Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Collective Amnesia

As George Bush staggers through the final days of his failed administration, we all seem to be suffering from collective amnesia. Or maybe it’s collective fatigue.

We seem content to let him slink off into the sunset, relieved that he'll finally be gone. There seems to be little interest in holding him accountable for the horrible damage he’s done to our country.

In our post-election euphoria, we seem to have forgotten that he and his administration:

  • turned a sizeable budget surplus into an unprecedented deficit
  • rammed though tax cuts for their wealthy cronies at the expense of the low and middle class
  • dismantled the last remnants of a regulatory system designed to protect the economy
  • deceived us into an illegal and imperialistic war that resulted in the death of more than 4000 brave American soldiers and the maiming of thousands more plus the death of several hundred thousand Iraqis
  • wasted a trillion dollars on the war, much of it going to corrupt military contractors and Iraqi officials
  • violated the Geneva Conventions by torturing war prisoners
  • ruined our hard-won reputation for fairness and decency in the international community
  • took away our Constitutionally-granted civil liberties
  • left thousands of American citizens stranded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and
  • jammed through a $700 billion financial bailout package on his way out the door that benefits the greedy investment industry that helped create the current economic disaster

The Bush Administration’s stock-in-trade was lies and deception. Its policies led us from one catastrophe into another. Its remedies consisted of one broken promise after another.

George Bush and Company are criminals that have violated U.S. and international laws with impunity. Even as they sleaze out of Washington, they continue to spin their lies into a web of historic distortion.

Yet no one seems to have the stomach to take these miscreants to task for their crimes.

Why?

2 comments:

  1. Vincent Bugliosi asserts that Bush and Cheney are guilty of murder, for which there is no statute of limitations. Maybe some fine day a US Attorney or state Attorney General, or a berieved family, will swear out a complaint.
    Regards, Bob DiGrazia

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  2. As New York Times Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert said, "This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job." To see the full text, click here or cut & paste: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html.

    However, I do not suggest an inquiry for our incoming President - he's got too much to fix and doesn't need any help to further cement the hatred of hard core Republicans!

    Regards, Eileen Brown and fellow Monroe-er who was VERY proud Monroe ALMOST ALMOST voted Obama!

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