Ride a White Mare at the Footsteps of Doom
A bunch of months back, I went off on a screed in the Downmarketguru column that ended with "The United States of America will be a third world nation in less than 10 years."
I'd like to revise that statement to: "The United States of America will resemble a third world nation by the time the Bush administration is finished with us."
You don't believe me? Take a look at New Orleans 2 months after Katrina kicked the shit out of that great city. Fine, we all know FEMA totally fucked that up because of good old "Brownie" and other jackasses appointed by the Bush regime, more classic examples of Bush's incompetent cronies sucking on the political underbelly of this country like bloated leeches
(the sense of entitlement these people have is beyond belief - of course Bush should be able to allow a former Arabian horse judge to head up a government agency tasked to respond to disasters and terrorist attacks).
There are still horror stories popping up all over the Gulf states, corpses being fished out of trees, emaciated dogs chewing on dead babies, one of America's oldest cities barely functioning on shoestring budget life support. But FEMA fucked up again with Rita and yet again with Wilma. As I write these words millions of people are still without power and some without shelter in Florida and no one in our government seems to give a shit. When I was growing up only South America had problems like this. Only narco-terrorist states like Columbia or economically destitute countries like Argentina would let their citizens drown or starve en mass after mud slides or hurricanes weeks and months after the destruction had ended.
"Come on Alex, the Bush administration can't control freakin' hurricanes and Bush went on TV to take responsibility so why don't you lay off," you might say. Fair enough, it's an obvious shot. Besides, Bush took personal responsibility for these failures and promptly lost interest after the press got off his back (plus I'm sure the scandals were a distraction) so we'll move on to issues like national secuirty. Pretty important stuff, especially in the post-9/11 world right? So why are elements of his cabinet leaking confidential information about our CIA operatives? Why have we not stopped the flow of arms and money to terrorists around the world? Speaking of which, why the fuck haven't we found and killed Osama Bin Laden? He and his fucking lieutenants are on my TV and radio every other week railing against the U.S. and Israel, screaming jihad and we still have no idea where these guys are 4 years later? Fantastic job the Bush administration has done on this front. Did these jackasses take a wrong turn at Pakistan and accidentally invade Iraq? Oh wait... I forgot about all that 'evidence' Bush's token Colin Powell presented that justified the invasion so long ago. Holy shit do I feel safe every time I take the Lexington Ave. express. And I'm sure that when terrorists do finally strike that FEMA and the rest of the dipshits in charge will do a really good job cleaning up the bodies and rubble months after the fact.
"Well," you might say, "We are still a mighty nation with the most advanced Army the world and no group of corrupt leaders can take that away from us." I'm pretty sure that's what the Romans said thousands of years ago. Actually our armed forces are stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and no number of unmanned UAVs can salvage a nonexistent war plan while tens of thousands of our soldiers are maimed and just under a thousand are killed each year. Not having enough money to buy them replacement equipment is also a hell of a morale booster- so is the rolling deployment schedule because our leaders have no fucking idea how they're going to 'end' the war or even pull our troops out. The war in Iraq is a gaping black hole for the lives of thousands of G.I.'s and innocent civilians as well as billions of dollars. Meanwhile real threats like North Korea and Iran are working their asses off to develop nukes and all we can do is bark at them like some fucking castrated dog chained to a tree.
