Counting on the Sheep
The Wolfe and the Sheep
by Aesop
"A Wolf, sorely wounded by dogs, lay recovering in his lair. Being in want of food he asked a Sheep who was passing by to fetch some water from a nearby stream. "If you will bring me drink," he said, "I will find meat myself." "No doubt, said the Sheep. "If I should bring you drink, you would make mince-meat of me."
Hypocritical speeches are easily seen through.
Old Aesop knew a thing or two about politics. He never experienced anything like the American Sheep, though. These Sheep not only bring the water to the Wolf, they also bare their necks to make it easier for the Wolf to make mince meat of them.
When will Americans do some homework and compare the Bush rhetoric with his actions. Can't we see through the speeches and recognize hard evidence that Bush is not what he seems and has not done what he was elected to do. Here's an example:
"If this were a spending contest, I would come in second. I readily admit I'm not going to grow the size of the federal government like [Gore] is." [Source: Debate transcript]
Not true! How about the bloated Department of Homeland Security? It's a multi billion dollar Frankenstein of government entities designed to put out color coded "terror" alerts. It was established as a knee jerk response to 9/11 and has served to restrict the rights of government workers and innocent Americans in the process.
The only reason why this giant barrel of Presidential pork would make any sense at all is if it incorporated the FBI and the CIA into one entity and thereby improve communication between the two intelligence groups. The 9/11 Commission Report in Section 13 identified this issue as the main reason why no action was taken on tips about the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Even before the HSD was created, groups were asking why this new department did not include the fifteen intelligence gathering government entities, including the FBI and CIA. The Bush administration had no answer and now we're looking at another CIA entity or restructure and another addition to government spending with little promise of improved cooperation and communication.
Instead of accepting the criticism and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission honestly, our current administration uses these issues as a reason to excuse their lack of judgment and spend more taxpayer dollars, give handouts to "faith based" groups, hand out more no-bid govt contracts, invade the privacy of more citizens, cut more social programs, and gain more control.
The American Sheep who ignore the obvious failure of GWB will give him and his pack of wolves another four more years to feast on our economy, debilitate our military, eviscerate our safety nets and civil rights, and destroy foreign policy. Who benefits?
The answer is obvious. America is becoming a land of the ultra wealthy and the dirt poor but Bush refuses to acknowledge this divide and glosses over the suffering of millions of Americans sliding into poverty or ending up in jail. He might well call his "ownership society" economic policy a catastrophic success along with his Iraq war. How can over 2 million people who lost their jobs, millions who have gone bankrupt and/or have lost their homes own anything? Makes no sense to anyone on that end of the spectrum, but the ultra wealthy love the opportunities these hardships represent. They get cheaper labor, scoop up foreclosed houses at rock bottom prices, and ship out the credit cards like toxic lifelines so more people owe their souls to the "company store."
It's an old Republican story with a new twist. The twist is that the Bush administration calls themselves "conservatives" while shamelessly creating the largest central government in US history. In the name of "security" this new wing of the central government seeks to spy on our grocery receipts and internet activities while it creates a list of suspect Americans barred from boarding airplanes. The list of central government population control activities is astounding and growing. I recently received an email warning that the federal government advocates and may indeed sponsor screening our children for mental illness in public schools. Apparently, such a program already exists in Illinois and concerned citizens with school age children are protesting the screenings and subsequent drugging of their children in the name of "mental health." Naturally big pharmaceutical is the main beneficiary of this intrusive program.
Republican "conservatives" supposedly ".., stand for less government, less taxes, less socialism, encouraging the citizens to be independent and to be the best that they can be rewarding individual achievement and small government." That's what Leo Hamm of Grand Rapids says in his letter blasting the Republicans who believe in this definition and oppose George Bush!
Oh, and by the way, I agree with everyone who says that George W, Laura and the twins are cute as buttons and probably some real down home folks. Indeed, they are likable people, but the Bush administration or machine is not. Send the Bush clan back to the Crawford ranch where they can do damage to sheep who know enough to run from the ax.
