On November 6th of this year, a percentage of eligible voters in America will determine if the 44th President of the United States has to clean out his sock draw in the White House by January or if he can still keep hoarding junk in the basement until the year 2017.
The main event is the Communist-Socialist-Elitist-Educated-Black Guy President Barack Obama going for his second term as against the Mormon-Businessman-Stiff challenger Governor Mitt Romney. America's economy isn't doing well, supposedly, we're still fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is trying to go nuclear, any country with sand in it still hates us, Walmart is stocked with goods made in China, shooting up movie theaters is the new trend, and somewhere off the coast a seagull currently flaps its wings to escape from a nasty oil spill that's too minor to even make the news.
With all the these problems and a whole lot more, it seems the country is up for grabs for whichever politician can string across the most effective lies to convince people that they're magically going to cure everything. For those unsure who they should vote for, or have absolutely nothing good to watch on a Tuesday night, I figured I should outline some key thinking points one should consider regarding the state of the country and the two candidates themselves. Then with a range of different thoughts and historical recollections highlighted, I'll piece together a reasoning of who is the lesser evil between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
The Road to the 2008 Election:
We should go back to when Obama first took office in 2009 and review the problems that were dropped on his desk for his first day in the Captain's Chair. Seeing who was responsible for them and how Obama dealt with the tasks will be a good measuring stick to see if he's deserving of a second term, and is going back to a Republican leader a good idea.
The country was wobbly-legged from getting a strong punch in the face from the economy; caused by two wars that was bleeding the country at the cost of millions of dollars per day, shady banks that approved loans to people that otherwise shouldn't have qualified which caused the housing market to plunder, and the mascot of the time period, Bernie Madoff, who was part of a monumental fraud scheme that stole billions of dollars from investors.
Many were convinced that Obama was actually Osama Bin Laden without the beard, which somewhat made sense because when the Bin Laden tapes stopped airing in 2004, that's when Obama magically appeared on the political scene. With another four years of the incumbent George W. Bush sending the country further into mayhem, Obama had to be licking his chops that a 2008 victory against any Republican had to be a shoe-in. One wouldn't have to think so hard why the country would swing to the democratic side when Obama was up for his first bid for the Presidency.
1. 9/11 and the Afghanistan War:
Many want to blame George W. Bush for 9/11, but really nobody saw that coming, except Nostradamus. It is worth noting that three months before 9/11, the Joints Chief of Staff changed a policy which put Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in charge of decisions concerning the shooting down of any commercial or military aircraft that had been hijacked. Who would've though just a scenario would unfold three months later that September with four American aircraft? Coincidence? Bush did receive a report entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" and FBI agents were sending reports up the ladder concerning Arab foreign nationals enrolling in flight school that apparently got silenced - so from there people can draw their own conclusions. Everything afterwards, including the war in Afghanistan, which is now officially America's longest running war in it's history, squarely goes on the shoulders of Bush. Instead of treating it like an investigation and specifically going after Bin Laden and his buddies, Bush ate a handful of red meat and threatened war on anyone who looked at America the wrong way in a crowded bar.
The reason for Bush to send US troops into Afghanistan was that the Taliban regime that was controlling the country for the moment, was harboring Bin Laden and his fellow Al Qaeda comrades and refused to turn him over to American authorities. First of all, it took America with all it's high-tech gadgets, sophisticated surveillance equipment, and a whopping $50 million bounty, about a decade to finally corner the FBI's Number One Most Wanted. What makes anyone think that a few Taliban mullahs without any electricity knew what cave Bin Laden was hiding in, even if they wanted to turn him over. As a it turns out, the intelligence squad of our closest ally in the "War on Terror", Pakistan, was aiding, supporting, and hiding Bin Laden before a US Navy Seal team finally caught up with him. Which then by concept makes war in Afghanistan quite senseless since the only arms they had were the weapons we gave them back in the 80's to shoot Soviet soldiers (the "Great Satan" of the time) and Bin Laden was seemingly receiving more help from our ally Pakistan than he was from the enemy Taliban. In looking back at the climate in America after the 9/11 attacks, in no way were the Democrats going to voice any objections to blowing up a backwards Middle Eastern country when American citizens were hungry for revenge. Everyone went along for the ride. Goat herders, forced by penalty of death by a local warlord to wave a gun around and shoot anything looking American, were classified as Taliban fighters and those captured were shipped off to the prison on Guantanamo Bay. The Terror training camps that Al Qaeda trainees worked on their monkey bar skills on were abandoned and started up elsewhere. When it was all said and done, Osama Bin Laden had escaped capture while the fighting continued in Afghanistan (and still continues to this day) for another ten years. Not to say alot of dangerous bad guys were eliminated along the way, but what was the end game for Afghanistan, and what was a "win" going to be judged by?
On the home front America began its rapid movement towards being a Security State by first the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans claim they're against bigger government, yet Bush creates an entirely brand new wing of government to soak up more taxpayer dollars. For $35,000 a year starting, America's first line of defense at the airports was to intimidate soccer moms.
By the culture trend instigated in the country since the 9/11 attacks, the Security profession is at the top of the fastest growing in this country, and now cameras are being installed at virtually every busy street, similar to what goes on in Europe, to the point where literally a Big Brother scenario is coming to a starch reality. If privacy wasn't being infringed upon enough, Bush also pushed through the Patriot Act which allows the government to access personal records and finances that was once deemed untouchable.
This also speaks nothing of the trillions of dollars spent towards increasing our military presence around the globe as well as money paid to private contractors (mercenaries, more or less) to outsource jobs at a higher salary instead of giving that same money to US troops to perform the same tasks. After the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, an investigation rounded up all the suspects and later caught up with mastermind Ramses Youssef. The intention of damage was just the same in 1993 than it was in 2001, but there was no invasion of any country in the wake of the attack. There was no Department of Homeland Security created, no Patriot Act. The guilty party was rounded up and sent off to jail. America went back to being America - which is the way to not let the terrorists win. The 90's economy was in midst of a budget surplus, there were no big costly wars, and the only real blemish on the Democratic President Bill Clinton was what he was doing in his spare time.
Attempted terrorist attacks since 9/11 have been averted due to underwear bombs that didn't operate properly, intelligence help from European nations, solid undercover work from the FBI, and an alert store clerk in Colorado who was wise enough to notify authorities of a bearded shopper who had his cart filled with bottles of nail polish remover. There hasn't been a situation where a TSA airport worker busted someone with a bomb in their luggage, or a million dollar daisy cutter bomb dropped on a mountain in Afghanistan that prevented any attacks. As many enemy combatants that the US military had captured or killed in Afghanistan since 2001, the Taliban are still a strong presence in the country and don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. The citizens we are trying to "liberate" there want us out, I'm positive to wager most US troops stationed in that country don't see the point of them being there. Was it the fact that over 3,000 people died on 9/11 that it was necessary to raise the kill count in that part of the globe as a way to get even? When Congress (9/11 Commission) and an independent civil group investigated further into the attacks, they found financial links of the hijackers that led to the Saudi Royal Family, but the Bush White House prevented them from digging any deeper. The civil group went on to file a lawsuit against the Saudi Royal Family, but since then there's been no resolution or answers.
2. The Iraq War: Take Two
When Osama Bin Laden escaped capture in Afghanistan and the initial Taliban forces were pushed off the map for a while, there was that feeling that America really didn't "win" anything as a response to the 9/11 attacks. Sure Hamid Karzai won an election to become the new leader of Afghanistan and it seemed democracy had reached the borders of a lawless nation, but that wasn't good enough. George W. Bush put the world on notice, specifically North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, that he had is eyes on them.
With terrorism on everyone's mind and the horrific images of 9/11 molded onto the memories of American citizens in 2002, we all began to hear the "what-if's" of different scenarios of how American could be attacked again. One of these what-ifs was what if Saddam Hussein passed some type of biological weapon or materials to terrorists to use against America. Which if you think about it, it was possible, but not practical enough to invade Iraq over. In reality, there were many nations out there with the capability to pass deadly materials along to terrorists. Why single out Iraq? Saddam was being a good boy and was relatively quiet since 1995 when Clinton had to send some cruise missiles his way for not cooperating with UN weapons inspectors. There was no single solitary threat from Iraq, the 9/11 hijackers were basically all Saudi Arabian, so other than being listed as a "rogue" nation, there was nothing to accuse them of. Technically, Saddam wasn't cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors to the extend to what he agreed to after Desert Storm in 1991. As turns out, Saddam admitted later when he was captured, he wasn't cooperating with the UN not because he had weapons of mass destruction to hide, but because in reality he had no weapons of mass destruction and he didn't want Iran to learn of that.
Iraq and Iran had a bloody ten year war from 1979 to 1989 in which America supported Saddam since Iran was the bad guy at the time for ousting the Shah, who we supported, and held American citizens at the Iranian Embassy hostage for nearly two moths. During this war in which the Republican Reagan-Bush Sr. administration backed Saddam, he used some of these actual weapons of mass destruction on Iranians, which was okay with America at the time, but in 2002-03 it was sighted by Bush Jr. as a reason Saddam should be considered a threat. This costly ten year war with Iran left Iraq broke, so Saddam went over and looted Kuwait plus threatened to sack Saudi Arabia next. The Saudi rich kid Osama Bin Laden offered his services to the Saudi Royal Family, to use his Taliban/Al Qaeda/Goat Herder rag-tag army to fight off a pending Iraqi attack, but the Saudis preferred America to take up the fight, which Osama left feeling slighted by the USA and Saudi King. The 1991 Desert Storm war saw US troops drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, ended the threat of a Saudi invasion, and probably made Saddam feel sad.
President Bush (Daddy Bush) refused to take the fight into Iraq, but rebels inside the country were counting on US support of an uprising to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The CIA more or less instigated these groups to try takeover the Iraq, but when Bush didn't provide any help, these rebels were left defenseless and Saddam had them slaughtered. This non-action by Bush Sr. would begin a trend of mistrust of the Iraqi people against America that would continue later on when Bush Jr. came back for the main course. After these wars with Iran and America, Iraq still maintained its grudge with the neighboring Iran. One defense mechanism Saddam had to keep Iran in check was the perception that he had weapons on mass destruction. As long as Iran feared Saddam as a madman with biological weapons, Saddam wouldn't have to worry about a future war with his neighbor. On the other hand, if UN weapon inspectors discovered that Saddam really had no fearful biological weapons and made the findings public, Iran then wouldn't fear Saddam as much and might take the upper hand in any future confrontation. By 2002-03, George W. used this "I have weapons of mass destruction, but I don't have them" ambiguity of Saddam as a reason to go to war against Iraq. Soon enough we all started to hear about this mysterious connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda without any shred of evidence presented. The only connection to 9/11 Saddam had was a mural celebrating the attack on the Twin Towers painted in one of his palaces, but being happy over 3,000 Americans getting killed isn't really an excuse to wage war. It's safe to believe a significant amount of Arab leaders were happy with the 9/11 attacks, does that mean America should've bombed them all for being insensitive? Bush pounded the war drum and all of a sudden it became urgent to remove Saddam Hussein and his two sons from power in Iraq before they give biological weapons to Al Qaeda to use against America.
Of course America couldn't just waltz into Iraq and start shooting, Bush had to go through the proper channels to make his case so everything would seem legitimate on the surface. Colin Powell was selected to give the master performance to the United Nations in 2003, stating America's case against Iraq. He was the perfect choice from the Bush cabinet. The Security of State had the credibility and popularity from his service as a General during Operation Desert Storm. More importantly, his Blackness wouldn't make him seem too-Republican, so the words out of his mouth wouldn't seem to be from a warmongering right-winger. Someone like Dick Cheney defiantly couldn't give this presentation, it wouldn't sell. Iraqi diplomats naturally denied all the charges from Powell, but whether some or all of it was actually true, we'll never really know.
