No Blood For Oil

So many things are wrong; so little time to fix them.

A Tome could be written about all of the mistakes, deceptions, errors in judgment and illegal acts of this Administration. It would read like a cheap novel and if everything were documented no one would believe that this could happen here. There is no single part of government that this administration hasn't destroyed or weakened. (And we thought Nixon was bad; at least he opened up China.)

I tried, in fairness to think of one good thing that Bush has done right and I just couldn't come up with one. I'm sure someone will enlighten me. I do tend to be biased. ;-)

And so, off the top of my head, I am listing the obvious ones first that even the most oblivious will find hard to refute. Remember, facts are stubborn things.

• The economy is in the tank.
• The horrible cost in lives and money due to the illegal and ruinous war with Iraq.
• The environment has been ignored and allowed to deteriorate further,
• The slowest job growth in 50 years.
• The National debt is 9.5 trillion: the largest in history
• The biggest divide between the rich and poor since the days of the robber barons.
• The destruction of our image in the world. We are now a nation that is hated.
  
• The infrastructure has been allowed to crumble.
• Politics have been injected into the highest court in our land.
• The housing market is imploding.
• Big Corporations pay no taxes.
• Schools are saddled with mandated tests and no money to pay for them and our educational system is becoming one of the worst compared to other industrialized nations..
• Our voting system is becoming more unreliable with touch pad electronics and illegal meddling.
• Placing Ideologues as heads of Cabinet positions who made decisions based on ideology rather than facts and science.

I could continue with sub-topics about Abu-Graib, torture, secrecy, Katrina, illegal wire tapping, the outing of Valerie Plame, etc. But people who read already know all this.It's the insidious small things that escape detection and that are also undermining our society. It all began when Bush came into office and was determined to undo everything Clinton had put in place. Treaties were canceled or ignored, The Israeli/Palestinian conflict was put on the back burner and shoved aside.. If Clinton did it, Bush undid it without any analysis of its merit. He was like a petulant child who stamped his feet if he didn't get his way. So, because the administration wanted to do some 'not-so-nice' and/or illegal things, they became obsessively secretive. It will be years for the extent of the complete damage done to see the light of day. Due to the illegal loss (?) of documents ("The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office), we may never know all of the sleazy things done by this administration. If the records finally are found and haven't been destroyed we may learn that this administration caused a popular governor to go to prison on trumped up charges. And other Federal prosecuters lost their jobs because they didn't prosecute Democrats or did prosecute Republicans. The independence of the judicial system meant about as much as checks and balances to these guys.

The Conservative belief that all things can be cured by privatizing them is undermining our society in ways that will last for generations. The disastrous Medical Reform Act has further weakened our health system that is now so broken that the only way to fix it would be to scrap it and start over. Of course, that would create such a furor that it will never happen.

Little by little more insidious facts are spilling out about what the Bush Administration has really done to our country under the radar. Sometimes deliberately and sometimes with sheer incompetence. A new fact just surfaced that people were sickened and some died because the FDA ignored. or glossed over, a report that 88 tainted shipments of chili peppers were turned away months ago. Since they took no action, more peppers were allowed in and people ingested Salmonella. This is just one example of incompetence at agencies that were once professional. And we all know about the mess in New Orleans.

Surprise, surprise !! The real reason we went into Iraq was one that some of us (including Barak Obama) believed to be true at the time. One word. OIL. Remember the people who cried, "No blood for
oil !"? They were vilified by the administration and called traitors. Now everyone should know that they were right and were the true patriots.

Prior to the war the oil industry was nationalized by the government of Iraq and they made it extremely difficult for foreign oil companies to do business there. But wonder of wonders, Hunt oil has just signed an agreement with the Kurds, four more American oil companies have signed temporary agreements, and seven more will be bidding. No wonder Dick Cheney deviously worked behind the scenes to make sure this war happened. And no wonder he has hidden his meeting on energy and refuses to release the documents.

Now, to add injury to insult, Bush is trying to weaken the endangered species act. If those in this administration were our enemies they couldn't do a better job of ruining our country. Wait a minute - maybe they are our enemies. Methinks they 'protesteth too much' on how patriotic they are. (Okay, that's over the top, but I couldn't resist. Forgive me.)

What is more sickening is the number of people who can't see that John McCain will continue all of these failed policies. He is no maverick, having voted with the administration 95% of the time. This information must be spread and understood by the electorate before we see the total destruction of our country.

Please continue on to the post script to this post.