Tasks Ignored During the Bush Reign of Horror

Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 9:57 am
Column: Michael Collins

Unfinished Business

What's so funny? It must be an inside joke. Image cc

Tasks Ignored During the Bush Reign of Horror

Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News

The last eight years can best be described as the illegitimate rule of deviant forces bent on enriching the few at the expense of the many. Poverty is up, real income is flat for the majority of citizens while the elite have "super sized" their holdings with a callous disregard for the nation and economic realities.

The phantom "Yellow Brick Road" has come to an abrupt end through an expression of will by the people. President-elect Obama won by a wide margin in the popular vote and an even wider margin in the Electoral College. He is their choice.

What Obama promised matters. What the people expect matters more. What matters most is the crucial statement of the people. This election was a resounding no vote on executive lying, misdirection, deception, fabrication, and non stop failures. It was also a clear no vote on the unrestrained exercise of power used to attack individual rights promised in the Constitution and the willful neglect of the collective needs of citizens made manifest by their daily struggles.

This election was a clear statement by many who expressed their revulsion at the pervasive, mind numbing propaganda from the masters of deception (a problem that predates Bush by decades). Citizens knew that we'd never find Bin Laden in Iraq. But the propagandists managed to turn the majority opposition in both parties into an invasion with marginal support by using the "n" word - nuclear weapons of mass destruction. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, opposition to the war returned to a solid majority and remained there.

The propagandists tried to tell us that the economy was doing just fine, growing by leaps and bounds. Citizens noticed that there were few new jobs created, except by federal expansion to meet "security" needs. They also noticed that the real levels of unemployment and inflation were crushing.

The propagandists told us that Wall Street provided a never ending stream of benefits that we'd all enjoy. Citizens were wary and then outraged when the financial system collapsed into a free fall of corporate ruin infecting the entire economy.

When these fatally flawed entities begged for a bailout, citizens spoke in numbers and with intensity rarely if ever seen by Congress. Prior to the first bailout bill, congressional offices received a torrent of calls and emails showing overwhelming opposition to corporate welfare.

On just this one occasion, Congress responded to the will of the people. The bailout was narrowly defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives. While it was passed a few days later, this statement left its mark. The people were finally fed up. They were willing to risk their own well being to see that the authors of the disaster were not rewarded.

There has been nothing but lies from start to finish during the eight year reign of horror with only a few brave politicians speaking truth to corrupt power. They were ridiculed and marginalized as a reward for their bravery.

Now it's over and there's unfinished business that requires our attention. This business includes the following and much more:

End the Iraq occupation. Assign responsibility and consequences. Put a stop the fantasies of empire and actions that will lead to more ruinous overseas adventures.

Care for the wounded. Admit the losses and provide for healing.

Admit that the planet is in peril. Acknowledge our role in causing the problem. Accept leadership in solving it and get to work.

Revive the economy based on real products and services and make sure everyone does well. End the looting by banks and other dubious enterprises and punish those responsible.

Rebuild the United States of America wherever needed.

Provide health care services to citizens and disregard the nonsense about not being able to afford it. It's only fair to ask those who say it can't be done to sacrifice their own health care until they find a solution.

A Solid Dose of Reality to Start: The Political "Numbers Racket"

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We've seen the rapacious looting of the U. S. Treasury by banks and other corporations that have failed miserably. In a state of panic, their Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, took the money we paid in taxes and gave it to these corporate failures. There are few strings attached and little to no accountability for Paulson's actions, a former Wall Street executive who has rewarded his old company, Goldman Sachs, with billions.

Since the bailout bill passed, he's already given away $350 billion without any oversight and the bag man, the Federal Reserve, refuses to tell Congress any details about where the money went.

This is nothing new. They've just "kicked it up" to a much higher level of theft. It's the latest in a series of betrayals by the "masters of the universe" who clam to produce the wonders of our economic system.
It's been largely smoke and mirrors. Citizens are right when they complain about exported jobs, free trade that punishes U.S. workers and businesses, and the difficulties of simply getting by in a rough economy. At the same time, we are confounded and confused by the propagandists and their Matrix version of the economy which claims "it's all good." It isn't. In fact, the economy is much worse than we've been told for decades.

Political adjustments to measures of unemployment began in the 1960's followed by distortions of inflation shortly thereafter. When a downturn occurred, the numbers were adjusted and distorted further as an obvious "opiate for the masses." It worked to keep interest rates low, spur housing booms, and even wilder schemes, while denying Social Security beneficiaries' real adjustments in their payments.

This "numbers racket" also clouded common sense judgments by the public. How bad can it be? Look at those unemployment figures! Maybe it's just me?

If the numbers don't fit, just adjust the assumptions, change the rules of the game, and create a parallel reality. The first targets in the unreal representation of the economy were unemployment and inflation rates. The blue line represents the rate of inflation by the pre 1980's standards. No wonder times are tough.

The blue line represents a realistic rate of inflation.
Shadow Government Statistics (Full size)

When Alan Greenspan, an architect of this change, said that we had conquered inflation, he was about as accurate and truthful as he was when he said that home equity lines and adjustable rate mortgages were a great way to take equity out of your home so you could put it in the stock market.

The blue line represents all of the unemployed.
Shadow Government Statistics (Full size)

Unemployment statistics were conveniently adjusted since the 1960's when those seeking a job for more than a year were simply removed from the jobless figures. There were still unemployed but their inconvenience to the propagandists was eliminated by "disappearing" them into the background of a shadow economy.

Kevin Phillips summed it up succinctly when he said:

"If Washington's harping on weapons of mass destruction was essential to buoy public support for the invasion of Iraq, the use of deceptive statistics has played its own vital role in convincing many Americans that the U.S. economy is stronger, fairer, more productive, more dominant, and richer with opportunity than it actually is." Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know. Harpers, May 2008.

How can we make rational judgments without a real picture of the world around us?

How can we judge leaders if they don't have to answer for the reality that they create?

It's time to take care of unfinished business. As that process goes forward, whatever your priorities might be, it is important to see the pervasiveness and absolute necessity of the "official" lies for the liars and those they serve.

We need to seize the opportunity that we have as citizens to push through these fictions and create our own reality as we address the business left unfinished by those who promised us so much and delivered nothing but degradation and hardship.

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