What we do know is that in 2004 after no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and the country was heading into civil war between Sunni and Shiite groups, Powell testified to a Senate committee that the intelligence behind his 2003 presentation to the United Nations was wrong and there was no substantial reason to believe Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, when CIA agents internally started chirping that the intelligence reports regarding Saddam as a threat were inaccurate, the White House struck back with Vice President Dick Cheney having his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, leak the identity of these CIA agents to a New York Times reporter. Libby was forced to resign and faced felony charges that put him in prison. The scandal was another black eye for the Bush administration on everything leading up to and after Operation Iraqi Freedom. Colin Powell resigned as Security of State after internal conflict with the other members of Bush's cabinet and probably from the embarrassment when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. The man who probably could've been America's first African-American President had ruined his political legacy.
The UN drafted a resolution that Saddam needed to cooperate 100% with the weapons inspectors or else face harsh consequences. The weapons inspectors didn't actually find anything harmful as per Powell's charges, but at the same time Saddam Hussein wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy teddy bear, plus he needed to maintain the cloak that he was a madman with biological weapons to keep Iran in check, so it didn't take Nostradamus to foresee that Saddam would not be 100% cooperative and eventually the weapons inspectors would either be kicked out (as he did in 1995) or ignored. This non-100% cooperation clause was all the ammo Bush needed to declare war on Iraq and the invasion was on!!
American tanks rolled into Baghdad in no time and those loyal to Saddam scattered away to fight back at a later time. To put a bow-n-tie on the whole event, the US military staged the tearing down of a statue of Saddam; initially placing an American flag on the head piece, but after realizing that was sending a bad public relations message (this was Operation IRAQI Freedom by the way), the American flag was replaced with an updated version of the Iraqi flag, and this was the image major media outlets captured so it seemed like the invasion was the will of the Iraqi people and not of the American government. Saddam took it on the lam, but was eventually captured and put on trial by the new Iraqi government. All this time war was still waging in Afghanistan with Bin Laden hiding out either in that country, Pakistan, or somewhere in between. With wars on two fronts, this is exactly what Bin Laden was hoping to inspire - a "West vs. Islam" showdown spreading out across the Middle East. It's almost comical that when asked about Bin Laden's whereabouts, the response from the US military and White House was that he was hiding out in the dangerous tribal warlord region of the Afghan-Pakistan border which the US military couldn't disturb. Basically the big-bad US military was afraid of some barbaric warlords, so Bin Laden was allowed to skate free for the time being while Saddam saw the end of a noose (four days after the death of former US President Gerald Ford).
After George W. declared Mission Accomplished in terms of Operation Iraqi Freedom, that's when the real violence and mass murder started. Not only were Sunni and Shiite Islamic religious groups killing each other to the point of near genocide over control of the new Iraq, but now 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' had been born and US troops were under constant attack from roadside bombs and suicide attackers. Also, the Saddam loyalists who ran away when the conventional US forces entered Baghdad were back engineering guerrilla-style ambushes on the occupying US soldiers. When no weapons of mass destruction were uncovered in Iraq and no concrete Saddam-Bin Laden connection proven, the new message from the White House in the midst of all new violence became "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" as a justification for the war. So basically without a war in Iraq to draw out terrorist fighters from all over the region, these same terrorists were going to board row boats and make the long aquatic journey across the Atlantic Ocean to American shores in order to start wrecking havoc.
The years of 2005, 2006, and 2007 were the bloodiest in Iraq; with insurgents attacking US troops and newly formed Iraqi police/military units, Sunni and Shiite religious groups were killing each other, mass killings from suicide bombers attacking large crowded areas, and frequently because all the madness, US troops resorting to killing themselves to escape the chaos. Of the number of reported US deaths in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, what wasn't being shared was that a significant number of these deaths were from self-inflected wounds or wounds suffered at the hands of fellow soldiers at the brink of insanity. By the final years of the Bush reign, his approval ratings were reaching record lows from two wars that were seeming to never end, Bin Laden on the loose, the mismanagement of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, and an economy that was on the brink of a big downward spiral. Just like what was being experienced with Afghanistan, Iraqi insurgents were still a pesky presence that weren't going away, Iraqi citizens didn't want us there, and (based on the number of suicides) it seemed most US troops were stressed out about their role there. Bush, by his final year in 2008 looked worn out and defeated compared to when he first entered the White House in 2001.
The most amusing or sad part of all of this is that George W. Bush probably shouldn't have been the 43rd President in the first place. The 2000 Election controversy in Florida saw George W.'s brother Jeb, who happened to be Governor of the State, plus with the help of the Republican Secretary of State of Florida Katherine Harris, and ultimately Supreme Court Justices, appointed by George W.'s father, the first President Bush, a voting recount was stopped that awarded the State of Florida to George W., and with the Electoral College votes gave him the lead to officially become the 43rd President of the United States. Both Bush and Al Gore finished in a near dead heat in Florida, and after stories of corruption and voter fraud surfaced, both Republicans and Democrats had a tug of war regarding the recounting of the votes in the weeks after the election. At the time Bush was pegged as the winner by only 537 votes, but in all likelihood a vote recount could've awarded the Presidency to Gore, so naturally the Republicans had no interest in a do-over tally.
After a bunch legal back and forth the decision was placed in the hands of the Supreme Court who ruled it was unconstitutional to continue with the recount and Bush's 537 vote lead stood. Some researchers say Bush would've won anyways, while some have discovered Gore would've won by at least 100 votes. Either way it was later discovered that a number of dirty tricks were applied to the citizens on Florida to help the Republican candidate, which was an easier task with Jeb Bush running the State as Governor. Blacks and poor people, more apt to vote for the Democrat Gore, were dissuaded or stripped of voting privileges (even if they had no felony charges on them). Confusing electronic machines were rolled in for the elderly, who likely still had their VCRs blinking 12:00 AM constantly, so they could cast the wrong vote by accident.
The worst of all was the memory card malfunction which electronically subtracted votes for Al Gore in the thousands. The Florida county most grossly effected by his issue was named Volusia. One of Gore's campaign workers found something fishy when 16,000 votes were taken away and later discovered Gore was actually ahead by 13,000 in Volusia. It was this glaring error that raised the red flag and caused Gore to take back his concession to Bush and the beginning of the long legal battle. The error was traced back to a company called Global Election Systems and the company programmer listed the problem as an "upload issue", plus opened the idea there could've been uploads from secondary or unauthorized sources, which makes one wonder how many other "upload errors" went undetected that helped Bush gain more votes. Overall across America Al Gore received 543,895 more votes than Bush, but due to the rules of the Electoral College, Bush won 271 state votes versus Gore's 266.
There is one thing about war in America, when it occurs the citizens tend to rally around the President no matter what. By 2004, with 9/11, the Afghan war, and the war in Iraq (before the real chaos was unleashed), Bush would seem to be a shoe-in for a second term. Although John Kerry had material to attack Bush with such as finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he shared the same problem Gore had, as Mitt Romney has now - they're stiffs!! They have no personality, and to George W.'s credit, he was able to connect to enough and the right people to win. The 2004 election was closer than people though it would be, but Kerry went out flat when a more personable candidate could've unseated Bush.
Would have there still been a 9/11 attack if Gore was President? Who's to say, but certainly the response would've likely been less aggressive against foreign sovereign countries and less intrusive on the privacy of American citizens. The reason its important to review all these fine details is that it brings up many interesting questions, and in history patterns tend to develop with history always repeating itself. For instance, look at the characters involved: Reagan, Bush, Saddam, Rumsfeld, Bin Laden, Cheney, Powell, some of the same people have been in power and connected one way or another for nearly thirty years.
One minute America is arming Saddam to go fight an enemy in Iran, then years later they go to war against him. One minute the Bin Laden and Afghans are Freedom Fighters against the Soviet Union invaders, so American gives them CIA-training, guns, and bombs, then years later they're Al Qaeda terrorists/Taliban that attacked America so we had to go fight them. Ho Chi Minh was America's ally shortly after World War II to help rid the Indochina of the Japanese, so America sent him arms. Twenty years later he's a Communist threat (with supplied US weapons) and the Vietnam War cooks up to prevent the entire region from falling Red in a domino effect, similar to what we see today of these wars to prevent a domino effect of radical Islam in the Middle East and Africa. It's the same script over and over again, just replace Communism with radical Islam.
Clearly, intelligence reports that turned out to be false put us into a war in Iraq. Whether the CIA acted on its own, or Bush just heard what he wanted, is tough to determine. If the intelligence community did start up that war by providing false information, was Scooter Libby's action of outing the identities of two CIA agents the White House's way to get back at the CIA? In the years following the Vietnam War the stories were surfacing that it was a CIA-engineered conflict; beginning with the displacement of one million Tonkinese from the north into the south which led to banditry and outbreaks of violence (Vietcong). The Gulf of Tonkin incident was admittedly false by former Secretary of Defense at the time, Robert McNamara, and that incident escalated US involvement in Vietnam. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the weapons of mass destruction charges against Saddam in 2003 were baseless. Alot of repeat patterns going on here, which makes people wonder if there was also any funny business regarding 9/11. Were wars the Bush Administration's plan to guarantee a second term as well as increase military spending and spending for privately owned companies like Halliburton? Lies got America militarily involved in Vietnam and Iraq, did another lie put us in Afghanistan? Those questions will go unasked of course by America's media which is as structured as Saddam's news outlets were, but what clear is that the names and faces for these two wars are heavily on the Republican side, which many Americans had to recognize when they went to the polls in 2008.
The reason fighting takes place in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Panama, Yugoslavia, Grenada, is that these nations can't defend themselves with the threat of nuclear retaliation. There was never the big showdown between the USA and the USSR because both countries would destroy the planet and then nobody would be able to make any money. Even today, they'll never be a war with America and China, it would mean suicide for both countries. A US Navy Seal team dropped into Pakistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, but although it would appear Pakistani Intelligence was harboring him, America would never go to war with Pakistan about it. The reason is because Pakistan has nukes. The Taliban doesn't have any nukes, so after 9/11, war was declared on Afghanistan for harboring Bin Laden, even though Pakistan also harbored him later on, and there was no American military reaction to it. Bin Laden was killed during Obama's tenure, but it was Bush's decree that any country harboring terrorists like Pakistan was, would also be considered America's enemy, but since Pakistan has the bomb, that rule doesn't apply to them. This is the reason Iran currently wants to go nuclear because the bomb makes a country untouchable from outside forces. Even though Bush mentioned North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil, he couldn't go after that country because they too have nuclear weapons. The only real defenseless member of the Axis of Evil was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and the ironic charge against him was that he had the capability to pass deadly weapons of mass destruction to terrorists to carry out attacks against American interests home and abroad, was untrue.
The only country that actually did attack America with a biological weapon was, well, America. A major story at the time that goes unmentioned today was the string of anthrax-laced letters delivered to two democratic senators and members of the media a week after 9/11. It wasn't until several years later that the FBI traced the source of the letters to a worker in a government bio-defense lab named Bruce Edwards Ivins. By 2007 Ivins was placed under surveillance and a year later he died at a hospital from an apparent overdose suicide. Although, no concrete evidence was able to link Ivins to the letter attacks or explain why he would commit those crimes, it was concluded he had the access to the deadly biological agent used, so the FBI officially closed the case in 2010. Based on the other shenanigans that helped pull America into war, just as falsified intelligence on Iraq's weapon capability in 2003, it makes one wonder if this anthrax attack was a precursor to scare the American public into the possibility of a "what-if" Saddam Hussein gave Al Qaeda a weapon like anthrax. Two years after the anthrax-letters stopped, America began to make its case to invade Iraq. As mentioned before, no republican senators received these letters, and "liberal" news outlets like ABC, NBC, CBS got letters, but none went to the republican mouthpiece channel FOX News. A coincidence?