"Yeah but we're still an economic superpower," you may retort weakly. Want to talk purchasing power and inflation? Ho boy, just you wait. In February when consumer confidence has plummeted to an all time low because average middle class folks can't afford to heat their homes due to skyrocketing oil prices while Bush and Cheney are swimming in payoffs and oil stock dividends (when they're not sucking Saudi Arabian cock), we'll see how economically stable you feel. But hey, the government will make everything better by issuing even more debt to build fucking bridges that lead to nowhere in Alaska as an 'economic stimulus package' because foreign governments are stupid and will buy that debt and our taxes will service the interest on that debt! Why not, that's all us citizens are good for right? Besides, Bush knows everything about business - after all he did run two oil companies into the ground! But here's the kicker, Americans are more unpopular overseas now than they were during the Vietnam era. No one wants to buy American products because they don't want to support us, or be identified with us on any level. And I'm not talking about Turkey or Jordan, I'm talking about England and Germany. That wasn't such a big deal back in the 1970's because we were essentially a closed economy. Now thanks to the 'global village' economy that ain't the case. We are addicted to imports. This scares me because this country's economy has been coasting on consumer spending and ridiculously overvalued housing prices. Guess what? The party is WAAAAAY over folks: there are empty, broken bottles everywhere, the goldfish are floating belly up in the tank, someone has puked in the kitchen sink, the carpets stink of piss and you can't even imagine what the bathroom looks like.
"OK, but he's only got 2 years left on his term, how much more damage can he do?" you may ask. That statement assumes that a) Bush doesn't hack the Constitution to pieces to allow himself to rig a 3rd term election or b) that heartless evil cyborg bastard Dick Cheney rigs a 1st term election win in 2008. And with Bush trying to fill the 2 vacancies in the Supreme Court with right wing religious losers or lap dogs, who fucking knows what could happen. These idiots can still ruin this country in under 2 years, and from my perspective they're pulling out all the stops to do it. Cut federal funding for schools to pay for the seemingly endless war in Iraq? Get mutual fund companies to run Social Security? Hey why not turn NASA over to the church? Get Pfizer and Merck to run Medicare? Outsource Homeland Security to Halliburton and Corrections Corporation of America? Bush has shown he can do anything and everything he wants and there isn't a God damn thing you or I can do about it. And even if we could do anything we'd probably have our doors kicked down in the middle of the night by a bunch of brownshirt goons and thrown in jail under the Patriot Act.
Our current leaders are a disgrace. The George W. Bush administration will be remembered as the worst, most corrupt, incompetent and lethally damaging to the United States of America across every imaginable scale since the Hoover administration... and at least that dumbass fuck managed to get a pretty solid dam built.
One last thing before you write me off as some bleeding heart liberal assface- I am a registered Republican and I work on Wall Street.
I'd like to revise that statement to: "The United States of America will resemble a third world nation by the time the Bush administration is finished with us."
You don't believe me? Take a look at New Orleans 2 months after Katrina kicked the shit out of that great city. Fine, we all know FEMA totally fucked that up because of good old "Brownie" and other jackasses appointed by the Bush regime, more classic examples of Bush's incompetent cronies sucking on the political underbelly of this country like bloated leeches
(the sense of entitlement these people have is beyond belief - of course Bush should be able to allow a former Arabian horse judge to head up a government agency tasked to respond to disasters and terrorist attacks).
There are still horror stories popping up all over the Gulf states, corpses being fished out of trees, emaciated dogs chewing on dead babies, one of America's oldest cities barely functioning on shoestring budget life support. But FEMA fucked up again with Rita and yet again with Wilma. As I write these words millions of people are still without power and some without shelter in Florida and no one in our government seems to give a shit. When I was growing up only South America had problems like this. Only narco-terrorist states like Columbia or economically destitute countries like Argentina would let their citizens drown or starve en mass after mud slides or hurricanes weeks and months after the destruction had ended.
"Come on Alex, the Bush administration can't control freakin' hurricanes and Bush went on TV to take responsibility so why don't you lay off," you might say. Fair enough, it's an obvious shot. Besides, Bush took personal responsibility for these failures and promptly lost interest after the press got off his back (plus I'm sure the scandals were a distraction) so we'll move on to issues like national secuirty. Pretty important stuff, especially in the post-9/11 world right? So why are elements of his cabinet leaking confidential information about our CIA operatives? Why have we not stopped the flow of arms and money to terrorists around the world? Speaking of which, why the fuck haven't we found and killed Osama Bin Laden? He and his fucking lieutenants are on my TV and radio every other week railing against the U.S. and Israel, screaming jihad and we still have no idea where these guys are 4 years later? Fantastic job the Bush administration has done on this front. Did these jackasses take a wrong turn at Pakistan and accidentally invade Iraq? Oh wait... I forgot about all that 'evidence' Bush's token Colin Powell presented that justified the invasion so long ago. Holy shit do I feel safe every time I take the Lexington Ave. express. And I'm sure that when terrorists do finally strike that FEMA and the rest of the dipshits in charge will do a really good job cleaning up the bodies and rubble months after the fact.
