Al Capone, the feared gangster from the 1920s, once said that capitalism is a legitimate racket for the rich. No other president in US history has given more credence to Al Capone’s words that George W. Bush. With the USA presidential election finally over, reasonably prudent people everywhere can now breathe a sigh of relief that the worst president in United States history is about to leave office forever. Now the assessment of the damage done by him and his party to not only the US economy, but to the near complete destruction of Iraq, the fiasco in Afghanistan, and death of just under one million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the death of over 4000 US soldiers in these geographic regions. Bush and his advisors believed in the principle of democracy by force against Arab oil producing countries, which is viewed by many as an assault against Islam and Muslims everywhere, and a war against Islamic nations by proxy for Israel. Bush has redefined the geopolitical landscape by transferring huge amounts of wealth to oil-rich Arab countries and empowered Russia by meddling in her back yard. In a somewhat positive note, the major oil companies, the defense industry, as well the pharmaceutical companies, have all made tremendous financial gains from the subsidies from Bush’s leadership. His tax cuts for the wealthy have enriched the CEOs of these respective companies. One can make the successful argument that Bush used the US Military to secure the oil fields in Iraq, at no expense to oil companies like Exxon Mobile, to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan, so an oil pipeline could service the newly emerging oil-rich countries in Caspian Basin region. Most people still remember the recent military attack on Southern Ossetia by The Republic of Georgia, and Bush’s pledge to send $1 billion in aid to Georgia, as the US economy falters, Bush is still loyal to his friends in the oil industry.
The financial crisis that has struck all corners of the world is certainly not a cyclical business event. It’s a human made fabricated crisis propelled by dishonesty and greed by the very people who have claimed moral clarity and superiority. The citizens in the USA have not only been lied to about Weapons of Mass Destruction, but about the true costs of the war in Iraq, which are approximately $5 billion per day. That is why congress extended the debt limit to 9 trillion dollars, and the USA is now in a financial meltdown. In addition, a Washington-Wall Street connection is consolidating the banking system. Banks that received federal bailout money are not using the money to establish loans and credit in the private sector, they are hoarding the money and using it to purchase other banks and corporations. Speculators on Wall Street and hedge funds are consolidating their power by manipulating stock prices, like GM and Ford, using such techniques as short-selling, and when the stock price falls to record lows, billionaires who are sitting on the sidelines will scoop up these companies at bargain prices. The Washington - Wall Street connection, through Deutsche Bank, the bank that was involved in pre – 911 insider trading, may be again in the middle of GM and Ford’s depleted stock values. Can the CIA, through Deutsche Bank, be planning a financial collapse to start World War III against oil-rich Arab countries like Iran? One can remember after WWII, the Bretton Woods agreement, a negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations between nation states. President Nixon, in a brilliant move, in 1971, removed the United States from the pre-established Gold Standard, thereby making the US dollar the de facto reserve currency for the world. The dollar now has competition from other industrialized countries, like the European Union and China. Another World War would certainly propel the industrialized nations to another Bretton Woods type of financial arrangement, which would benefit the United States, to the exclusion of other emerging world powers. The United States can only prop up the failing dollar with military power.
In the USA alone, the major financial institutions on Wall Street, the banking system, the automotive companies, and the middle class are suffering from the inadequacy of George W. Bush’s leadership and his personnel vision of a paranoid delusional Homeland, which was the United States of America. According to Bush, this Homeland is constantly under siege by Radical Islamic Terrorists to such an extent that Duct Tape and a personal survival kit were the necessary tools to protect individual homeowners’ from the onslaught. Homeland Security was added as a new layer of federal bureaucracy to bring synthesis to the systemic failures of individual security entities like the CIA and FBI at the cost to taxpayers in the hundreds of billions of dollars. In the rush to synthesize the security apparatus of the new Homeland, the southern borders of the US were left wide open, and a terrorist camel train, that would make Lawrence of Arabia green with envy, could march right through Arizona for days without anyone noticing.
However, the War on Terror must go on, though the individuals involved in terrorist activities are not associated with any particular country, like Afghanistan, but Bush believes that Arabs in oil-rich countries, which just happen to be Muslim nations, are the evil doers of the 21st Century. Iran is next on the list, simply because, in very biblical terms, they are evil. Therefore, unilateral action needs to be taken in order to consume their economy, steal their oil, and destroy their basic infrastructure so no-bid contracts can be awarded to corporations whose CEO’s play golf with Bush and Cheney. The war on terror has yielded an inversely proportional effect on the United States. The largest transfer of wealth in modern history, from the United States to the oil-rich Arab countries, has just occurred. Oil rich countries like Dubai are under going some of the world’s most fascinating and largest construction projects on record. A mile-long futuristic bridge in Dubai, a King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia valued at $120 billion dollars, and a Silk City Project in Kuwait valued at $86 billion dollars. The very people Bush demonized are enjoying unheard of wealth and investing in new infrastructure. In a somewhat disturbing note, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, recently traveled to the Gulf region, to implore oil-rich Arab nations to pour money into the banking system to stabilize the world financial system. I am sure groveling was involved. There is one minor problem with Brown’s logic. Islamic banks do have moral clarity and monetary superiority. They have been largely unaffected by the Global financial meltdown because their religious’ laws prohibit the acquisition of wealth from activities such as gambling, alcohol, and pornography. They do not invest in companies that produce tobacco or have anything to do with the armament trades. In addition, they do not involve themselves with the buying and selling of debt. The very basis of the Bush financial revolution was the marketing and selling of money as debt.
