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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
www.NationalView.org's Note From a Madman
August 19, 2008
The Permanent Campaign Lives On
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan uses the term Permanent
Campaign as a main thesis of his book What Happened, the book about the Bush
White House and what went wrong inside of it. By now, we all know that this was,
and still is, a White House by and for the very "base of haves and have mores"
which President Bush, himself joked about during a New York fund-raiser all so
long ago.
The Permanent Campaign, by definition, is a the practice of keeping the pressure
on not only political opponents, but the news media and the American people
themselves. The campaign must keep us all on the edge of our seats; it must keep
us afraid that no matter how bad the current situation is, the status quo must
be kept in order to keep us "safe".
The Permanent Campaign, as this administration has used it, is one that uses
fear and prejudice along with economic manipulation. The Bush administration has
been fierce in their philosophical practice of Trickle Down Economics - the same
Trickle Down theory used (and failed )by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Herbert
Hoover (of course in Hoover's case the failure came in the form of The Great
Depression).
It's the same theory which Bush's father termed "Voodoo Economics" when he was
the opponent of his future mentor Reagan during the GOP primaries of 1980.
What McClellan didn't know is that this current campaign would include actual
military warfare. Perhaps he simply refused to see or admit that this President
- his "friend" George W. Bush - would be so callous as to use our young men and
women; to sacrifice their lives for a political philosophy with the only end
being continuing power.
Maybe McClellan never heard of PNAC, the Project for a New American Century
whose members - many of whom became members of the Bush administration and
colleagues of Bush Press Secretary Number Three - theorized and wished for "A
New Pearl Harbor".
Many of us have seen this same tact used in business: The guy (or gal) whose
only job is to make sure he still has a job tomorrow. Only in our present
Government's position, it's to make sure that they stay on top.
This Permanent Campaign is nothing but a campaign against the American people.
The fact that they use our military personnel as sacrificial lambs is simply a
sacrifice they're willing to make.
Today we are still fighting a war in Afghanistan where our enemy, the Taliban
and al-Qaeda, are more fierce than they were in the days prior to 9-11. As the
Bushies, and now the McBushies, point to Iraq as a success story, regardless of
the true facts on the ground, they ignore the mess they made in that other war.
The first and primary war against terrorism as, or as they call it, "Radical
Islamists" was, and still is, in Afghanistan.
In the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we made an effort
to rid the world of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But something happened: The Bush
administration - and, yes, it was their responsibility - let the leaders of the
"Radical Islamists" get away.
We've all heard the story by now about the CIA agent on the ground watching the
airplane take off from Afghanistan's Tora Bora region saying "There he goes." He
was referring to the possibility that Osama bin-Laden, presumed surrounded by US
forces in that area, had simply gotten away on that plane.
Bin-Laden and al-Qaeda have become a necessary tool in keeping the fear part of
the Permanent Campaign going. In order to keep us in line, and afraid, there
needs to be a boogeyman, and what better boogie-man could there be on the loose
than a real-life terrorist?
Bin-Laden has been the key component of this Permanent Campaign, he has been the
best gift which the Bushies have ever gotten. Christmas came early for the
Bushies on 9-11-2001 and it came in the form of a six-foot two-inch Saudi
schlepping a Kidney machine behind him. Every time this guy makes an appearance
we Americans pucker up our lower cheeks in anticipation of the worst.
And that makes this administration, and their would-be successors, the
McBushies, very happy.
-Noah Greenberg
In response to John McCain's, "Let's give every family in America $7.000 for
every child that they have... Let's give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to
go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let's not have the
government take over the health care coverage in America," Robert Scardapane
writes:
I hate this deceptive marketing. Read closely what he is saying.
He is NOT saying let's give every household a refund of 5000 dollars + 7000
dollars for every child. He is proposing a tax write deduction of 5000 dollars
plus 7000 per child. Assuming that a person itemizes their return, when the net
result will amount to a refund of a few hundred dollars.
The flip side of the McCain proposal is the tax subsidy given to business to
write group insurance will be eliminated. Companies are already complaining that
health care insurance is too expensive. This will be a killer.
Millions of people will lose access to group plans. The net result is that a
typical household will pay 10,000 dollars more for health care.
Why are Americans buying into this man's insane ideas? All I heard thus far is
typical Republican nonsense - drill, drill, drill to solve the energy crisis;
more wars to make us secure; cut entitlement programs; everyone is on their own
with health care. When are Americans going to say that they had enough with the
Republican scams!
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-Noah Greenberg