"Well," you might say, "We are still a mighty nation with the most advanced Army the world and no group of corrupt leaders can take that away from us." I'm pretty sure that's what the Romans said thousands of years ago. Actually our armed forces are stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and no number of unmanned UAVs can salvage a nonexistent war plan while tens of thousands of our soldiers are maimed and just under a thousand are killed each year. Not having enough money to buy them replacement equipment is also a hell of a morale booster- so is the rolling deployment schedule because our leaders have no fucking idea how they're going to 'end' the war or even pull our troops out. The war in Iraq is a gaping black hole for the lives of thousands of G.I.'s and innocent civilians as well as billions of dollars. Meanwhile real threats like North Korea and Iran are working their asses off to develop nukes and all we can do is bark at them like some fucking castrated dog chained to a tree.
"Yeah but we're still an economic superpower," you may retort weakly. Want to talk purchasing power and inflation? Ho boy, just you wait. In February when consumer confidence has plummeted to an all time low because average middle class folks can't afford to heat their homes due to skyrocketing oil prices while Bush and Cheney are swimming in payoffs and oil stock dividends (when they're not sucking Saudi Arabian cock), we'll see how economically stable you feel. But hey, the government will make everything better by issuing even more debt to build fucking bridges that lead to nowhere in Alaska as an 'economic stimulus package' because foreign governments are stupid and will buy that debt and our taxes will service the interest on that debt! Why not, that's all us citizens are good for right? Besides, Bush knows everything about business - after all he did run two oil companies into the ground! But here's the kicker, Americans are more unpopular overseas now than they were during the Vietnam era. No one wants to buy American products because they don't want to support us, or be identified with us on any level. And I'm not talking about Turkey or Jordan, I'm talking about England and Germany. That wasn't such a big deal back in the 1970's because we were essentially a closed economy. Now thanks to the 'global village' economy that ain't the case. We are addicted to imports. This scares me because this country's economy has been coasting on consumer spending and ridiculously overvalued housing prices. Guess what? The party is WAAAAAY over folks: there are empty, broken bottles everywhere, the goldfish are floating belly up in the tank, someone has puked in the kitchen sink, the carpets stink of piss and you can't even imagine what the bathroom looks like.
"OK, but he's only got 2 years left on his term, how much more damage can he do?" you may ask. That statement assumes that a) Bush doesn't hack the Constitution to pieces to allow himself to rig a 3rd term election or b) that heartless evil cyborg bastard Dick Cheney rigs a 1st term election win in 2008. And with Bush trying to fill the 2 vacancies in the Supreme Court with right wing religious losers or lap dogs, who fucking knows what could happen. These idiots can still ruin this country in under 2 years, and from my perspective they're pulling out all the stops to do it. Cut federal funding for schools to pay for the seemingly endless war in Iraq? Get mutual fund companies to run Social Security? Hey why not turn NASA over to the church? Get Pfizer and Merck to run Medicare? Outsource Homeland Security to Halliburton and Corrections Corporation of America? Bush has shown he can do anything and everything he wants and there isn't a God damn thing you or I can do about it. And even if we could do anything we'd probably have our doors kicked down in the middle of the night by a bunch of brownshirt goons and thrown in jail under the Patriot Act.
Our current leaders are a disgrace. The George W. Bush administration will be remembered as the worst, most corrupt, incompetent and lethally damaging to the United States of America across every imaginable scale since the Hoover administration... and at least that dumbass fuck managed to get a pretty solid dam built.
One last thing before you write me off as some bleeding heart liberal assface- I am a registered Republican and I work on Wall Street.