The State of the Union, for the other 99%
- From: "Florida" <demeter547opine@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 3 Feb 2006 02:24:55 -0800
The State of the Union
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 31 January 2006
i knew that i was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become them, accept.
then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest bit.
it needn't be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on fire.
just a spark.
save it. - Charles Bukowski
"He shall from time to time," reads the Constitution, "give to the
Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."
And so it shall be. George W. Bush will be speaking tonight from the
podium in the House of Representatives. Before him will be arrayed
Senators, Representatives, generals and judges. The balconies will be
filled with observers, luminaries, reporters and a few so-called
"special guests" whose presence will be used to reinforce some argument
or another.
It shall be quite a thing to see, a show worth watching if only to
observe exactly how many lies, distortions, threats, taunts and smirks
can be crammed into a single speech. This will be Mr. Bush speaking,
after all, and the truth is not in him. It will be in every pertinent
sense a mere commercial, a television advertisement from a failing
company, a whitewashing of ugly truths by a staggering CEO whose sole
desire is to keep the stockholders in line for another quarter.
In the interests of truth, the actual state of this union deserves
to be displayed for all to see. This is the deal. This is how it is.
The Real Economy
Since 2000, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen to
nearly 37 million. More than 13 million of these are children. More
than one in four American families with children make less than $30,000
a year. Look within that number and you will find 46% of African
American families with children and 44% of Hispanic families with
children fall below this mark. Average annual income for Americans fell
once again in 2005. 46 million Americans live without health insurance.
The response to this? Vice President Cheney, three days before
Christmas, cast the tie-breaking vote on a spending reduction bill that
will fall most heavily on the poor, the infirm and the elderly. Funding
for health care, child support, and education subsidies for low-income
families has been gutted. Medicaid benefits for the poor were cut by $7
billion, and Medicare programs for the elderly were cut by $6.4
billion. Federal student-loan programs were cut by $12.7 billion.
On the very same day, the Senate passed legislation that
drastically cut funding for the departments of Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education. The Head Start program was hit especially
hard: the cuts here eliminate some 25,000 slots for low-income
children. All in all, these spending reductions are expected to save
$40 billion.
Meanwhile, recently-passed tax cuts ravage the budget far more
deeply than these drastic budget cuts. Two tax cuts in particular that
went into effect on New Year's Day will cost $27 billion, more than
half of what the spending reductions are supposed to save. These cuts
will cost more than $150 billion over the next ten years. 97% of the
money from these cuts will go to households making more than $200,000 a
year. Households with incomes under $100,000 will get 0.1% of these
cuts.
If all of Mr. Bush's tax cuts are stopped or allowed to expire,
$750 billion will be added to the federal budget. That is more than
enough to pay for the programs that have been eviscerated. It won't
happen, not with the priorities of this administration, but that is the
simple math of the matter.
New Orleans Drowned in a Bathtub
The first weeks of September brought to all Americans a devastating
tragedy. The city of New Orleans was all but obliterated by Hurricane
Katrina when levees meant to hold back the waters failed. The failure
of these levees came, in no small part, because of unprecedented budget
cuts for the Army Corps of Engineers, which was tasked to keep the
levees viable.
The tragedy was compounded by the utterly incompetent management of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its head, Michael Brown,
whose experience with disaster management came while he was serving as
an attorney for owners of Arabian horses. In the weeks to follow,
lavish promises were made by Mr. Bush. "We will do what it takes, we
will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their
communities and their lives," he said on September 15th.
Those promises have been broken. We have gone from oaths to revive
this cherished city to this: "I want to remind people in that part of
the world, $85 billion is a lot," said Bush on January 26th. Hundreds
of thousands of Americans remain displaced, many holding on by the skin
of their teeth in cramped trailers. Thirty million cubic yards of
debris remain uncollected - the Washington Post estimated over the
weekend that this was "enough to build a five-sided column more than 50
stories tall over the Pentagon." There is not even a plan in place to
begin to attack the problem. The Bush administration has left New
Orleans to rot, and the next hurricane season is four months away.
Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist once famously stated that he
wanted to shrink the federal government to the size where it could be
drowned in a bathtub. As evidenced by the budget cuts and tax giveaways
described above, many within this government feel as Norquist does.
Thanks to their actions, to the cuts in the Army Corps of Engineers
budget, to the nomination of useless cronies like Brown to vital
positions of civil defense, to a war in Iraq that has bled the budget
further and left Louisiana without sufficient National Guard troops to
help the population, it is New Orleans that has been drowned in
Norquist's bathtub. A major American city has been shattered, and
nothing is done about it.