3. House for Sale
What really put America into a recession during 2007 and 2008 and caused the stock market to plunge was the failed housing market caused by major banks which gave out loans to homeowners with hidden rates that they ultimately couldn't afford. When large amounts of homeowners were failing to pay their mortgages, they were kicked out of their homes, and the bank was left with a debt that nobody was able to pay. Once these debts kept building and building the banks were left with the heavy burden they couldn't control anymore. The greed of the banks to approve loans to applicants who weren't qualified, and the sneakiness of include increasing interest rates in fine print on Page 253 of the agreement as another greedy tool to soak money out of people, came back to bite the banks in the backside. Instead of draining homeowners dry of all their money, banks were instead stuck with houses that nobody was paying for.
With Bush counting his day till he'll be on the golf course in the Fall of 2008, both Republicans and Democrats came together to find a solution, and eventually the Treasury Department settled upon a $50 billion solution to slow down the mortgage crisis from expanding (smells like a big government spending bail-out). The combination of this housing issue, with the faltering European Market, and increasing unemployment rates in America, was causing many to point out that America was entering its second depression since the Great Depression of 1927-1945. With the string of companies Bush ran as a businessman and failed with, plus as part owner of the Texas Rangers he traded away Sammy Sosa for nobody, should anyone be surprised the phrase "depression" was in the air after eight years of his Presidency? And perhaps its worth noting the Great Depression began with Republicans Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover as President.
4. Bad Boy Bernie
The coup de grace for shady business dealings that placed the cherry on top when America was having its depression or recession during 2007/08 was the major ponzi scheme uncovered that was being run by Bernie Madoff. He had his own exchange firm which was stealing billions of dollars from investors since the early 1990's, admittedly, although investigators believe he might've been doing this since the 1970's. Previously Madoff served as the non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ. Investors went years without checking their stock portfolios and thought nothing was wrong in the trusting hands of Madoff's firm. Likely as a result of the housing market crisis and the early signs of a possible depression, scared investors started to ask for their money in which they would find out it was all gone. Many had their life savings and nest eggs liquidated after many years of working for it. Madoff''s son was caught first, but he rolled over to the FBI and gave up daddy, who would receive a 150-year prison sentence for the largest fraud case in US history. Although Madoff is right out of the Wall Street scene, it is fair to mention he made major financial contributions to the Democratic Party.
The fallout from the Madoff scandal was a loss of confidence for investing in America's financial institutions and (finally) a realization of the unchecked amount of greed that can occur when the government turns its back and allows capitalism to take its natural course. There was Enron and a host of other financial scandals beforehand, but nothing compared to Bernie Madoff. It had to make many registered voters think that maybe a 'hands-off' government when it comes to business isn't such a good idea and there should be a "bigger government" of regulators to watch-dog the Madoffs of the world. When there is no government institution to set the rules and enforce them, human nature takes its course and unfortunately the result is greed. A business or business person has the ultimate goal for money-making and profits with no loyalty to country or nature.
There's even more potentially dangerous areas of concern than money (if that's possible) when there are no regulators or watch-dogs to make sure the businessmen don't go out of control. Take the environment for example, an oil drilling company needs to drill as many holes as possible and as quick as possible to find the precious 'black gold'. Do you think they're factoring in the animal life or marine life that are going to be poisoned in their monthly balance sheet reports? In the short-term it might only mean 500 whales washing up on some beach or a baby duck caught in a glob of crude oil, so who cares? No oil company is going to slow down production in consideration of the possible long-term effects of crabs and lobsters being wiped out from a region. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) only has a small handful of inspectors responsible for checking that safety codes are maintained at tens of thousands of oil rigs, so when there's little to no regulators, is easy to understand how we can have the disasters like the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico which caused about 53,000 barrels of oil to flow into the water per day from April 20th to July 15th. In 2011 the White House released a statement from a specially formed oil commission that reviewed the disaster and concluded it was the result of a lack of safety measures due to cost-cutting decisions by BP, and a lack of formal reform with both industry and government policies. Whether its the financial market, manufacturing smoke stacks, oil drilling, there needs to be a governing body (regulators) to make sure everyone plays by the rules and there's no cracks in the system to allow the Bernie Madoff or BP disasters to take place.
The Obama Presidency:
America seemed to be headed for a great deal of Change with the Democratic President Obama in the White House and a majority of Democrats in the Senate to help pass Obama's laws. At the time the Republicans were in the minority, but despite their smaller numbers, they basically came out and said they would refuse to pass anything he proposed. The Republican mission was to handcuff Obama as much as possible with vetoes so his policies couldn't go through. The Republicans could use the lack of progress as proof that Obama is a weak President and help unseat him when he would be up for re-election in 2012. Instead of admitting McCain's defeat and coming together to help the welfare of the American people by working with Obama, Republicans felt it was more important to keep the country in a malaise state by vetoing as many proposals as possible.
There was a general disrespect for President Obama from both inside the government and from American citizens who felt their country was "stolen". Of course everyone would say race has nothing to do with it, but even past Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter didn't face the same backlash upon their election day victories. During Obama's 2009 State of the Union address to Congress on healthcare, Republican Representative from South Carolina Joe Wilson disgracefully yelled out "You Lie". It goes against the protocol of a Presidential speech to shout out, and its something that was never witnessed before to previous (Caucasian) Presidents. Even other members of the Republican Party were outraged at that total act of disrespect and demanded a Wilson apology.
Years later Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer shamefully pointed her finger at Obama in front of reporters as if he was some type of butler that came with the wrong drink.
This social-political movement didn’t stop with the election, upon Obama taking office and especially after the $700+ billion bail-out approved by the President and majority Democratic Congress in early 2009, these Republican town-hall types formulated into what became known as the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party. Riled up by the likes of FOX News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and even former Republican Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin, TEA Party followers took the moniker of America’s Four Fathers; donning costumes of Revolutionary War times and holding up signs that they wanted their country back, that they were tired of big government and big government spending, although Obama had only been in office for a couple of months. The public demonstrations took place outside of the Capital Building and targeted both Democratic, as well as Republican Senators and Representatives seen as not far-right enough. Several Republican officials took notice of this new movement and soon enough changed their political affiliation from Republican to TEA Party in a cheap ploy to gain votes for a future election. All sorts of made-up accusations spread from this such as Obama is going to raise taxes on everyone, Obama is going to dictate the details of everyone’s healthcare situation, Obama is going to open the borders for an Muslim-Mexican takeover of America, Obama is going to revoke the 2nd Amendment - anything really was thrown against the wall.
So those are a highlight of his successes and failures, and there’s likely more that could be added to the list for each, but with those in mind, let’s see who is behind door number two.
Let’s Meet Mitt:
If there’s anything Mitt Romney understands, it’s the struggle of the everyday American. The self-proclaimed businessman is worth over $250 million dollars (with who knows how much more buried away in the Swiss Bank and Cayman Islands).
Mitt had the tough upbringing of being the son of the Governor of Michigan while his mother took a chance at running for State Senator. The deck was certainly stacked against Romney for getting into schools he wanted, getting jobs he applied for, or finding the financial backing to exercise his businessman skills with those kinds of parents.
Of course, Barack Obama is the one who is the snobby-elitist with his being raised by a single working mother and his grandparents in Hawaii. Mitt’s upbringing would take him outside the Washington Political Machine and provide him with a humble background that connects with all Americans, unlike that Obama character.
(The son of a loaded family that had been involved in politics for years……..geez……..sounds nothing like George Bush - Father or Son)
Romney eventually caught the political bug himself and took long-time Massachusetts incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy on in 1994 for U.S. Senate. After getting caught up in a string on flip-flop answers he couldn't smooth-talk his way out of with the press, plus he was going up against Ted Kennedy, eventually he was soundly beaten by an elderly man.
To Romney's credit, he dusted himself off and a decade later won one to become the Governor of Massachusetts in which he served from 2003 to 2007. With his sights set on a bigger prize, he didn't bother with a second term (who needs Massachusetts anymore) and in 2008 he took his first shot at running for President of the United States, but lost out to an elderly man again in the primaries, the 72 year-old John McCain, who other Republicans decided, was in better shape to represent them in the next election.
(To be fair, the Republican Party by tradition follows a “next-in-line” approach to selecting candidates, and since McCain was #2 behind Bush in 2000, they gave him the nod for #1 in 2008…….but still at 72 years-old…?....that’s really pushing it)
Election Day 2008 Obama wiped the floors with McCain, the very same man who beat out Romney in the Republican Primary (Yet, for some reason Republicans are sending Romney to the big dance in hopes he can somehow unseat Obama in 2012).
Its important the stress the fact that Romney trailed for long stretches behind the likes of Herman Cain, and Rick Perry, who eventually needed to drop out of the race to focus on his sleep apnea problem, although at one point he led Romney by 11%. Newt Gingrich had ideas on how to get the country's debt fixed, but then he needed to drop out of the race when his own campaign fell $4 million into debt; these are the strong opposing forces Mitt Romney had defeated to win the Republican Primary. It's like a Zebra declaring itself the 'King of the Jungle' with the Lions and Tigers nowhere to be found and the only competition around are from small rodents.
With Romney in the driver's seat he selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, who gained notoriety for battling teachers unions in his state, although a year earlier nobody even knew who he was. With Ryan's popularity in the party as a "strike breaker" and the support from his strong TEA Party views, Romney had a former McDonald's grill-worker as a partner.
Debate Time:
Early polls between Obama and Romney indicated a large lead for the President, and other eye-opening statistics revealed Romney had 0% of the Black vote. Naturally, Romney went through the motions and addressed the NAACP, but he was more worried about getting his iPhone stolen.
Another stop on campaign trail was an appearance on the Spanish-speaking channel Univision in which Romney showed up with a bizarre tan as a cheap attempt to appeal to Latino voters.
Technically Romney's father was born in Mexican territory and according to Mexican law should've been classified as a Mexican citizen, which then would make Mitt Romney half-Mexican. Romney then gave a strange quote that had he been Latino, it would've given him a better chance at winning the White House.
Finally to appeal to housewives, Romney and his wife Ann stopped off at "Live! with Kelly and Michael" and revealed important details about his political platform such as he's a fan of "Jersey Shore's" Snooki and peanut butter sandwiches are a snack favorite of his.
With Romney behind in the polls, he needed to come out swinging in the debate, and surprisingly, a perhaps cocky and overconfident Obama was flatted by the Mighty Mitt in Round 1. Many surprised as Obama stood stoic behind the podium with his head mostly looking down while Romney attacked him from all angles.
Vice President Joe Biden came to the rescue days later with the Vice Presidential Debate against Paul Ryan in the highest rated VP debate in TV history. Not offering much in substance, Biden flexed his experience muscle against the much younger Ryan by strategically interrupting him a staggering 82 times and when not butting in, Biden would simply smile widely while Ryan spoke, essentially making his words appear to be humorous lies.
Despite the Biden performance, Romney grabbed a lead in the polls and the President needed a better showing to the TV audience. Obama was back on his feet for Round 2 and was a different man that what was witnessed in the first debate. This time the President was much more feisty; defending against Romney's attacks and pointing out Romney's flip-flops over the years. There was another Joe Wilson/Jan Brewer Republican moment of speaking down to the President when at one point Mitt Romney ordered Obama to sit down. Romney tripped up at one point trying to politicize the recent killing of a US Ambassador in Libya with three other workers in regards to Obama's press conference on the event. Even the debate moderator, who is supposed to be neutral, stepped in and corrected Romney on his error.
