Another Republican Declares his Independence From George W. Bush!

(What took him so long?)

by

Richard J. Garfunkel

March 1, 2006

What else is new? But he said that he will never vote for GWB again. When will he have that opportunity, as a member of some future parole board? rjg

So many so-called decent people prostituted themselves for low taxes on the super-rich, the end to inheritance taxes, basically affecting and benefiting the super-rich, the exporting of jobs to help their bottom lines, and their own pocket books. In Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s seminal work on FDR, and in his book the “Crisis of the Old Order,” he documents the economic collapse that presaged the Great Depression, driven by a cacophony of greed and the blindness of the laissez-faire driven Harding-Coolidge-Hoover world. Of course, as in that day, the worship of money and power fed the arrogance of social and cultural superiority. In a sense, Sinclair Lewis in his novel “It Can't Happen Here” described how we could even go the way of the European dictators, as they sought a totalitarian cure to the social and economic ills, emanating from the Depression, that caused unbridled civil unrest. In the United States in the late 1920's this attitude of spending, unlimited credit (the growth and the universality of the “installment plan” of buying), the markets being bloated by stocks bought on “margin” (10% down and 90% borrowed) caused this frenzy of unrealistic optimism. Live for today, and let tomorrow be damned. The Europeans who barely recovered from WWI were dragged down by their false hopes that German reparations would support their economies forever. When the credit markets in first Austria and then Germany collapsed and the debt payments ceased, the gravy train of false hope and expectation ran off the tracks So, in the end, the age of dictators came forth: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Soviet Union, Poland to a degree as was the Yugoslavian monarchy, and finally Germany and then their new vassal state Austria. They solved their problems through the “iron fist.”  Who was left? England (GB), France, Czechoslovakia, and the Latvian states, along with the neutrals and the Scandinavian mini-states. But the ultimate clash between the dictators and the democracies fulfilled Oswald Spengler's grim prophecy in his book “The Decline of the West.”

More or less the Great Depression, that was the heir to the past World War and the foolish policies that followed, led to the age of dictatorships, the era of bigger, better armaments, the alliances of convenience and philosophy, and the inevitable coming of the 2nd World War. 

Here we are today in the states with a moronic President and his administration of free-spending pinheads. They have turned a surplus driven government into a saturated debtor economy that has divided itself into rich and poor. It has exported jobs; it has tolerated broken borders to allow cheap labor into the country with the resulting gutting of the wages of the average worker. This attitude of benign neglect serves to satiate the needs of the corporate farm, the big restaurant chains, and the over-bloated debt-ridden hospital empire. And in the meanwhile, have our real costs gone down? No! These onerous costs are seen on the local level, where property and sales taxes are stretching the poor and dropping the middle class into lower middle class status. But Federal taxes remain low, and the administration promises to keep them low. He and his cronies’ promises to allow trillions to pass untaxed into the hands of the next generation of his friends, supporters and sycophants. What are the states left with? We continue to be left with more, and more, un-funded mandates from the Federal government, an over-bloated an ineffective educational system, and an out of control Medicaid debt. And how is this debt manifested and where is the money going? Well it is going down the “money pit” in Afghanistan and Iraq! In Afghanistan alone $76 billion is being used to support 19,000 troops. But where is the spending to rehabilitate the country and to wean the peasant folk away from the Taliban? It is non-existent. And what is the result? There is more and more unrest, poverty, hunger and unemployment. The poppy fields abound, the “law and order” of the villages is administered by the Taliban and the people are more and more comfortable with them (The Taliban) then they are with us, or the bureaucrats in Kabul.  Of course how much of that $76 billion is being looted? No one knows. In the same way that no one knows how much is being looted in Iraq. Iraq is a mess. Their oil is not being pumped, the people are being hardened against us and the government (whether our puppet or not) is incapable of unifying the country. It has the possibility of descending into a civil war with our troops caught in the middle.

But what about what is happening in our fair land? Business as usual, what else is new? New Orleans is still a disaster and still unprotected from the next storm season. The bread and circus of Mardi Gras cannot mask their unhealed sores and wounds. Our ports are being turned over to fellow travelers of our enemies and our trade deficits are approaching $900 billion a year. No wonder foreign governments and their companies can buy up America, What else are they going to do with their mountains of dollars? How are the Feds dealing with our debt? Just look and see how they have raised fees, regarding the National Parks, passports, stamps, and et al, over $47 billion. But they don't call these raising taxes. But whom do these fees fall on the most? The middle and lower middle classes! The bloated Homeland Security Department is no less a domestic “money pit” then our foreign policy adventurism. But while we are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are losing influence everywhere else. The problems of Iran, North Korea, Burma, and the rest of the unstable Muslim world haven't gone away. These problems are worse then ever. On top of this the quality of life in America continues to erode for our progeny and the people caught betwixed and between. Not only does the next generation see a threat to their civil liberties, but also this generation sees our private pension and healthcare safety nets in as much trouble as our public entitlements. The Enron's and WorldCom's may be just a foreshadowing of what's to come.

So I'm glad a GOP stalwart finally awakened when he realized that the UAE was not really our buddy, but a trading partner and client of GWB and his family friends. Maybe now he should wake up to the rest of the disaster sponsored by this poorest excuse of a leader!

WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE…Finally a DEVOUT Republican has come to his senses!   There may be hope for others to finally wake up!!!   The BUSH Dynasty has done horrific damage to our country!!!