To add insult to injury, the Bush administration utterly refuses to
answer any questions on the matter. Senator Joseph Lieberman of
Connecticut, perhaps the most widely-known Democratic defender of Mr.
Bush, is the ranking minority member on the Senate Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Committee. Even Mr. Lieberman is flabbergasted
by the stonewalling of the White House.
"My staff believes that DHS (the Department of Homeland Security)
has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation
in the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation's
natural progression to where it leads," Lieberman said last week. "At
this point, I cannot disagree. There's been no assertion of executive
privilege, just a refusal to answer. I have been told by my staff that
almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses
regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been
met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the
White House."
Mark Folse, a New Orleans native, operates a blog called "Wet Bank
Guide." On Monday, Mr. Folse posted a message for Mr. Bush. "I've never
lost the deepest allegiance I've ever held: to my city," wrote Folse.
"We have always known we were a people different and unique, as divided
as we may seem. That sense of identity as a New Orleanian is the
powerful bond that draws me on. It is the deep love of country that
drives me - of my country, New Orleans and southern Louisiana. It is
the irrational emotional attachment to my piece of America that leads
men and women to go willingly up Bunker Hill, to follow General
Pickett, to volunteer for Iraq."
"A life of assured privilege has protected you from having to take
these sorts of risks," continued Folse, "to find the strength to get up
and go into the maw of uncertainty, to risk and gamble your own and not
other peoples' lives or money. You can pledge allegiance or sing the
anthem or give a stirring speech as well as any, but you know you have
no allegiance except self-interest."
"If nothing moves you except your own self-interest," concluded
Folse, "then consider this. There are hundreds of thousands of us,
scattered throughout most of the United States. We are everywhere you
and your party will go to campaign: Arkansas and Atlanta and Austin,
Dallas and Detroit and Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Baltimore and
Boston, Chicago and Charlotte. Many will remain there indefinitely,
unable to go home, precisely because you have lied to them and betrayed
them. We will not let you escape from the net of lies you have woven.
Wherever you turn, you will find us, ready to call you out."
The situation in New Orleans is a problem that will not go away.
Men like Mark Folse will make absolutely sure of that.
"Scandal" Is Too Small a Word
The Abramoff scandal directly touches some sixty Republican
congresspeople, according to campaign finance records that show where
the disgraced lobbyist sent his money. Mr. Bush recently promoted the
lead investigator in this case, effectively removing him from the
investigation. Despite this, the hard look into Mr. Abramoff's dealings
continue. Mr. Abramoff's plea deal has a lot of people in Washington
suffering from flop-sweat.
Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the outing of a deep-cover
CIA agent by administration officials continues apace, and has already
cashiered Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby. According to t r u t h
o u t investigative reporter Jason Leopold, Fitzgerald has "spent the
past month preparing evidence he will present to a grand jury alleging
that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove knowingly made false
statements to FBI and Justice Department investigators and lied under
oath while he was being questioned about his role in the leak of covert
CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity more than two years ago, according
to sources knowledgeable about the probe."
"Although there have not been rumblings regarding Fitzgerald's
probe into the Plame leak since he met with the grand jury hearing
evidence in the case more than a month ago," continued Leopold in his
January 10th report, "the sources said that Fitzgerald has been quietly
building his case against Rove and has been interviewing witnesses, in
some cases for the second and third time, who have provided him with
information related to Rove's role in the leak."
None of this will be mentioned in the State of the Union speech
tonight. The Bush administration continues to stonewall these
investigations with all its might - Mr. Bush has denied ever knowing
Jack Abramoff, despite the existence of several pictures showing them
glad-handing each other in the White House - and the
Republican-controlled congress will certainly do nothing to advance the
questions being asked.
In contrast, a portion of the speech will certainly be dedicated to
moralistic sloganeering about values. Remember, as high-flown words
about truth and justice are spoken, what the Abramoff and Plame
scandals represent: a government run by thieves, stroked by swindlers,
and staffed by assassins who sing of defending the nation even as they
cast us down into greater danger.
And, by the way, the Enron trial started on Monday.
The Middle East
2,242 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Tens of thousands more
are grievously wounded. Tens and tens of thousands of civilians are
dead or maimed. Scores more simmer in rage and pick up weapons to
attack American forces. American soldiers wishing to go around the
Pentagon to augment their meager armor have been threatened with the
revocation of death benefits for their families. A coalition of
fundamentalist Shiite groups has taken over the government, the two
main parts of which are notorious terrorist organizations with
umbilical ties to Iran. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent
to do this. There is no end in sight.