By the time the third and final debate had passed, there were a few items that were clear. One, Romney must have felt he lost his lead in the polls because he came out aggressive initially, but then secondly and oddly, by the end of Round 3, he flip-flopped back to the center by agreeing with some of Obama's policies such as how he has utilized the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how he handled the Libya-Gaddafi situation, how he's handling Syria, and how he's currently working with other foreign leaders to place tough economic sanctions on Iran to dissuade their nuclear ambitions.
Towards the end both candidates gave the same nonsensical answer as in regard to how to prevent gun violence in the inner cities, that by (a two-hundred year plan) to encourage two-parent homes/marriage and a stronger educational system...which does nothing for the many thousands of American citizens who will be shot and killed during the next two years.
Polls after the three debates have Obama and Romney at a dead-heat; the Rasmussen Report has Romney ahead by 1%, Washington Post/ABC News has Obama ahead by 1% while the Gallup polls show Obama ahead 62% to 55%, which makes little sense since both numbers add up to 117%, but evidently it’s looking very close.
From the debate we learned Obama wants to move the country “Forward” with his Obamacare heath plan, focus on American infrastructures such as building more US-based manufacturing plants, reduce troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and scary of all, asking the super-rich to pay just a tad bit extra income tax.
Since Romney hasn’t been President yet and we all really don’t know what America would be in for; here are some highlights from the debates regarding his plans and ideas:
Not all Caucasians are Created Equal:
In 2010 the Supreme Court overruled congress with their decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), which permits secret cash from industries as well as foreign governments to go towards financing US elections. Not that is is anything new, corporations and special interest groups financing Presidential candidates in hopes of getting favors in return once the elect is in office, but one example shows the scope the ultra-rich can go in order to dictate public opinion and the media to help get what they want.
In that same year the Koch Brothers (Charles and David) of Koch Industries Inc. held a private summit in Aspen, CO with a very exclusive guest list and orders that the meeting be of the up most secrecy for those in attendance. Koch Industries handles a wide spectrum of services and products such as energy, chemicals, manufacturing, food, and the Koch Brothers are worth over $21 billion. Despite the fossil fuels and toxins they're pumping into our air which instigates hurricanes and flash fires, they're on record saying they wish 90% of the current laws and regulations could be removed so it could ignite more prosperity, and they're fanatic financial supporters of right-wing activity.
Somehow, an attendee or perhaps a brave waiter, leaked a copy of the agenda outline for this Aspen meeting and here are some of the very interesting speaking topics they had in mind for America under the disguise of words such as "Freedom", Free Enterprise", and "Prosperity":
The excuse of course is always: you can't tax the rich because they need that money to hire workers. That money doesn't go to hire more workers - it goes to keep some 23 year-old trophy wife in mink. The other is, you need to keep money at the top because then it trickles down - first of all, even Mitt Romney of all people said during the debates, "Trickle down economics doesn't work", and secondly, since the middle class is shrinking and the lower class can't ever rise above, its a clear indication the money goes to the top and stays put!!
Once the super-rich have their guy in power, then the 'not rich' Whites are kicked out of the cocktail party are left with a crumbling infrastructure, rising crime, rising interest rates, depleted unions (loss of benefits), amongst many other ills, and are yet still tapped to bare the burden of paying the country's taxes while some "job creator" collects his $75 million retirement package and heads off to Bali while a polar bear has to be shot for moving inland in search of food.
Anything that suggests that the super-rich should pay more taxes is combated with scare-tactic phrases such as "Communism", "Socialism", and "Big Government". Communism is a money-less and class-less society, for some reason I haven't seen or heard any action from Obama that indicates he is heading in this direction. And even if he wanted to make America a Communist State, it will take more than his four or eight years in office to do it. The next is socialism, which is a government co-ownership of society businesses, like the US Post Office for example. Those evil bastards!!
People may not realize, but walk down any street in a busy city like Manhattan, and half the businesses and real estate are owned by a foreign government such as Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia. So in way, we already are in a socialist society, and even worse, the government ownership many times isn't even American, its Chinese or Norwegian. Again, other than the Post Office and parts of the Obamacare Bill, Obama hasn't shown a drive for government take-over of US businesses, and even if he did, he would take more than two-terms in office to so. Many point to the 2009 Stimulus Bill as an attempt to buy out GM and the banks, but they were broke badly and needed a loan real fast. Would Republicans and TEA Party followers prefer the Saudi Arabians swoop in instead to lend the money to the US banks?
Speaking of Obamacare, and borrowing the US Post Office for another example. The way we send our mail basically sums up the whole plan. If you want to keep or buy into a private healthcare provider, such as you would use DHL, UPS, or Fedex to deliver your mail, then go-ahead. On the hand, if you rather buy into a lower-costing government option for your healthcare, such as delivering your mail with the US Postal Service, then go-ahead.
The super-rich private healthcare companies are worried that they'll lose customers to the new government option, so they're pressing the FOX News and Mitt Romney buttons to criticize Obamacare as Socialism and another example of Big Government spending. It's social programs such as this, and others created by FDR in the 1940's and LBJ in the 1960's which led to the creation of a strong middle class (good for Whites) in America and inspired industrial growth that created manufacturing towns in America.
Once Nixon got into office he started to cut back on healthcare benefits for Americans. During the 1980's, Reagan and his trickle-down economics opened the door for the great wealth divide which continues to this day, and to this day, America's healthcare ranks below Costa Rica and Columbia with an estimated 50,000 Americans dying each year from a lack of health insurance, if you want to believe a Harvard study on the subject.
Republican Party Wrap-Up:
It's silly to say only Democrats are good or only Republicans are bad; it all depends on who are the candidates at that particular time and what are the surrounding circumstances. For instances, speaking of stiffs, in 1988 David Dukakis was not the right person for the job. In that particular scenario George H. W. Bush was the more qualified candidate and the right person won, the same with Nixon over McGovern in 1972, or Reagan over Carter in 1980. The bigger picture needs to be studied; from the economic and international status of the country, to the candidates themselves and what type of gravitas they emit. That being said, in 2012 the Republican Party is in bad shape and sending Romney to the race shows they're desperate and there's really no strong personalities in the party at this time.
Let's not forget, four years ago in the 2008 election, this same Republican Party said that in the possibility that John McCain would be incapacitated as President (which is very possible for a 72 year-old to fall asleep and not wake up), then the country would be in the careful hands of Sarah Palin, who when interviewed by Katie Couric, couldn't name one singular magazine or book she likes to read (a sneaky liberal media trick question). We can also add on Palin thought Saddam attacked America on 9/11 and she had the uncanny ability to see Russia from her native Alaska, although its not scientifically possible.
The Republican Party wasn't in any better shape in 2008, and the Palin move was a desperation hand grenade to seem progressive in submitting a woman Vice President candidate to combat the progressiveness of Obama winning the Democratic primary as a Black man (or at least half-Black).
The Republicans were also hampered by the eight years of President Bush which left America with an alarmingly high National Debt and two wars that had no end in sight. Four years later, the Republicans and Bush himself were so proud of the achievements between 2001 - 2008 that Bush didn't even show his face at the 2012 Republican National Convention (or he was instructed to stay away like Sarah Palin was). Both George W. and Palin ruined any chances for McCain in 2008, the Republicans didn't want those two around to ruin whatever chance Romney might have. Or better yet, once Bush and Romney would be on stage together, Americans can realize that they're all one in the same.
The Lesser of Two Evils:
With thousands and thousands of Americans lining up in front of Apple stores to spend $600 on the new version of the iPhone which does all the same things the previous version does, its safe to say America hasn't been hit by the kind of Depression seen in the 1930's.
Obama was handed a country in bad shape and taking Ronald Reagan's famous question, "Are you better now than four years ago?", I would find it hard to believe America is in worse shape now than in 2008 when Bush left office. The Republicans don't have a strong candidate at this time and there doesn't seem to be a superstar in their midst based on the most recent primary.
With everything he's done since 2008; from saving the country from going Greece, from finally getting Bin Laden, and easing down the level of hostility in the Middle East, he deserves a shot at another four years. Was McCain going to be able to reduce the National Debt and lower unemployment any better? Probably not. Plus, Obama was nearly thirty years younger, and with Romney shaping up to be Bush #3, Obama should get the nod so America is as far away from '2001 - 2008' as possible.
When going to the voting booth, just remember the Electoral College ensures that your vote bares no impact on who wins. Maybe make it a movie night instead......
The main event is the Communist-Socialist-Elitist-Educated-Black Guy President Barack Obama going for his second term as against the Mormon-Businessman-Stiff challenger Governor Mitt Romney. America's economy isn't doing well, supposedly, we're still fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is trying to go nuclear, any country with sand in it still hates us, Walmart is stocked with goods made in China, shooting up movie theaters is the new trend, and somewhere off the coast a seagull currently flaps its wings to escape from a nasty oil spill that's too minor to even make the news.
With all the these problems and a whole lot more, it seems the country is up for grabs for whichever politician can string across the most effective lies to convince people that they're magically going to cure everything. For those unsure who they should vote for, or have absolutely nothing good to watch on a Tuesday night, I figured I should outline some key thinking points one should consider regarding the state of the country and the two candidates themselves. Then with a range of different thoughts and historical recollections highlighted, I'll piece together a reasoning of who is the lesser evil between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
The Road to the 2008 Election:
We should go back to when Obama first took office in 2009 and review the problems that were dropped on his desk for his first day in the Captain's Chair. Seeing who was responsible for them and how Obama dealt with the tasks will be a good measuring stick to see if he's deserving of a second term, and is going back to a Republican leader a good idea.
The country was wobbly-legged from getting a strong punch in the face from the economy; caused by two wars that was bleeding the country at the cost of millions of dollars per day, shady banks that approved loans to people that otherwise shouldn't have qualified which caused the housing market to plunder, and the mascot of the time period, Bernie Madoff, who was part of a monumental fraud scheme that stole billions of dollars from investors.
Many were convinced that Obama was actually Osama Bin Laden without the beard, which somewhat made sense because when the Bin Laden tapes stopped airing in 2004, that's when Obama magically appeared on the political scene. With another four years of the incumbent George W. Bush sending the country further into mayhem, Obama had to be licking his chops that a 2008 victory against any Republican had to be a shoe-in. One wouldn't have to think so hard why the country would swing to the democratic side when Obama was up for his first bid for the Presidency.
1. 9/11 and the Afghanistan War:
Many want to blame George W. Bush for 9/11, but really nobody saw that coming, except Nostradamus. It is worth noting that three months before 9/11, the Joints Chief of Staff changed a policy which put Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in charge of decisions concerning the shooting down of any commercial or military aircraft that had been hijacked. Who would've though just a scenario would unfold three months later that September with four American aircraft? Coincidence? Bush did receive a report entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" and FBI agents were sending reports up the ladder concerning Arab foreign nationals enrolling in flight school that apparently got silenced - so from there people can draw their own conclusions. Everything afterwards, including the war in Afghanistan, which is now officially America's longest running war in it's history, squarely goes on the shoulders of Bush. Instead of treating it like an investigation and specifically going after Bin Laden and his buddies, Bush ate a handful of red meat and threatened war on anyone who looked at America the wrong way in a crowded bar.
