To the credit of Great Wealth, we are on the eve of a "close" mid-term election. We are also witnessing the end of representative republican democracy (a poor means of conducting government, but which is superior to all alternative forms).
Unprecedented amounts of money (during a depression!) are pouring into this mid-term election. Because of a Supreme Court appointment by the previous administration, by one Judge's vote, we now have a system which permits corporations, and unidentified "persons", to electioneer. We have no idea who is funding the political ads, and MOST of them are factually misleading.
This de-regulation and privatization of public elections will live in infamy along other Bush era catastrophes:
(1) Appointing inexperienced and "political" judges.
(2) Tax cuts to the Super Rich - with ZERO economic benefit for anyone else. The fact that the rich are richer while the middle class has collapsed, is the single achievement of the neo-Conservative take-over.
(3) Changing the laws so that "investment bankers" could destroy banking system. Glass-Steagal Act passed in the 1930's prevented banks from taking savings and putting money into investments with risk. The "new" (actually resurrected 1920's products) mortgage-backed securities, negative default swaps, and fraudulent investment "products" (literally toxic), destroyed the financial system.
(4) Oct 2008 tax payer bail-out for Wall Street -- unprecedented transfer of the risks to the public, providing yet another splurge of billion-dollar commissions to the bankers who had destroyed their institutions.
(5) Selling WMD to Iraq, then ignoring the UN inspection and attacking Iraq without a plan, leaving us with an un-winnable war, and the spectacle of rising religious intolerance and mass migration of refugees.
(6) Ignoring bin Laden in Afghanistan - repeatedly, and in spite of his large family, known relationships, and his control of a network of
(7) Ignoring terrorism until after 9/11,
(8) Ignoring deterioration of infrastructure with results such as the Katrina disaster,
(9) denying Global warming,
(10) destroying the civil justice system,
(11) making our schools the most expensive and least effective among nations,
(12) making our health care the most expensive and least effective among nations.
(13) starting with an income surplus, creating the biggest debt in history.
(14) Creating a hostility to independent journalists: Is it coincidence that in the Bush decade, journalists were increasingly singled out and killed by organized crime? This global rise of tyranny reached its apex in 2009, with the murder of 76 journalists killed in connection with their jobs. Organized crime and right-wing militias became the biggest threats. After Obama took over, the murder rate plummeted. In 2010, the death toll was down 25% to 57. Reporters without Borders, annual report from Paris.
(15) destroying the military - exhausting the Forces, and crippling the National Guard concept by pulling the citizen-soldiers out of their civilian employment for year-long war duty tours.
(16) privatizing the military and support services - Halliburton black no-bid "contracts" which guarantee huge profits to short-term fortunes while soldiers facing more risks have less to gain.
(17) Indifference to infrastructure - what utilities were not "sold" with corrupt discounts to private enterprises which promptly raised rates, were left languishing without maintenance and repair. Bridges, dams, highways, parks, water and power are all collapsing and deteriorating.
For the past couple years, many people have been working on this large hole which the Bush-Cheney-Rove Enron Halliburton cabal placed us into.
Ideologues are like the chefs who accept your invitation to dinner, then bad mouth the food, and think they do you a favor.
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