Thursday, April 05, 2007

President Bush: Already Failing In The Future

When it comes to the future, W. already gets an F.

Pompous Bush supporters love to pick a mythical time somewhere out there ahead of us when the big wheels of history will turn and President Bush will be seen as great. Call it future spin. Now that the present looks so ugly, their fallback position is to look forward. As with everything coming from this bunch, it is transparent and stupid.

The thing that looks the brightest about America's future is that President Bush will be gone. He'll no longer have the ability to screw things up....or will he?

There is a very good chance that the full brunt of what President Bush has done with his time in office won't hit us till long after he's back in Crawford. That's when we'll really begin to pay for the damage.

If Time Magazine is correct, that will include rebuilding the military. Fighting an unnecessary war has taken an enormous toll on the army, especially with the caliber of planning that went into it. Just as we are still paying everyday for the contributions of Donald Rumsfeld, we will be feeling George's impact for decades to come.

The economics people are beginning to see what this era really was: A looting of the future to make the top 1% of wealthy Americans much richer. We hear endless stories about how great things are going, but not even the Bush crowd should try and tell us that he's made the economic future of America more solid. All he did was postpone and intensify the day of reckoning for our insane economic policy of borrowing from China and elsewhere to finance a get-rich scam.

We're already paying in some ways for President Bush's economic mistakes, but the brunt of it lies out there ahead. Being a superpower is an economic distinction. It's not how many nukes you have. The Soviet Union had a lot of nukes, too, but it imploded because of a collapsing economy. Many people believe the lazy, quick-fix mismanagement of President Bush could lead to our collapse from superpower status. The elite might be trying to get rich now because they know the whole thing's heading for the rocks. And wait till it's payback time from the rest of the world.

Indeed, at some point in the future President Bush could be seen - not as great - but as the man who brought down this country. The Soviet Union collapsed after their military adventure in Afghanistan. Maybe Iraq will be the beginning of our downfall.

Remember when these right wing blowhards would say we will win in Iraq because we must? Did anyone read Kissinger's latest remarks that we can't win in Iraq? And this is one of President Bush's advisors? Meanwhile we have Colin Powell warning that the army is "about broken"? The exact same people who talked down to the rest of us about how terrific they were at foreign policy and how much they support the troops, have turned out to be the worst thing that has happened to our military since Vietnam. And by the way, veterans from that conflict are still out there right now, wandering the streets homeless, incapacitated by the trauma of that war.

Not even these Republicans who talk so glowingly of how great President Bush will look someday, will disagree with one thing about our future: We'll be living with thousands and thousands of veterans from Iraq who need medical care for perhaps another 70 years. So even though Bush will be long gone, he will still be costing this country billions a year in heartbreak and medical costs till around the year 2077. Thanks, George.

To these self-righteous Republicans basking in the glow of their own patriotism, I understand your position. You think Bush will one day be seen as a great leader because that's the only place you have left. Besides, it's so easy to do. There's no work involved and that's in keeping with the "spin first" strategy of the laziest President in history.

Here, I'll show you. Watch me do some future spin for you: "I know Sanjaya is being ridiculed now, but some day in the future he will be considered as great as Marvin Gaye." Gee, that was easy.

The future is the only place where George Bush can possibly look good so you seize on it. Of course, when we get there we'll know that he's already screwed that up, too.
America's Broken-Down Army | TIME

13 Comments:

At 9:21 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

Thanks, Rosecovered Glasses,

"A government Enron" Great comment and a great phrase.

 
At 9:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So if I read your analysis at the end correctly, George Bush is the William Hung of presidents.

 
At 9:29 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

Yes, and someday William Hung will be considered to be as great as John Lennon.
Or maybe not.

 
At 9:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, the MIC makes warfare invetible, but with each war, it only grows stronger. So why would it collapse?

I happened to click on the TV the other night to 'Future Weapons' on the Discovery Channel. They previewed the Army's new Future Combat Systems, where each military 'asset' is networked together.

My reaction to the show was that they're creating one big video game. And, indeed, they are. You can go to the FCS website (http://www.army.mil/fcs) and find a link to the video game version of the real thing: http://www.army.mil/fcs/f2c2/index.html

I'm really not sure what to make of that excecpt to say that this latest war has truly reinvigorated the military in ways that are a wee bit scary. I've got images from Terminator 3 and Skynet floating around in my head.

 
At 8:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

New job numbers just came out. 136,000 more jobs added in March, 32,000 upward job revisions from the prior two months.

Overall unemployment is now down to 4.4%. Unemployment for those with a bachelors degree or higher was only 2.2%. For traditional families with both spouses present, joblessness was 2.5%.

Since last summer, the major indexes are up about 20%. Year-to-date they are up roughly 3% so far. Since the Bush tax cuts they're up roughly 100%.

Boy, what a failure.

 
At 8:26 AM, Blogger RoseCovered Glasses said...

It's not just the economics of the MIC under the current fiscal policy that permits military expenditures in excess of %500B per year, it's the contol aspects on our position in this ever- shrinking world.

The President, his cabinet and appointees come and go but the big machine keeps on grinding and it is scary.

My last assignment in Aerospace was on the FCS Program with Northrop Grumman. Take it from an isider, you have a right to be concerned. The prime contract and the subcontacts are a special hybrid developed recently by the Pentagon called and OTA (Other Technical Agreement) and is virtually a blank check for Boeing, SAIC, and the other big boys.

The policy and decison options for programs like FCS are developed by professionals to further their careers in industry and governement. Congess and the Pres are handed a stacked deck and the poor SOB's think they are running the country. All they are doing is taking the heat for people we never hear about and who never go away.

 
At 9:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Butch,

I see you've found one thing that Bush hasn't completely screwed up, and you're really trying to get the most mileage you can out of it, using your usual spin tactics.

Here's a quote from the actual source: "In March, the number of unemployed persons (6.7 million) and the unemployment
rate (4.4 percent) were essentially unchanged."

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Strange how 'essentially unchanged' can be turned into 'added' and 'upward.' I have to admit, you're pretty good at what you do.

 
At 10:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL Sully! Talk about spin! So the fantastic statistics from the previous month are 'unchanged'...and you think that's a bad thing?

Hey...my kid brough home straight A's this quarter. But that sucks because he got straight A's last quarter too so his report card was "virtually unchanged" ;)

 
At 11:00 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

The economy is a house of cards. The main thing we're manufacturing right now is illusion. Anyone can get good numbers by taking trillions from the future to enrich the top 1%.
There is a lot of money flowing through the system but we live at the mercy of foreign governments and their continued enthusiasm to buy America from us.

 
At 11:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Butch,

I never said it was a bad thing. I said the opposite--that it's the one thing Bush hasn't screwed up. I'm glad that the unemployment rate is low, and I wish more areas were doing as well.

 
At 12:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sully, what you said was that I was using my "usual spin tactics" in pointing out how well the economy is doing. That implies to me that you believe I'm manipulating or skewing the data and that the economy is really not doing well.

 
At 12:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Butch,

I said you were using your "usual spin tactics" to say that things have gotten better since the last report. Things have remained the same--not better, not worse.

Again, I'm very happy that unemployment is low.

 
At 12:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sully, please show me where I said 'things have gotten better since the last report'. Thanks in advance.

 

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