The reason for Bush to send US troops into Afghanistan was that the Taliban regime that was controlling the country for the moment, was harboring Bin Laden and his fellow Al Qaeda comrades and refused to turn him over to American authorities. First of all, it took America with all it's high-tech gadgets, sophisticated surveillance equipment, and a whopping $50 million bounty, about a decade to finally corner the FBI's Number One Most Wanted. What makes anyone think that a few Taliban mullahs without any electricity knew what cave Bin Laden was hiding in, even if they wanted to turn him over. As a it turns out, the intelligence squad of our closest ally in the "War on Terror", Pakistan, was aiding, supporting, and hiding Bin Laden before a US Navy Seal team finally caught up with him. Which then by concept makes war in Afghanistan quite senseless since the only arms they had were the weapons we gave them back in the 80's to shoot Soviet soldiers (the "Great Satan" of the time) and Bin Laden was seemingly receiving more help from our ally Pakistan than he was from the enemy Taliban. In looking back at the climate in America after the 9/11 attacks, in no way were the Democrats going to voice any objections to blowing up a backwards Middle Eastern country when American citizens were hungry for revenge. Everyone went along for the ride. Goat herders, forced by penalty of death by a local warlord to wave a gun around and shoot anything looking American, were classified as Taliban fighters and those captured were shipped off to the prison on Guantanamo Bay. The Terror training camps that Al Qaeda trainees worked on their monkey bar skills on were abandoned and started up elsewhere. When it was all said and done, Osama Bin Laden had escaped capture while the fighting continued in Afghanistan (and still continues to this day) for another ten years. Not to say alot of dangerous bad guys were eliminated along the way, but what was the end game for Afghanistan, and what was a "win" going to be judged by?
On the home front America began its rapid movement towards being a Security State by first the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans claim they're against bigger government, yet Bush creates an entirely brand new wing of government to soak up more taxpayer dollars. For $35,000 a year starting, America's first line of defense at the airports was to intimidate soccer moms.
By the culture trend instigated in the country since the 9/11 attacks, the Security profession is at the top of the fastest growing in this country, and now cameras are being installed at virtually every busy street, similar to what goes on in Europe, to the point where literally a Big Brother scenario is coming to a starch reality. If privacy wasn't being infringed upon enough, Bush also pushed through the Patriot Act which allows the government to access personal records and finances that was once deemed untouchable.
This also speaks nothing of the trillions of dollars spent towards increasing our military presence around the globe as well as money paid to private contractors (mercenaries, more or less) to outsource jobs at a higher salary instead of giving that same money to US troops to perform the same tasks. After the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, an investigation rounded up all the suspects and later caught up with mastermind Ramses Youssef. The intention of damage was just the same in 1993 than it was in 2001, but there was no invasion of any country in the wake of the attack. There was no Department of Homeland Security created, no Patriot Act. The guilty party was rounded up and sent off to jail. America went back to being America - which is the way to not let the terrorists win. The 90's economy was in midst of a budget surplus, there were no big costly wars, and the only real blemish on the Democratic President Bill Clinton was what he was doing in his spare time.
Attempted terrorist attacks since 9/11 have been averted due to underwear bombs that didn't operate properly, intelligence help from European nations, solid undercover work from the FBI, and an alert store clerk in Colorado who was wise enough to notify authorities of a bearded shopper who had his cart filled with bottles of nail polish remover. There hasn't been a situation where a TSA airport worker busted someone with a bomb in their luggage, or a million dollar daisy cutter bomb dropped on a mountain in Afghanistan that prevented any attacks. As many enemy combatants that the US military had captured or killed in Afghanistan since 2001, the Taliban are still a strong presence in the country and don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. The citizens we are trying to "liberate" there want us out, I'm positive to wager most US troops stationed in that country don't see the point of them being there. Was it the fact that over 3,000 people died on 9/11 that it was necessary to raise the kill count in that part of the globe as a way to get even? When Congress (9/11 Commission) and an independent civil group investigated further into the attacks, they found financial links of the hijackers that led to the Saudi Royal Family, but the Bush White House prevented them from digging any deeper. The civil group went on to file a lawsuit against the Saudi Royal Family, but since then there's been no resolution or answers.
2. The Iraq War: Take Two
When Osama Bin Laden escaped capture in Afghanistan and the initial Taliban forces were pushed off the map for a while, there was that feeling that America really didn't "win" anything as a response to the 9/11 attacks. Sure Hamid Karzai won an election to become the new leader of Afghanistan and it seemed democracy had reached the borders of a lawless nation, but that wasn't good enough. George W. Bush put the world on notice, specifically North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, that he had is eyes on them.
With terrorism on everyone's mind and the horrific images of 9/11 molded onto the memories of American citizens in 2002, we all began to hear the "what-if's" of different scenarios of how American could be attacked again. One of these what-ifs was what if Saddam Hussein passed some type of biological weapon or materials to terrorists to use against America. Which if you think about it, it was possible, but not practical enough to invade Iraq over. In reality, there were many nations out there with the capability to pass deadly materials along to terrorists. Why single out Iraq? Saddam was being a good boy and was relatively quiet since 1995 when Clinton had to send some cruise missiles his way for not cooperating with UN weapons inspectors. There was no single solitary threat from Iraq, the 9/11 hijackers were basically all Saudi Arabian, so other than being listed as a "rogue" nation, there was nothing to accuse them of. Technically, Saddam wasn't cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors to the extend to what he agreed to after Desert Storm in 1991. As turns out, Saddam admitted later when he was captured, he wasn't cooperating with the UN not because he had weapons of mass destruction to hide, but because in reality he had no weapons of mass destruction and he didn't want Iran to learn of that.
Iraq and Iran had a bloody ten year war from 1979 to 1989 in which America supported Saddam since Iran was the bad guy at the time for ousting the Shah, who we supported, and held American citizens at the Iranian Embassy hostage for nearly two moths. During this war in which the Republican Reagan-Bush Sr. administration backed Saddam, he used some of these actual weapons of mass destruction on Iranians, which was okay with America at the time, but in 2002-03 it was sighted by Bush Jr. as a reason Saddam should be considered a threat. This costly ten year war with Iran left Iraq broke, so Saddam went over and looted Kuwait plus threatened to sack Saudi Arabia next. The Saudi rich kid Osama Bin Laden offered his services to the Saudi Royal Family, to use his Taliban/Al Qaeda/Goat Herder rag-tag army to fight off a pending Iraqi attack, but the Saudis preferred America to take up the fight, which Osama left feeling slighted by the USA and Saudi King. The 1991 Desert Storm war saw US troops drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, ended the threat of a Saudi invasion, and probably made Saddam feel sad.
President Bush (Daddy Bush) refused to take the fight into Iraq, but rebels inside the country were counting on US support of an uprising to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The CIA more or less instigated these groups to try takeover the Iraq, but when Bush didn't provide any help, these rebels were left defenseless and Saddam had them slaughtered. This non-action by Bush Sr. would begin a trend of mistrust of the Iraqi people against America that would continue later on when Bush Jr. came back for the main course. After these wars with Iran and America, Iraq still maintained its grudge with the neighboring Iran. One defense mechanism Saddam had to keep Iran in check was the perception that he had weapons on mass destruction. As long as Iran feared Saddam as a madman with biological weapons, Saddam wouldn't have to worry about a future war with his neighbor. On the other hand, if UN weapon inspectors discovered that Saddam really had no fearful biological weapons and made the findings public, Iran then wouldn't fear Saddam as much and might take the upper hand in any future confrontation. By 2002-03, George W. used this "I have weapons of mass destruction, but I don't have them" ambiguity of Saddam as a reason to go to war against Iraq. Soon enough we all started to hear about this mysterious connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda without any shred of evidence presented. The only connection to 9/11 Saddam had was a mural celebrating the attack on the Twin Towers painted in one of his palaces, but being happy over 3,000 Americans getting killed isn't really an excuse to wage war. It's safe to believe a significant amount of Arab leaders were happy with the 9/11 attacks, does that mean America should've bombed them all for being insensitive? Bush pounded the war drum and all of a sudden it became urgent to remove Saddam Hussein and his two sons from power in Iraq before they give biological weapons to Al Qaeda to use against America.
Of course America couldn't just waltz into Iraq and start shooting, Bush had to go through the proper channels to make his case so everything would seem legitimate on the surface. Colin Powell was selected to give the master performance to the United Nations in 2003, stating America's case against Iraq. He was the perfect choice from the Bush cabinet. The Security of State had the credibility and popularity from his service as a General during Operation Desert Storm. More importantly, his Blackness wouldn't make him seem too-Republican, so the words out of his mouth wouldn't seem to be from a warmongering right-winger. Someone like Dick Cheney defiantly couldn't give this presentation, it wouldn't sell. Iraqi diplomats naturally denied all the charges from Powell, but whether some or all of it was actually true, we'll never really know.
What we do know is that in 2004 after no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and the country was heading into civil war between Sunni and Shiite groups, Powell testified to a Senate committee that the intelligence behind his 2003 presentation to the United Nations was wrong and there was no substantial reason to believe Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, when CIA agents internally started chirping that the intelligence reports regarding Saddam as a threat were inaccurate, the White House struck back with Vice President Dick Cheney having his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, leak the identity of these CIA agents to a New York Times reporter. Libby was forced to resign and faced felony charges that put him in prison. The scandal was another black eye for the Bush administration on everything leading up to and after Operation Iraqi Freedom. Colin Powell resigned as Security of State after internal conflict with the other members of Bush's cabinet and probably from the embarrassment when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. The man who probably could've been America's first African-American President had ruined his political legacy.
The UN drafted a resolution that Saddam needed to cooperate 100% with the weapons inspectors or else face harsh consequences. The weapons inspectors didn't actually find anything harmful as per Powell's charges, but at the same time Saddam Hussein wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy teddy bear, plus he needed to maintain the cloak that he was a madman with biological weapons to keep Iran in check, so it didn't take Nostradamus to foresee that Saddam would not be 100% cooperative and eventually the weapons inspectors would either be kicked out (as he did in 1995) or ignored. This non-100% cooperation clause was all the ammo Bush needed to declare war on Iraq and the invasion was on!!
American tanks rolled into Baghdad in no time and those loyal to Saddam scattered away to fight back at a later time. To put a bow-n-tie on the whole event, the US military staged the tearing down of a statue of Saddam; initially placing an American flag on the head piece, but after realizing that was sending a bad public relations message (this was Operation IRAQI Freedom by the way), the American flag was replaced with an updated version of the Iraqi flag, and this was the image major media outlets captured so it seemed like the invasion was the will of the Iraqi people and not of the American government. Saddam took it on the lam, but was eventually captured and put on trial by the new Iraqi government. All this time war was still waging in Afghanistan with Bin Laden hiding out either in that country, Pakistan, or somewhere in between. With wars on two fronts, this is exactly what Bin Laden was hoping to inspire - a "West vs. Islam" showdown spreading out across the Middle East. It's almost comical that when asked about Bin Laden's whereabouts, the response from the US military and White House was that he was hiding out in the dangerous tribal warlord region of the Afghan-Pakistan border which the US military couldn't disturb. Basically the big-bad US military was afraid of some barbaric warlords, so Bin Laden was allowed to skate free for the time being while Saddam saw the end of a noose (four days after the death of former US President Gerald Ford).
After George W. declared Mission Accomplished in terms of Operation Iraqi Freedom, that's when the real violence and mass murder started. Not only were Sunni and Shiite Islamic religious groups killing each other to the point of near genocide over control of the new Iraq, but now 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' had been born and US troops were under constant attack from roadside bombs and suicide attackers. Also, the Saddam loyalists who ran away when the conventional US forces entered Baghdad were back engineering guerrilla-style ambushes on the occupying US soldiers. When no weapons of mass destruction were uncovered in Iraq and no concrete Saddam-Bin Laden connection proven, the new message from the White House in the midst of all new violence became "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" as a justification for the war. So basically without a war in Iraq to draw out terrorist fighters from all over the region, these same terrorists were going to board row boats and make the long aquatic journey across the Atlantic Ocean to American shores in order to start wrecking havoc.
