January 1, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

DISASTERS EVERYWHERE

The Hippocratic Oath that physicians take advises, "First, do no harm." Politicians should have a similar standard. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will leave the world much worse off than when they assumed power. In all the vital areas that can be influenced by a presidential administration things are worse. The economy is worse, the gap between rich and poor is worse, the state of health care is worse, education is worse, housing is worse, deficits are worse, the environment is worse, and foreign policy is far, far worse. This article takes a look at Bush's "twilight year" and the dismal legacy being left behind. The article by Jim Lobe is at www.commondreams.org:

Bhutto’s assassination, for example, offered yet another example that Bush’s war has been at best incompetently pursued, if not misconceived from the very beginning.

Not only did Bush’s diversion of both money and troops from Afghanistan to Iraq immediately after the defeat of the Taliban permit both Taliban and al Qaeda to regroup and eventually extend their influence in the rugged tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border, but his virtually unconditional backing — including more than 10 billion dollars in mostly military aid — for the regime of General Pervez Musharraf served mainly to strengthen the Islamist parties at the expense of the secular, “moderate” forces to which his administration has given mainly rhetorical support.

When it became clear last summer that Pakistan’s Taliban was making major advances and that Musharraf’s popular base had dried up, the administration sought to forge an agreement between the military commander and the exiled Bhutto, whom it had long ignored.

THE PUNDITS ARE IRRELEVANT

The world view advanced by the Washington elites, particularly the pundit class, doesn't reflect the reality faced by most of us. The elites tell us that “free trade” as exemplified by treaties like NAFTA is just great. The rest of us see jobs being outsourced and our standard of living declining. We're told that Bush's “surge” in Iraq is working, but 2007 actually had the worst level of violence since the country was invaded. We're told that John Edwards is divisive, but John Edwards is speaking to the issues that affect most of us. The kind of world the Washington elites want is a miserable experience for most of us. This article by David Sirota is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Most Washington pundits have reached their positions by defending the system they cover as fundamentally good. Doing that, in their minds, validates their own value and worth - because if they acknowledge that the system is corrupt, it means they are admitting that their work bolstering that system is corrupt, too (which, of course, it is).

And so elite reaction to the populist uprising is swift. As respected pollsters tell us that "if Americans have ever been angrier with the state of the country, we have not witnessed it," Washington pundits tell us candidates representing that anger are doomed. These pundits desperately claim that candidates' support for majority positions will somehow "rip the nation apart," and that such candidates who take up the populist mantle are "wildly irresponsible" for doing so.

Sadly, the caucuses and primaries look like only the opening act of a more full-scale Establishment backlash against America's populist tide. A group of has-been politicians are pushing Wall Street billionaire Mike Bloomberg to run as an independent if these has-been politicians do not approve of the nominees of both parties. We are told that Bloomberg is the one who can restore "unity" and "bipartisanship" in the face of the uprising. That the populism represented in both parties' primaries right now is supported by both Republican and Democratic voters has somehow escaped these supposed crusaders for "bipartisanship."