Friday, August 27

The Bush Economy: Tax Cuts + Deficit Spending = Third World Reality





While American standards of living decline, the Bush administration has orchestrated an orgy of political mud wrestling for our consumption. With the help of it's ever faithful imperial guardians of news, the mainstream media, we get treated to Swift Boat vets tearing open the wounds of Vietnam Vets. Blood, gore, screams of outrage, broken lances galore! Yay!

We don't have to think about a thousand body bags from Iraq and Afghanistan, or about exhausted National Guardsmen many of whom have become more fodder for the Abu Graib mud wrestling matches to come. We don't have to think about the beatings and humiliations coming up for us in the job market as our paychecks shrink against the rising costs of living and our benefits dwindle, if we're lucky to have a job that hasn't been "outsourced."

Why do Americans still support the Bush administration? This is a scary mystery and I haven't gotten any kind of reasonable response from their supporters. It reminds me of a movie that I loved but hated called, "I Love You To Death." It featured a great cast and starred Kevin Kline, Tracy Ullman and Joan Plowright and it came out around the time of another media scandal fest, the Joey Buttafucko (sp?) affair. Ullman's the wife who gets sick of her husband's cheating and tries to kill him in every disgusting way possible. **SPOILER** She fails, goes to jail, her husband takes her back and they live happily every after! The most amazing thing about this movie is that it's based on a true story. The man, Joey Boca,was almost murdered by his wife and he continues to love her, make excuses for her psycho behavior and, and, ....!!

Maybe there are a lot of people like Joey Boca who think they deserve to be destroyed because they're guilty of living the good life during the Clinton years, or of cheating on their taxes, or cheating on their wives or husbands? It is really a mystery.

I wonder what these same people would do if they employed someone like Bush. If he was a middle manager of a construction firm and had to defend his poorly devised, poorly constructed projects against obvious failure, would the Joey Boca's of the world fire him? Despite Bush and those that promote the economic "trickle down" theory, the American economy will survive and thrive. Meanwhile, millions are slipping into poverty and the gap between the rich and poor in America is widening.

Recently, someone said I shouldn't be so critical about the President because I couldn't do a better job. Ordinarily, I'd agree immediately, but now I pause and wonder.