The years of 2005, 2006, and 2007 were the bloodiest in Iraq; with insurgents attacking US troops and newly formed Iraqi police/military units, Sunni and Shiite religious groups were killing each other, mass killings from suicide bombers attacking large crowded areas, and frequently because all the madness, US troops resorting to killing themselves to escape the chaos. Of the number of reported US deaths in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, what wasn't being shared was that a significant number of these deaths were from self-inflected wounds or wounds suffered at the hands of fellow soldiers at the brink of insanity. By the final years of the Bush reign, his approval ratings were reaching record lows from two wars that were seeming to never end, Bin Laden on the loose, the mismanagement of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, and an economy that was on the brink of a big downward spiral. Just like what was being experienced with Afghanistan, Iraqi insurgents were still a pesky presence that weren't going away, Iraqi citizens didn't want us there, and (based on the number of suicides) it seemed most US troops were stressed out about their role there. Bush, by his final year in 2008 looked worn out and defeated compared to when he first entered the White House in 2001.
The most amusing or sad part of all of this is that George W. Bush probably shouldn't have been the 43rd President in the first place. The 2000 Election controversy in Florida saw George W.'s brother Jeb, who happened to be Governor of the State, plus with the help of the Republican Secretary of State of Florida Katherine Harris, and ultimately Supreme Court Justices, appointed by George W.'s father, the first President Bush, a voting recount was stopped that awarded the State of Florida to George W., and with the Electoral College votes gave him the lead to officially become the 43rd President of the United States. Both Bush and Al Gore finished in a near dead heat in Florida, and after stories of corruption and voter fraud surfaced, both Republicans and Democrats had a tug of war regarding the recounting of the votes in the weeks after the election. At the time Bush was pegged as the winner by only 537 votes, but in all likelihood a vote recount could've awarded the Presidency to Gore, so naturally the Republicans had no interest in a do-over tally.
After a bunch legal back and forth the decision was placed in the hands of the Supreme Court who ruled it was unconstitutional to continue with the recount and Bush's 537 vote lead stood. Some researchers say Bush would've won anyways, while some have discovered Gore would've won by at least 100 votes. Either way it was later discovered that a number of dirty tricks were applied to the citizens on Florida to help the Republican candidate, which was an easier task with Jeb Bush running the State as Governor. Blacks and poor people, more apt to vote for the Democrat Gore, were dissuaded or stripped of voting privileges (even if they had no felony charges on them). Confusing electronic machines were rolled in for the elderly, who likely still had their VCRs blinking 12:00 AM constantly, so they could cast the wrong vote by accident.
The worst of all was the memory card malfunction which electronically subtracted votes for Al Gore in the thousands. The Florida county most grossly effected by his issue was named Volusia. One of Gore's campaign workers found something fishy when 16,000 votes were taken away and later discovered Gore was actually ahead by 13,000 in Volusia. It was this glaring error that raised the red flag and caused Gore to take back his concession to Bush and the beginning of the long legal battle. The error was traced back to a company called Global Election Systems and the company programmer listed the problem as an "upload issue", plus opened the idea there could've been uploads from secondary or unauthorized sources, which makes one wonder how many other "upload errors" went undetected that helped Bush gain more votes. Overall across America Al Gore received 543,895 more votes than Bush, but due to the rules of the Electoral College, Bush won 271 state votes versus Gore's 266.
There is one thing about war in America, when it occurs the citizens tend to rally around the President no matter what. By 2004, with 9/11, the Afghan war, and the war in Iraq (before the real chaos was unleashed), Bush would seem to be a shoe-in for a second term. Although John Kerry had material to attack Bush with such as finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he shared the same problem Gore had, as Mitt Romney has now - they're stiffs!! They have no personality, and to George W.'s credit, he was able to connect to enough and the right people to win. The 2004 election was closer than people though it would be, but Kerry went out flat when a more personable candidate could've unseated Bush.
Would have there still been a 9/11 attack if Gore was President? Who's to say, but certainly the response would've likely been less aggressive against foreign sovereign countries and less intrusive on the privacy of American citizens. The reason its important to review all these fine details is that it brings up many interesting questions, and in history patterns tend to develop with history always repeating itself. For instance, look at the characters involved: Reagan, Bush, Saddam, Rumsfeld, Bin Laden, Cheney, Powell, some of the same people have been in power and connected one way or another for nearly thirty years.
One minute America is arming Saddam to go fight an enemy in Iran, then years later they go to war against him. One minute the Bin Laden and Afghans are Freedom Fighters against the Soviet Union invaders, so American gives them CIA-training, guns, and bombs, then years later they're Al Qaeda terrorists/Taliban that attacked America so we had to go fight them. Ho Chi Minh was America's ally shortly after World War II to help rid the Indochina of the Japanese, so America sent him arms. Twenty years later he's a Communist threat (with supplied US weapons) and the Vietnam War cooks up to prevent the entire region from falling Red in a domino effect, similar to what we see today of these wars to prevent a domino effect of radical Islam in the Middle East and Africa. It's the same script over and over again, just replace Communism with radical Islam.
Clearly, intelligence reports that turned out to be false put us into a war in Iraq. Whether the CIA acted on its own, or Bush just heard what he wanted, is tough to determine. If the intelligence community did start up that war by providing false information, was Scooter Libby's action of outing the identities of two CIA agents the White House's way to get back at the CIA? In the years following the Vietnam War the stories were surfacing that it was a CIA-engineered conflict; beginning with the displacement of one million Tonkinese from the north into the south which led to banditry and outbreaks of violence (Vietcong). The Gulf of Tonkin incident was admittedly false by former Secretary of Defense at the time, Robert McNamara, and that incident escalated US involvement in Vietnam. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the weapons of mass destruction charges against Saddam in 2003 were baseless. Alot of repeat patterns going on here, which makes people wonder if there was also any funny business regarding 9/11. Were wars the Bush Administration's plan to guarantee a second term as well as increase military spending and spending for privately owned companies like Halliburton? Lies got America militarily involved in Vietnam and Iraq, did another lie put us in Afghanistan? Those questions will go unasked of course by America's media which is as structured as Saddam's news outlets were, but what clear is that the names and faces for these two wars are heavily on the Republican side, which many Americans had to recognize when they went to the polls in 2008.
The reason fighting takes place in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Panama, Yugoslavia, Grenada, is that these nations can't defend themselves with the threat of nuclear retaliation. There was never the big showdown between the USA and the USSR because both countries would destroy the planet and then nobody would be able to make any money. Even today, they'll never be a war with America and China, it would mean suicide for both countries. A US Navy Seal team dropped into Pakistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, but although it would appear Pakistani Intelligence was harboring him, America would never go to war with Pakistan about it. The reason is because Pakistan has nukes. The Taliban doesn't have any nukes, so after 9/11, war was declared on Afghanistan for harboring Bin Laden, even though Pakistan also harbored him later on, and there was no American military reaction to it. Bin Laden was killed during Obama's tenure, but it was Bush's decree that any country harboring terrorists like Pakistan was, would also be considered America's enemy, but since Pakistan has the bomb, that rule doesn't apply to them. This is the reason Iran currently wants to go nuclear because the bomb makes a country untouchable from outside forces. Even though Bush mentioned North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil, he couldn't go after that country because they too have nuclear weapons. The only real defenseless member of the Axis of Evil was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and the ironic charge against him was that he had the capability to pass deadly weapons of mass destruction to terrorists to carry out attacks against American interests home and abroad, was untrue.
The only country that actually did attack America with a biological weapon was, well, America. A major story at the time that goes unmentioned today was the string of anthrax-laced letters delivered to two democratic senators and members of the media a week after 9/11. It wasn't until several years later that the FBI traced the source of the letters to a worker in a government bio-defense lab named Bruce Edwards Ivins. By 2007 Ivins was placed under surveillance and a year later he died at a hospital from an apparent overdose suicide. Although, no concrete evidence was able to link Ivins to the letter attacks or explain why he would commit those crimes, it was concluded he had the access to the deadly biological agent used, so the FBI officially closed the case in 2010. Based on the other shenanigans that helped pull America into war, just as falsified intelligence on Iraq's weapon capability in 2003, it makes one wonder if this anthrax attack was a precursor to scare the American public into the possibility of a "what-if" Saddam Hussein gave Al Qaeda a weapon like anthrax. Two years after the anthrax-letters stopped, America began to make its case to invade Iraq. As mentioned before, no republican senators received these letters, and "liberal" news outlets like ABC, NBC, CBS got letters, but none went to the republican mouthpiece channel FOX News. A coincidence?
3. House for Sale
What really put America into a recession during 2007 and 2008 and caused the stock market to plunge was the failed housing market caused by major banks which gave out loans to homeowners with hidden rates that they ultimately couldn't afford. When large amounts of homeowners were failing to pay their mortgages, they were kicked out of their homes, and the bank was left with a debt that nobody was able to pay. Once these debts kept building and building the banks were left with the heavy burden they couldn't control anymore. The greed of the banks to approve loans to applicants who weren't qualified, and the sneakiness of include increasing interest rates in fine print on Page 253 of the agreement as another greedy tool to soak money out of people, came back to bite the banks in the backside. Instead of draining homeowners dry of all their money, banks were instead stuck with houses that nobody was paying for.
With Bush counting his day till he'll be on the golf course in the Fall of 2008, both Republicans and Democrats came together to find a solution, and eventually the Treasury Department settled upon a $50 billion solution to slow down the mortgage crisis from expanding (smells like a big government spending bail-out). The combination of this housing issue, with the faltering European Market, and increasing unemployment rates in America, was causing many to point out that America was entering its second depression since the Great Depression of 1927-1945. With the string of companies Bush ran as a businessman and failed with, plus as part owner of the Texas Rangers he traded away Sammy Sosa for nobody, should anyone be surprised the phrase "depression" was in the air after eight years of his Presidency? And perhaps its worth noting the Great Depression began with Republicans Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover as President.
4. Bad Boy Bernie
The coup de grace for shady business dealings that placed the cherry on top when America was having its depression or recession during 2007/08 was the major ponzi scheme uncovered that was being run by Bernie Madoff. He had his own exchange firm which was stealing billions of dollars from investors since the early 1990's, admittedly, although investigators believe he might've been doing this since the 1970's. Previously Madoff served as the non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ. Investors went years without checking their stock portfolios and thought nothing was wrong in the trusting hands of Madoff's firm. Likely as a result of the housing market crisis and the early signs of a possible depression, scared investors started to ask for their money in which they would find out it was all gone. Many had their life savings and nest eggs liquidated after many years of working for it. Madoff''s son was caught first, but he rolled over to the FBI and gave up daddy, who would receive a 150-year prison sentence for the largest fraud case in US history. Although Madoff is right out of the Wall Street scene, it is fair to mention he made major financial contributions to the Democratic Party.
The fallout from the Madoff scandal was a loss of confidence for investing in America's financial institutions and (finally) a realization of the unchecked amount of greed that can occur when the government turns its back and allows capitalism to take its natural course. There was Enron and a host of other financial scandals beforehand, but nothing compared to Bernie Madoff. It had to make many registered voters think that maybe a 'hands-off' government when it comes to business isn't such a good idea and there should be a "bigger government" of regulators to watch-dog the Madoffs of the world. When there is no government institution to set the rules and enforce them, human nature takes its course and unfortunately the result is greed. A business or business person has the ultimate goal for money-making and profits with no loyalty to country or nature.