To recap some of the outstanding achievements of the Bush Presidency, I have included the following:
1) The Weapons of Mass Destruction folly used as the pretext to attack Iraq. To date, no WMD’s have been found in Iraq.
2) Forged documents and fabricated evidence presented to the United Nations to be used as fodder for the gristmill of unilateral war against Iraq.
3) French, German, and Russian Embassies’ bugged by electronic devices by US intelligent agencies.
4) Dick Cheney presided over the Energy Task Force whose notes and documents are considered classified, and not available to the public. One organization sued under the FOIA and received some documents related to the oil fields in Iraq.
5) Bush tried to form a coalition to gather support for the unilateral military action against Iraq and coerced and bribed most of the unwilling countries. Turkey was offered $25 billion US dollars and refused.
6) Bush instituted tax cuts for the rich and the Federal Reserve flooded the economy with loads of cash and Wall Street marketed Mortgage Back Securities to the world, which turned toxic and initiated a financial meltdown.
7) The US government is financing its own indebtedness by borrowing from the very banks they are bailing out.
8) The CIA and FBI know that Osama Bin Laden was killed during the carpet bombing of the summer of 2002 in the mountainous region of Afghanistan, and yet he was resurrected during the 2004 election and every time it was politically expedient.
One group that needs absolute mention in Bush’s failed presidency is the Christian Fundamentalists that supported Bush throughout his term in office. The Biblical prophecies of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ are now re-scheduled until another fundamentalist extremist can become president of the Unites States. Albeit a small minority of extremists, these Christian Zionists believe in the absolute undying support of Israel at any cost, and the costs are in the billions, because the gathering of Jews in their homeland is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Christ. This idea of the Second Coming can be loosely tied to Christian Dispensationalism. This is the literal belief whereby True Believers will be whisked to Heaven, no matter where they are, for example, in a 757 flying to Japan, and non-believers will stay on planet Earth and suffer various plagues and tortures, as Armageddon looms in the background. Of course, there is one minor problem in this dispensationalist doctrine, and that is the mass conversion of all Jews to Christianity after the final battle with the evil Muslim nations. This is a major problem for Jews everywhere, as they have a vast Judaic history over 2000 years old, and have no intention of converting.
The breakdown of the votes in the presidential election is somewhat revealing in that the southern states, commonly referred to as the Bible Belt, generated some startling evidence that perhaps a new civil war is about to erupt in the United States. The core southern states, like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and others, all had a decent margin for McCain, while the northern states supported Obama. After the election, they were some pretty upset southerners. Their entire plan for the New American Century, AKA, racism, bigotry, and warfare, just went down the drain. Now they cannot pad the Supreme Court with conservative judges to overthrow Roe vs. Wade, they cannot bring back slavery, and they cannot put the Ten Commandments in government buildings. The Bible is full of wonderful parables and allegories that teach by example of how to live a better life. However, the literal interpretation of the Bible is dangerous and can lead to religious extremism and fanaticism. The Earth is not 4000 to 6000 years old, but more likely 4.5 billion years old. Dinosaurs did walk the Earth, and humans evolved from some form of monkeys. Intelligent Design has no right to be taught in schools, and in fact, some European countries are horrified at the level of stupidity exhibited by people in some states, like Kansas. I mention Kansas because their corn fields use the latest forms of genetic engineering, the vary basis of evolution, to produce insect and disease resistant crops, yet their people cling to prehistoric ideas of religion. Harry Potter is considered evil and a basis of some form of medieval witchcraft and magic. There is nothing more magical than the idea of being whisked up to outer space in a moment’s notice, to visit Heaven, home to a Supernatural Deity, the location of which is yet to be established, while the rest of humanity suffers from various boils and plagues. Can any fundamentalist give me a scientific explanation that will empirically stand up to scientific review on the physics needed to propel one into outer space? I can understand, when one dies, the genetic code, for example, being transferred in a quantum of light, but what about one’s memories accumulated over a lifetime? New research shows that protein chains, called prions, may play a part in memory. Unfortunately, these are protein chains so they will decompose with a corpse.
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