ELECTION BUFFOONERY
We are already well into campaign rhetoric, TV ads, mailings, press releases, speeches, etc. The political party out of office always seems to know much better how to run the nation. But this time there is no question who got us into the mess we find ourselves today in the U.S. The Republicans showed they do not know how to run the nation and even more obvious is their misuse of power.
While the Democrats do not represent the common man, though I wish they did, the Republicans have definitely been taken over by war and greed corporations. There is no room for honest democracy in either party. While the conservatives attempt to unify their party behind a mantra of lower taxes, reducing the debt, limiting government, stopping illegal immigration, and flying the U.S. flag all over the world, the liberals, as usual, are fighting among themselves.
We drank the war-drug tea served to us by the war corporations. We confused patriotism with militarism. We blew up the national budget during the Bush administration and now want Obama to wave a wand and make it all better. In our "I want it now!" world, it was easy to invade Iraq and Afghanistan because of the emotion of the moment after 9-11, and we were promised a quick-fix by the right-wing. "Mission Accomplished." It definitely did not happen, and now we are stuck with the rubble of the war, the debt, the loss of face, and the hatred toward America at its highest point ever in the Middle East. One of the reasons there has been a growing violence in Iraq very recently is because the best recruitment item they have is if the Americans stay. That's how bad is the mess that the Bush gang inflicted. The terrorists benefited from America's presence in Iraq. They want us to stay.
I'm not some johnny-come-lately in lambasting the Bush administration and the horrible mistake of invading Iraq. Immediately, at the very moment of the invasion of Iraq, I stated clearly that it was a huge mistake. Most of what has happened in Iraq was as I predicted. There is no democracy in Iraq, and there also is not much running water, oil production, stability, etc. After a Spring election, they still have not formed a government. And the splinter of the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds is building for a full-blown civil war. Make no mistake about it, the Bush-backed Shiites are very, very cozy with Iran. I also wrote and spoke about that, but the Bush gang never saw it coming. Now what? When we leave, it will slowly slide into a civil war. Watch out! Iran will use its ties to the Shiite government in Iraq to increase their power and leadership in the Middle East. Iran will vie for concessions from the West and have its power increased and its likelihood of nuclear power increased.
Now it is too late to realize what Bush has done by invading Iraq. He created a problem without a satisfactory solution. Our former allies have left Iraq. We have been there holding the bag. Leaving will not mean the U.S. pulls out of a stable nation. It means we leave to allow Iraq to implode or become a cozy ally of Iran. In any case, the situation in the Middle East is worse than it was in 2001. And our presence in the Middle East has made Pakistan more unstable than ever. If you didn't like the terrorists flying into the World Trade Center, imagine them with nuclear weaponry. And the terrorists that we chased out of some of Afghanistan have simply re-deployed in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere. And while the terrorists were an unpopular fringe group in the Middle East, after the U.S. presented itself in the Middle East, these fringe groups are gaining support among Arabs and others in the area. I wrote and spoke out that all of this would happen back in 2002-2003 and foreward.
Stop! Think! It was the Republican leaders since 2001 who created this mess. They did not know how to balance the budget, they did not know how to regulate banks and other financial institutions, they should not have invaded Iraq, they alienated tremendous numbers of people in the Middle East, they drove up the debt, and they left the U.S. in shambles. Now they want Obama to suddenly correct things, and do it with less funds. We should be holding the conservatives responsible for this mess. And we should call to account the failures of the Democrats and the Obama administration to make more positive actions to turn around an ailing America.
Conclusion: what a mess! A likely Republican victory in November: what a worse mess! Instead of thinking people like the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich [ugh!], etc. have the answers, call upon your own intelligence instead of your hatred to make decisions. If you want to "thrown the bums out" that is fine, but don't replace them with Tea Party hatred and bigotry. You should know better than that. What have the conservatives proven they can do since 2001?