There's even more potentially dangerous areas of concern than money (if that's possible) when there are no regulators or watch-dogs to make sure the businessmen don't go out of control. Take the environment for example, an oil drilling company needs to drill as many holes as possible and as quick as possible to find the precious 'black gold'. Do you think they're factoring in the animal life or marine life that are going to be poisoned in their monthly balance sheet reports? In the short-term it might only mean 500 whales washing up on some beach or a baby duck caught in a glob of crude oil, so who cares? No oil company is going to slow down production in consideration of the possible long-term effects of crabs and lobsters being wiped out from a region. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) only has a small handful of inspectors responsible for checking that safety codes are maintained at tens of thousands of oil rigs, so when there's little to no regulators, is easy to understand how we can have the disasters like the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico which caused about 53,000 barrels of oil to flow into the water per day from April 20th to July 15th. In 2011 the White House released a statement from a specially formed oil commission that reviewed the disaster and concluded it was the result of a lack of safety measures due to cost-cutting decisions by BP, and a lack of formal reform with both industry and government policies. Whether its the financial market, manufacturing smoke stacks, oil drilling, there needs to be a governing body (regulators) to make sure everyone plays by the rules and there's no cracks in the system to allow the Bernie Madoff or BP disasters to take place.
The Obama Presidency:
America seemed to be headed for a great deal of Change with the Democratic President Obama in the White House and a majority of Democrats in the Senate to help pass Obama's laws. At the time the Republicans were in the minority, but despite their smaller numbers, they basically came out and said they would refuse to pass anything he proposed. The Republican mission was to handcuff Obama as much as possible with vetoes so his policies couldn't go through. The Republicans could use the lack of progress as proof that Obama is a weak President and help unseat him when he would be up for re-election in 2012. Instead of admitting McCain's defeat and coming together to help the welfare of the American people by working with Obama, Republicans felt it was more important to keep the country in a malaise state by vetoing as many proposals as possible.
There was a general disrespect for President Obama from both inside the government and from American citizens who felt their country was "stolen". Of course everyone would say race has nothing to do with it, but even past Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter didn't face the same backlash upon their election day victories. During Obama's 2009 State of the Union address to Congress on healthcare, Republican Representative from South Carolina Joe Wilson disgracefully yelled out "You Lie". It goes against the protocol of a Presidential speech to shout out, and its something that was never witnessed before to previous (Caucasian) Presidents. Even other members of the Republican Party were outraged at that total act of disrespect and demanded a Wilson apology.
Years later Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer shamefully pointed her finger at Obama in front of reporters as if he was some type of butler that came with the wrong drink.
The shouting out at the State of the Union address and the
finger-pointing incident are just two small examples of the mind-frame that
many Republicans didn’t view Obama as a “real” President. Could you imagine
someone shouting at Ronald Reagan during one of his speeches or someone
pointing a finger at George W. Bush in front of reporters when no weapons of
mass destruction were found in Iraq? It would never happen!!
Not only was Obama not viewed as a “real” President, there
was even a strong movement from the Birthers who wanted to get the country to
believe Barack Obama wasn’t even a real American citizen. This lunacy began
even before the 2008 election when some Republicans were trying to spread
disinformation about Obama that actually he’s a Muslim and he was born in
Kenya. Once Obama was elected President, these accusations only grew stronger
as a method to discredit Obama and alienate him from as many citizens as
possible. It got to the point where years later Obama had to give in to the
lunacy and release his official Hawaiian birth certificate to prove he is an
American citizen. This was all part of the Republican plan from Day One when
Obama took office; instead of finding ways to help fix America’s problems, they
instead instigated nonsense such as questions on Obama’s citizenship so the
attention and conversation would go towards that and not towards two active
wars in the Middle East and that 1% of the American population owned 90% of the
country’s wealth.
Even when the birth certificate was released, there were
those who tried to dissect it and came up with all sorts of theories that it
was fake, that his name was printed over another name, and so forth. The
Birthers were quite successful in their attempts to discredit Obama in which
polls showed up to 40% of American citizens weren’t positive of his
citizenship, which likely prompted the release of the birth certificate to the
public. According to the Birthers, Obama had made his way to Columbia
University in New York, then to the prestigious Harvard Law School, the University of Chicago Law next, worked seven years in the Illinois State Senate, and became the U.S. Senator of Illinois, and finally worked his way to becoming the President of the United
States - all without ever having to prove that he was an American citizen
somewhere along the way, and nearly 40% of American citizens were intelligent
enough to believe that.
If this was the example esteemed Republican officials were
setting, how can anyone expect followers and citizens to behave any better?
Going back to the town hall meetings John McCain was using on his campaign
trail for the 2008 election as the Republican candidate, venom spewed from some
of the crowds, especially when late polls were indicating an Obama victory.
Wonderful language such as the “N-word”, and accusations such as “Socialist”,
”Communist”, “Muslim Terrorist”, plus friendly phrases such as “hang him” and
“send him back to Africa” were frequent at these town hall events.
McCain
himself was disgusted and had to make a point to settle these hostile crowds
down regarding their rhetoric. There was even one situation when McCain had to
correct a sweet little old lady that Obama is not an Arab. With McCain having
to have to spend time to calm these crowds down instead of laying out an agenda
of why he should be America’s next President, any hope for a last minute surge
in the polls was gone. Without feeding red meat to these hostile crowds by
spewing the same venom they wanted to hear, McCain was also losing support from
the far-right.
This social-political movement didn’t stop with the election, upon Obama taking office and especially after the $700+ billion bail-out approved by the President and majority Democratic Congress in early 2009, these Republican town-hall types formulated into what became known as the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party. Riled up by the likes of FOX News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and even former Republican Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin, TEA Party followers took the moniker of America’s Four Fathers; donning costumes of Revolutionary War times and holding up signs that they wanted their country back, that they were tired of big government and big government spending, although Obama had only been in office for a couple of months. The public demonstrations took place outside of the Capital Building and targeted both Democratic, as well as Republican Senators and Representatives seen as not far-right enough. Several Republican officials took notice of this new movement and soon enough changed their political affiliation from Republican to TEA Party in a cheap ploy to gain votes for a future election. All sorts of made-up accusations spread from this such as Obama is going to raise taxes on everyone, Obama is going to dictate the details of everyone’s healthcare situation, Obama is going to open the borders for an Muslim-Mexican takeover of America, Obama is going to revoke the 2nd Amendment - anything really was thrown against the wall.
Of course race had nothing to do with it, although news
cameras would struggle to find a non-Caucasian in these crowds. To try to prove
it wasn’t a race issue, Glenn Beck even shamefully gave a speech at one of these rallies on the same spot Martin Luther King gave his infamous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Yet, with
phrases such as “we want our country back”, it leads to the questions of where
did the country go and from who should it be taken back from? These same
protesters worried about a government spend that directly helped to save
America’s banking, automotive, and other institutions, were nowhere to be seen
when Bush was dumping close to a trillion dollars into Iraq for a war that took
place under a false accusation. The money aside, over 4,000 US soldiers on
record (who knows what the real number is off-the-record) killed in that war,
more than the amount of people that perished on 9/11, yet these TEA Party members
weren’t vocal on that when Bush was in office. So $789 billion spent and no
deaths to save our banks and automotive industry was evil, but almost a trillion dollars spent and over 4,000 deaths over a false-flag operation war was
perfectly fine (all the while the person who prompted this all, Bin Laden,
hadn’t even been captured yet after 8 years on the run).
With all of this and always uncertainly of whether he’s
American or Kenyan, Barack Obama was asked to be President of the United
States.
The first two years of Obama’s Presidency were his best
opportunities for the Hope and Change slogans from his campaigns because the
American public also voted in a majority Congress and House that should’ve made
it easier to get most of his bills passed. There was the Stimulus Bill/big bail-out signed in
February 2009 to lend money to US banking institutions that was near the brink
of collapse, plus to the automatic industry when it was looking as if General
Motors was also headed towards extinction.
True, it was a big investment, and it did add to the
national debt, but what other choice was there? Although there was major job
loss before the bail-out, one couldn’t even imagine the insurmountable number
of jobs losses there would’ve been if all the banks and GM went under. The
other choice would’ve been do nothing, let the US banks and US automotive
industry die out, and watch the unemployment rates skyrocket. Plus, months earlier when Obama and McCain were campaigning,
both parties put that on hold and came together to help work with the Treasury
Department when things first started getting scary. The solution then wasn’t
called a “Big Government Spend” back then because McCain and Republican side
were involved too, but once Obama was President, any action taken to monetarily
help the banks was a Socialist-Communist-Big Government action. And had Obama
not done anything about it, the Republicans would’ve used that to say the
President sat back and did nothing while the banks and GM went down the toilet.
The final result was the banks and financial institutions stayed afloat, GM got
back on its feet, and although the debt was drastically increased, one would
have to say it was a wise investment to avoid even further massive job loss.
Many Republicans and TEA Party followers have a bizarre
memory of the financial state of the country when Bush left office after his
eight years of working wonders on the economy. They recall that Bush left a
Picasso masterpiece in Obama’s hands and the new President used a can of spray
paint to graffiti all over it. It was actually the other way around; Bush left
Obama a broken statue, and although it’s far from fixed or perfect, Obama put
enough krazy glue on it so it could stand up again.
Other than the bail-out, Obama didn’t get much else done
that he goaled for with the golden opportunity he had of a Democratic Congress
and House majority in those first two years. It’s surely a criticism on the
President, of his ability to get his own party in order, of the historic
undisciplined nature of the Democratic Party, and the historic disciplined
nature of the Republican Party.
One thing about the Republican Party, they usually have their affairs in order and when they need to take action, they tend get the job done. So despite being in the House and Congress minority during Obama’s first two years in office, the Republicans were able to do enough to keep Obama in check as much as possible with the Democrats split all across the board. When Bush and Gore were duking it out in Florida about the 2000 recount, the Republicans brought in the protesters; they worked the justice system, and got the recount shut down. When Bush wanted Saddam taken out, he made up whatever he wanted to in order to invade Iraq and got the approval to take him out.
For the TEA Party people and Republicans expecting a world of
Change as their worst nightmare, the reality was far different:
Despite the fear that Obama would raid the rich, he
continued the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy class.
Despite the fear that Obama would take guns away from
hunters so they could sharpen their skills by blowing away quails, not only did
Obama pretend he didn’t know what the word ‘gun’ was, he continued Bush’s
policy of not renewing the Clinton bill that banned assault weapons.
Despite the fear Obama wouldn’t be aggressive on Al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups, not only did Obama keep up the drone attacks on
suspected militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and all places in between, but he
also kept the “terrorist jail” of Guantanamo Bay open for business (He also
tweaked the previous strategy for locating someone named Osama Bin Laden and
once knowledge of his whereabouts became known, he gave the gutsy green-light
on a Navy Seal operation to eliminate the Al Qaeda kingpin).
(Let’s also not forget another longtime foe of
the United States, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who was responsible for bombing a US
passenger jet back in the 1980’s. When Libya fell into a civil war, Obama made
the call for airstrikes from US battleships in coordination with British and
French military forces, which ultimately lead to the rebel takeover of Libya,
the end of Gaddafi’s reign, and the end of Gaddafi’s life after a rebel
sodomized him with a knife for the final insult).
Despite the fear Obama would walk out of Iraq and
Afghanistan and tell the world America was a “quitter”, he has kept the
military in both countries and has only begun slowly started reducing troop
numbers with no actual end date anywhere on the horizon. To this day fighting
continues in both countries in which US troops are being killed.