Arab Port Whineby Irwin N. GraulichMarch 1, 2006Never trust men wearing long white sheets who hate Jews. Burning crosses and boycotting a tiny, democratic state called Israel are actually part of the same cancer. Not because it is Israel, but because “it is!”Now those United Arab Emirates cry babies, who were born with a silver gas nozzle in their mouth, are crying like spoiled little children. They may not get the big US port toy deal. How sad.They sent out the big guns including the Viagra man, Bob Dole. Every man has to make a living, but Bob please. Viagra is one thing; the hard ons in the Middle East are quite another. Secretary of State Albright just does not recognize evil when she sees it, evidence her bar mitzvah-like toastings with Kim Jong Il and her incredible failures in negotiating with that nation. It is no surprise that she has prostituted herself to this oil rich kingdom, attempting to show Congress what a wonderful, safe “John Emirate” she represents.George W. Bush will never get my vote again, but he does not care what the public thinks. This deal is crazy. You want to talk scandal. Watergate and Lewinsky are small potatoes. On Portgate, every time you turn over another rock, more maggots come crawling out.You have the Carlyle Group involved, a company where Bush Sr. was an advisor. They received an $8 billion investment last year from Dubai International Capital. Neal Bush, the president's brother has been in bed with the UAE for quite some time, including getting backing for Ignite!, his educational software company.The only incompetent Bush brother, after being involved with the scandal ridden S & L's of the 80's, has been a guest of the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, where he lectured on education. Has Neil checked the textbooks which speak quite disparagingly about Christians and Jews? That in itself could be part of the reason for their educational failures.Wait, it gets worse. President Bush chose a Dubai Ports World executive, David Sanborn, to head the US Maritime Administration and the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, was former chairman of CSX Corporation, a company who sold their port operations to Dubai Ports World. Secretary Snow has gone on record to push this latest Dubai Ports World deal by claiming that “12 American agencies have ruled out security concerns.” Hey John, that is what we call a “Snow job” where I come from in Brooklyn.This is nuts. What is going on here? When Jimmy Carter backs your position, as he “lovingly” spoke of President Bush's port decision on CNN's Situation Room, you better be extremely careful. I never thought I would say this but, “Thank God for Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton,” who are looking very good.However, it is the American people who are the heroes on this one. They will not permit such incompetence to coalesce. The government employees including Bush, Cheney, Snow and the various departments who investigated this transaction only see one thing. Could this deal impact the security at six major ports? Of course an educated answer to that question at present is “No.” However, if all one sees is “port security” in this decision, then you have lost your American soul.The United Arab Emirates continues to rip us off with high oil prices, claiming they are “our partners in fighting terrorism and are kindly (sic) allowing us to use their military bases.” What a scam. If not for our planes and ships in the area, Iran would have done the exact same thing to the UAE that Saddam did to Kuwait. Just check out Iran's claims on that country. The UAE should be paying us for saving their pathetic little lives.It was the UAE that served as an operational and financial base for the 9/11 hijackers and 2 of the hijackers were proud natives. Records show that the UAE has been a transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components bound for Iran, North Korea and Libya. How about this little tidbit–only 5 years ago, the United Arab Emirates was one of only three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan.And yet, there are intelligent people in the American administration who actually believe that this Middle Eastern autocracy should be involved with our port operations. What these intelligent fools never ask, but the American people understand, is why is this deal so important to an oil rich nation of greedy rulers? First of all, buying the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. by the Emirates state-owned Dubai Ports World is no great moneymaker. There are much better ways to invest $6.8 billion, just ask Goldman Sachs.What the President and every government worker down the line have failed to understand is the simple fact that buying access to our ports is part of the humiliation process that is being attempted against America. The Arab and Muslim world absolutely hates us, and the reasons have little to do with Iraq or even Israel.This mature, old world sees America as a young, highly sexual, undisciplined child who needs to be reigned in due to bad values and sexual mores. However, Arab/Muslim children see MTV and Hollywood movies and want to be part of our incredibly successful, exciting, strong world, that is dominated by Western technology. Well, those chic (sic) Sheikh rulers want to show their people that they can control the Americans by buying them, whether it is through the acquisition of part interest in FOX News, or through this port deal.It is also a way of showing that they really have not remained in the dark ages of hi-tech because they are part of American business operations; and ports–well, pretty important. However, what was the last hi-tech device coming out of the Arab/Muslim world–an abacus?Modern sophisticated electrical devices are viewed as successful “weapons” of the West over this mysterious, religiously obsessed, ancient world. These devices are an affront to the fact that this region is nowhere in the technological revolution.Therefore, the best solution is to buy companies that wind up taking over important operations, through which the Arab and Muslim world will get their prestige and honor. It is the only way they can fight the West. Buying General Motors is out of the question because of SEC regulations, thank God. After all, private industry is much wiser than government.Make no mistake about it. This is not a business move. It is predominately an ego driven, military like move. Very sneaky. The United Arab Emirates comes from a world that is technologically retarded, so they purchase big companies to make them feel important and all grown up. However, there is a contradiction that must be worked out in this religious vacuum.Technological innovation is seen as the Western devil's work, yet welcomed. The rationale is that the West can be defeated, in part, through purchasing them…but then you become part of them. And here comes the real danger which they fear most. When Arabs and Muslims actually move to America, they become Americans first…they become one of us.As virtually every Arab and Muslim family I know says, ” Don't bother me with that religious fanaticism crap. I am taking my family to Disneyworld!” That is absolutely Osama's greatest fear.Irwin N. Graulich – is a regular contributor to JewishIndy. He is a well known motivational speaker on morality, ethics, Judaism, religion and political issues. He is President and CEO of a leading corporate communications, marketing and branding company located in New York City. Irwin considers himself a multi-denominational, serious Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jew. He can be reached at irwin.graulich@verizon.net.