academic or quasi-military conferences. You promoted the candidates for public office who supported your demented policies. You smeared, slandered, rebuffed and rejected candidates, scholars, and journalists who opposed them or even demurred at them, questioned them or tried to get them clarified. It would be far better that you – each of you, members or signatories or officers of the entities listed above – voluntarily shoulder the obligation of providing some small correction. You should go to Iraq -- you yourselves, not a picture – and you should stay there. Go to Iraq and work with your hands, your heads and your hearts for as long it takes.
(N.b.: If you genuinely cared about conservatism, you would have done it already. There is nothing conservative about what is going on now. Genuine conservatives do not police the world; drive a nation into deficit financing even for the sake of reducing a huge, self-confident middle class or working class to submission, debt and dependency; or attack individual civil liberties, the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus. The fact that these policies are not “liberal” does not make them “conservative.” Even states’ rights are a thing of the past, and without a peep from the “Federalist Society.” -- The what Society? The Federalist what? – Were “states’ rights” merely a code for upholding illegal segregation, as some of us suspected?)
MY YEAR IN REVIEW
After Christmas we'll start to get a series of "year in review" segments on the news. We avoided catastrophic hurricanes this year, but New Orleans still lies in ruins from Hurricane Katrina last year. The Democrats regaining control of Congress should get mentioned. We had some successful space shuttle launches, but I worry about the integrity of the shuttle. Space travel is risky enough without the creaky shuttle program we have now. Iraq has turned into nothing but a bloodbath with no good end. Despite right-wing propaganda, the economy is shaky. We owe way too much to other countries, wages are flatlining for most of us, the health care system is a mess, and global warming is an ominous and growing problem.
Personally, I got laid off without any notice, temped for a while, and went back to my old job a few weeks later. During my temping experience I had a truly miserable job at a place called Inland Star Trucking. I was treated worse on this job than any job I've ever had. I had another truly miserable job at a place called Health Comp stuffing envelopes. The manager there might have been a plantation overseer in a previous life. People should remember, but by the grace of the economy, they too might wind up temping somewhere.
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