April 15, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

CHRISTMAS IN APRIL FOR THE RICH

In the old days of "Saturday Night Live" Garrett Morris did a sketch about a former baseball player turned sportscaster. "Baseball has been very, very good to me," he would say. The wealthiest Americans can look around on April 15 and say that, "George W. Bush has been very, very good to me." While most of us slide down the slope economically, the very wealthy have seen their incomes burgeon thanks to Bush's tax cuts. His tax cuts have dramatically increased inequality and even put our economy at risk. The deficits created by his gifts to the rich have made us heavily dependent on foreign borrowing. This article by Holly Sklar is at www.commondreams.org:

When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly say, "Mission accomplished."

The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks between 2001 and 2008. That’s nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China — $493 billion — in the form of Treasury securities.

Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation’s future to finance tax breaks for the rich?

Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent — whose annual incomes average about $1.5 million — increase their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression.

Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid "a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007, a year when three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly losses in their history" and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.

The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.

THE FACE OF FASCISM

Fascism has elements that appeal to some people. It offers a sense of stability and security. People like to believe that the harsh aspects of fascism won't affect them. It only affects "other" people. Once again, we should learn from history. This commentary by Stacey Warde is at www.commondreams.org:

The danger of fascism is its seemingly benign mechanisms of control - fear, conformity, the state’s intermingling with religion and corporate enterprise - for keeping a populace in check, for making its people feel content with the way things are and never quick to protest occasional violations of human rights and infringements on their or another’s liberties.

The danger of fascism is its seemingly magical ability - through brilliant propaganda outlets like Fox News - to keep a people resigned to whatever the government does in their name, making them feel secure through its adventures in endless wars and policing the globe and the homeland.

The other great thing about fascism is its capacity for supporting, even indulging, denial on the most massive scale: "We don’t torture. …You can trust us. …If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about…."

Our phones are tapped, elections rigged, bogus wars planned and executed, real and imagined enemies created, and police acquire more powers to intimidate and harass while more rights are taken away from citizens.

Churches pray for the end of the world and offer their children as sacrifices for the war machine, and collude with the government colluding with the corporations and financial institutions - promising blood, anything, for National Security.