Three years ago, in another State of the Union address, Mr. Bush
told the nation that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of
anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is 1,000,000
pounds) of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to
deliver these agents, mobile biological weapons labs, al Qaeda
connections, and uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons
program. Mr. Bush will have to work very hard tonight to tell a lie as
vast, dramatic and bloody as this.
Certainly, Mr. Bush will sing the praises of bringing democracy to
the Middle East. It is worthwhile, however, to consider what his
concept of democracy has accomplished to date. Six months ago, a
radical named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran. Thanks
to the intense feelings within Iran's populace about the US occupation
of Iraq, Ahmadinejad has been able to unify his country behind the
establishment of a nuclear program that frightens the rest of the
world. Ahmadinejad's election itself owes a great deal to Mr. Bush's
policies on Iraq.
Last week, the terrorist organization Hamas was overwhelmingly
elected by the Palestinian people to run their government, leaving the
Fatah party shocked and displaced. While the success of Hamas has much
to do with Fatah's corruption and lack of progress on several fronts,
the slow radicalization of the general population in the Middle East
once again can be laid at the doorstep of Mr. Bush. It has been
revealed that Bush's decision to disengage from the peace process
between Israel and Palestine several years ago was a disastrous choice.
Couple that with the occupation of Iraq and the torture of its
citizens, and few can be surprised when the general population in the
Middle East turns toward more radical elements.
Democracy is a tricky thing. The fact that people in Iraq, Iran and
Palestine are afforded the opportunity to vote, instead of suffering
the absolute control of a dictatorship, is arguably a good thing in the
main. Yet methods matter. When the Iraqi people are given the vote by
way of a ravaging war that inflames the passions of the region and
enshrines a radical government, democracy becomes its own worst enemy.
When that ravaging war empowers a fringe president in Iran, democracy
becomes its own worst enemy.
Methods matter. Democracy does not exist in a vacuum. When it is
forced upon a population at the point of a sword, that population will
see the sword as the best viable option to exercise its collective
will. Almost immediately, democracy will be used to elect radicals, and
those radicals will dispose of democracy at the first opportunity. The
radicalization of governments all across the Middle East has made the
world substantially more dangerous. Mr. Bush will speak of progress
tonight. The only progress being made is toward a general
conflagration.
On the other hand, Exxon Mobil has posted a $32 billion profit for
the last year. This stands as the largest single one-year profit in the
entire history of the world. Progress indeed.
The Unitary Executive Tapping Your Phone
Mr. Bush and friends have been jumping through flaming hoops to
justify the blatantly illegal policy of spying on Americans by way of
the National Security Agency. Their tortured arguments in favor of this
action, and their flat-footed declaration that the policy will
continue, makes confetti of the Fourth Amendment.
More than that, however, it moves this nation one step closer to
having an Executive Branch that supersedes all others in power and
scope. Not only will Mr. Bush spy on whomever he pleases, but he will
also torture whomever he pleases. Put simply, the
constitutionally-required separation of powers, the checks and balances
that have maintained the stability of this republic, is being
destroyed. This will echo down the corridors of our history long after
Mr. Bush has left his office.
On Monday afternoon, Senate Democrats failed to muster the
necessary 41 votes needed to avoid cloture on the nomination of Samuel
Alito. The man will be elevated to the highest court. Beyond the fact
that Alito is hostile to a woman's right to choose, hostile to privacy
rights in the face of unwarranted police intrusion, and hostile to the
poor and disadvantaged, there is the matter of his opinion on the
powers of the Executive. In short, he agrees with Mr. Bush.
The Reign of Witches
The state of this union is not good. We are poorer, frightened,
faced with the swelling ranks of enemies our leaders have created, and
hell-bent to do away with the most precious aspects of our system of
government. We are surveilled, propagandized, intimidated. We empower
the radicals and disenfranchise the common good. We are fed swill via
the television and thus convinced that what they tell us is what we
already believe. We are bought, and we are paid for.
The radicals running this country have long desired to destroy the
government's ability to govern - they found things like taxes
intrusive, which is amusing when one hears them now defending
warrantless spying on Americans - and they are well along the path
towards success. The budget is destroyed, spent on tax cuts and the
Iraq occupation, while millions of Americans suffer the loss of
necessary services. The one percent of the one percent is making a
killing, and the rest of us are left behind.
If there is hope to be found in all this, it is in the words of
Thomas Jefferson, written 208 years ago after the passage of the
Sedition Act.
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass
over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true
sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that
in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the
horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the
game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck
turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the
principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
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