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November 9, 2008
"When The Fox Is In Charge Of The Chicken Coop!"
By Charles L. Riccillo
Economy, war, Afghanistan, Israel,middle east, economy, bail-out, world economy, foreign affairs, Bush, lies, Republican, Democrat, interest rates,mistakes, allies, Halliburton, interest rates, drugs, Al Quaeda, Bin Lauden,armor, WMD, nuclear proliferation
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"When The Fox Is In Charge Of The Chicken Coop!"
"Too Many Years - Too Many Dangerous Mistakes"
by Charles L. Riccillo
"Well," I was once told - as I watched my university teaching career dissolve into thin air - "That's what happens when the fox is left in charge of the chicken coop!"
That, dear readers, is pretty much just what we've witnessed over the last eight years and in some other Republican times before it!
In my case, as a young theater professor, my contract was being non-renewed, all of it without due process, over the unanimous objections of the Arts and Communications faculty, the Committee for Renewal and Tenure, the students, and my own Dean of Arts and Sciences.
But this fox is not my personal bane, but rather our curse witnessed in particular over the last eight years!
Just who was in charge when:
1. This nation went to war, embarrassingly, plunging into Iraq without sufficient proof of just cause?
2. These United States contracted, sans any bidding or due consideration, with the Halliburton Corporation, for multiple contracts which will now soon enrich outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney's purse?
3. Freedoms and rights, including even habeas corpus and right to counsel, were suspended under the Patriot Act?
4. Prisoners as "suspected enemy combatants" were summarily tortured in Abu Graeb and Guantanamo, and jailed for indeterminate periods of time - or flown surreptitiously to allied Arab nations for questioning with "no holds barred" for weeks upon end?
5. Colin Powell, at the United Nations, was made to - much to his later chagrin - present a "slam-dunk" case of evident "weapons of mass destruction" - later found nowhere in evidence within the state of Iraq.
6. Our out-going President Bush prematurely announced with great fanfare, "mission accomplished" in Iraq.
7. The Bush administration went so far as to forbid photographs of returning, flag-draped American coffins, so that the press and people would not be able to readily see the evidence of our bloody foolishness.
8. The economy called "essentially sound" by our current President Bush, began a series of dives, wavering, and then near crash.
9. The world's economic systems, just this past week, in response to our own, began to decrease interest rates, and, as in the case of the United Kingdom, nationalize banks.
10. Returning veterans of the Iraq war found little or no support from the Veteran's Administration for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, as well as adequate medical and therapeutic care - along with job retraining and opportunities.
11. Afghanistan, home of the coveted poppy, shielded and funded terrorists and still apparently has Bin Lauden in safe keeping.
12. Body and vehicle armor proved inadequate in our war sites, causing the impromptu ingenuity in the outfitting of military vehicles and personal gear for our soldiers.
13. Israel grew to fear the threat of Iran's destruction of its people by nuclear means.
14. North Korea, like East Germany long before it, became a horrid "Checkpoint Charlie" - except that its Dictator, Kim Jong-Il had fast begun experiments in nuclear armiment.
15. Next to Israel, Palestine, still in search of its security as a nation, resorted to terrorist attacks upon innocents in buses throughout Israel's cities.
16. Georgia, next to Russia, became the first intervention by a still continuously Soviet minded government - in the person of Vladimir Putin - where, in fact ethic cleansing may actually be taking place.
17. Dar Fur, and the Congo, in Africa, have become ever more haunting images nightly for American television audiences.
18. Our citizens increasingly prefer the hiding of money in mattresses to the 'safety' of FDIC insured bank accounts.
19. Nightly PBS international television reports cite the American dollar as a red flag waved at the entire world's economy.
20. Calls to "Drill, baby, drill" ignore an American infrastructure incapable of refining whatever we find in our threatened sea waters and gulfs' natural habitats. In ecological and political terms, we have become of a mind to finally recognize "An Inconvenient Truth" and the politics of fear as Al Gore also detailed in "The Assault On Reason."
21. Yes, number twenty-one - let's make this a twenty-one gun salute! - nations encouraged by the election of an African American President, still wonder if we have any real credibility abroad because of the above ethically questionable ventures. And too many of our policies now, shamefully, verge upon fascism.
So much has happened, that, quite frankly, the American head is spinning.
We might as well be chickens running round with heads cut off.
How did this come to pass? Obviously, the security of this coop was violated.
What else could possibly occur when the foxes were in charge!
And now, in summary, where do we stand?
This author blushes to state, albeit with candor:
I don't know.
Do you?!