Despite the fear Obama would halt oil drilling off of US
shores, the drilling continued and we’ve had the catastrophic oil spills and
beached whales to prove it.
Despite the fear Obama would magically eliminate everyone’s
healthcare plan and that Obamacare is going to turn America into the USSR, even
Mitt Romney himself admitted he would keep parts of the plan if he was elected President,
and while Governor of Massachusetts, Romney utilized a lot of the same
principles for his own State sponsored plan.
For the Republicans who fought hard to stop Obamacare, the
President was able to get it pushed through with the final blessing from the Supreme
Court.
So let’s review……
Thumbs down for Obama since:
- · Unemployment is still high
- · The national debt is still high and growing
- · There’s no end in sight for Afghanistan
- · Pulling out of Iraq is going slow
- · He went against his word on closing Guantanamo Bay
- · Chinese imports are drastically higher than our exports to China
- · Illegal Immigration hasn’t been slowed down
- · US jobs continued to be outsourced overseas
- · Wasn’t able to work cohesively enough with a Democratic House and Senate on his side
- · The middle class continues to shrink with the wealth distribution continuing to be lop-sided for the upper class
High-fives for Obama are:
- · He saved US Banks and the Automotive Industry from going belly-up
- · He prevented the mini-depression/recession we were having from getting worse.
- · Osama Bin Laden and a laundry list of other Al Qaeda leaders were captured or killed
- · Colonel Gaddafi's regime fell and the Colonel was killed by rebel forces
- · Egypt, Libya, and now Syria, are going through regime changes without physical US troops on the ground, alla Iraq and Afghanistan
- · Relations with Russia have been renewed due to an agreement to take down US missile defense systems in Eastern Europe that would prevent a Soviet attack in 1976
- · A government option for healthcare for those who don’t receive it through their job
- · Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been slowed down due to viruses injected into their computers and scientists who have been turning up dead (although the Israeli Moussed probably had something to do with those)
So those are a highlight of his successes and failures, and there’s likely more that could be added to the list for each, but with those in mind, let’s see who is behind door number two.
Let’s Meet Mitt:
If there’s anything Mitt Romney understands, it’s the struggle of the everyday American. The self-proclaimed businessman is worth over $250 million dollars (with who knows how much more buried away in the Swiss Bank and Cayman Islands).
Mitt had the tough upbringing of being the son of the Governor of Michigan while his mother took a chance at running for State Senator. The deck was certainly stacked against Romney for getting into schools he wanted, getting jobs he applied for, or finding the financial backing to exercise his businessman skills with those kinds of parents.
Of course, Barack Obama is the one who is the snobby-elitist with his being raised by a single working mother and his grandparents in Hawaii. Mitt’s upbringing would take him outside the Washington Political Machine and provide him with a humble background that connects with all Americans, unlike that Obama character.
(The son of a loaded family that had been involved in politics for years……..geez……..sounds nothing like George Bush - Father or Son)
Romney eventually caught the political bug himself and took long-time Massachusetts incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy on in 1994 for U.S. Senate. After getting caught up in a string on flip-flop answers he couldn't smooth-talk his way out of with the press, plus he was going up against Ted Kennedy, eventually he was soundly beaten by an elderly man.
To Romney's credit, he dusted himself off and a decade later won one to become the Governor of Massachusetts in which he served from 2003 to 2007. With his sights set on a bigger prize, he didn't bother with a second term (who needs Massachusetts anymore) and in 2008 he took his first shot at running for President of the United States, but lost out to an elderly man again in the primaries, the 72 year-old John McCain, who other Republicans decided, was in better shape to represent them in the next election.
(To be fair, the Republican Party by tradition follows a “next-in-line” approach to selecting candidates, and since McCain was #2 behind Bush in 2000, they gave him the nod for #1 in 2008…….but still at 72 years-old…?....that’s really pushing it)
Election Day 2008 Obama wiped the floors with McCain, the very same man who beat out Romney in the Republican Primary (Yet, for some reason Republicans are sending Romney to the big dance in hopes he can somehow unseat Obama in 2012).
When the next Republican Primary came up in 2012, it seemed that Romney's "next in line" status for candidate would've made it an easy run to be nominated as the Presidential Candidate, but actually he struggled to survive against a laundry list of clowns.
Jimmy McMillan didn't get invited to any of the debates and was completely left off the ballot. Donald Trump had aspirations to run by 2010, but a year later he officially took himself out of consideration so he could better serve America by hosting "The Apprentice" on NBC.
Ron Paul also gave Romney some competition in the polls, but since he usually has sensible ideas, he never gained strong support from the Republican caucus. When it was all said an done, he was the only Republican left to oppose Romney on that final night while all the others had quit one by one.
Sarah Palin was instructed to stay away entirely!!
With Romney in the driver's seat he selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, who gained notoriety for battling teachers unions in his state, although a year earlier nobody even knew who he was. With Ryan's popularity in the party as a "strike breaker" and the support from his strong TEA Party views, Romney had a former McDonald's grill-worker as a partner.
Debate Time:
Early polls between Obama and Romney indicated a large lead for the President, and other eye-opening statistics revealed Romney had 0% of the Black vote. Naturally, Romney went through the motions and addressed the NAACP, but he was more worried about getting his iPhone stolen.
Technically Romney's father was born in Mexican territory and according to Mexican law should've been classified as a Mexican citizen, which then would make Mitt Romney half-Mexican. Romney then gave a strange quote that had he been Latino, it would've given him a better chance at winning the White House.
Finally to appeal to housewives, Romney and his wife Ann stopped off at "Live! with Kelly and Michael" and revealed important details about his political platform such as he's a fan of "Jersey Shore's" Snooki and peanut butter sandwiches are a snack favorite of his.
With Romney behind in the polls, he needed to come out swinging in the debate, and surprisingly, a perhaps cocky and overconfident Obama was flatted by the Mighty Mitt in Round 1. Many surprised as Obama stood stoic behind the podium with his head mostly looking down while Romney attacked him from all angles.
Vice President Joe Biden came to the rescue days later with the Vice Presidential Debate against Paul Ryan in the highest rated VP debate in TV history. Not offering much in substance, Biden flexed his experience muscle against the much younger Ryan by strategically interrupting him a staggering 82 times and when not butting in, Biden would simply smile widely while Ryan spoke, essentially making his words appear to be humorous lies.
Despite the Biden performance, Romney grabbed a lead in the polls and the President needed a better showing to the TV audience. Obama was back on his feet for Round 2 and was a different man that what was witnessed in the first debate. This time the President was much more feisty; defending against Romney's attacks and pointing out Romney's flip-flops over the years. There was another Joe Wilson/Jan Brewer Republican moment of speaking down to the President when at one point Mitt Romney ordered Obama to sit down. Romney tripped up at one point trying to politicize the recent killing of a US Ambassador in Libya with three other workers in regards to Obama's press conference on the event. Even the debate moderator, who is supposed to be neutral, stepped in and corrected Romney on his error.
By the time the third and final debate had passed, there were a few items that were clear. One, Romney must have felt he lost his lead in the polls because he came out aggressive initially, but then secondly and oddly, by the end of Round 3, he flip-flopped back to the center by agreeing with some of Obama's policies such as how he has utilized the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how he handled the Libya-Gaddafi situation, how he's handling Syria, and how he's currently working with other foreign leaders to place tough economic sanctions on Iran to dissuade their nuclear ambitions.
Towards the end both candidates gave the same nonsensical answer as in regard to how to prevent gun violence in the inner cities, that by (a two-hundred year plan) to encourage two-parent homes/marriage and a stronger educational system...which does nothing for the many thousands of American citizens who will be shot and killed during the next two years.
Polls after the three debates have Obama and Romney at a dead-heat; the Rasmussen Report has Romney ahead by 1%, Washington Post/ABC News has Obama ahead by 1% while the Gallup polls show Obama ahead 62% to 55%, which makes little sense since both numbers add up to 117%, but evidently it’s looking very close.
From the debate we learned Obama wants to move the country “Forward” with his Obamacare heath plan, focus on American infrastructures such as building more US-based manufacturing plants, reduce troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and scary of all, asking the super-rich to pay just a tad bit extra income tax.
Since Romney hasn’t been President yet and we all really don’t know what America would be in for; here are some highlights from the debates regarding his plans and ideas:
- He has a plan to create 12 million new jobs (he hasn’t told us exactly how he’s going to do that or where the 12 million figure came from, but he did drop a small hint of - Latin America!!).
- He wants to get rid of those pesky “regulators” which prevent “small businesses” from growing - those same regulators who make such a big deal when a chemical company illegally dumps a barrel of green stuff into the ocean.
- He is going to eliminate Obamacare – if you don’t have a job, stock up on hand sanitizers.
- He’s not going to raise any taxes on the super-rich, because that will hurt the likes of himself.
- He swears companies are going to want to hire more women workers, just as he selected women from his ‘Binder Full of Women’ to work for his cabinet.
Not all Caucasians are Created Equal:
In 2010 the Supreme Court overruled congress with their decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), which permits secret cash from industries as well as foreign governments to go towards financing US elections. Not that is is anything new, corporations and special interest groups financing Presidential candidates in hopes of getting favors in return once the elect is in office, but one example shows the scope the ultra-rich can go in order to dictate public opinion and the media to help get what they want.
In that same year the Koch Brothers (Charles and David) of Koch Industries Inc. held a private summit in Aspen, CO with a very exclusive guest list and orders that the meeting be of the up most secrecy for those in attendance. Koch Industries handles a wide spectrum of services and products such as energy, chemicals, manufacturing, food, and the Koch Brothers are worth over $21 billion. Despite the fossil fuels and toxins they're pumping into our air which instigates hurricanes and flash fires, they're on record saying they wish 90% of the current laws and regulations could be removed so it could ignite more prosperity, and they're fanatic financial supporters of right-wing activity.
Somehow, an attendee or perhaps a brave waiter, leaked a copy of the agenda outline for this Aspen meeting and here are some of the very interesting speaking topics they had in mind for America under the disguise of words such as "Freedom", Free Enterprise", and "Prosperity":
- Fashioning the message and building the education channels to reestablish widespread belief in the benefits of the principles of a free and prosperous society (Getting all White people to believe that the super-rich should have no boundaries or regulations set against them).
- From the nationalization of healthcare to this rising power of unions, as well as a push for major new climate and energy regulations, financial regulations, and even more government spending, there is no lack of significant threats for us to understand and address (Doing away with those pesky unions which only protect workers' rights against slave drivers, eliminating climate and energy control which prevents the melting of the polar ice caps and the poisoning of our environment. And no financial regulations to obstruct from shady dealings such as insider trading, creating monopolies, and laying off US workers in favor of opening up foreign plants at a lower cost).
- Is there a chance this fall to elect leaders who are more strongly committed to liberty and prosperity? This session will further assess the landscape and offer a strategic plan to educate voters on the importance of economic freedom (Let's create a whole list of lies regarding Obama and his plans to scare White people away from the Democratic Party and get more votes for "our guy" who will let us keep skinning America for every last penny at the expense of a dying planet).
The media wasn't invited to this event, but its interesting to note Glenn Beck was a speaker at the conference, and surely he's a mouthpiece to "educate" his followers into thinking whatever super-rich folks such as the Koch Brothers want them to think. It's from events and conferences such as this where words are misconstrued and packaged to the public to give a completely different meaning such as:
- Government Spending = Taxing the Super-Rich
- Regulations = Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Reserve Board
- Privatize = Allowing profit-orientated bodies to make decisions
- Middle Class = Available money to pay the country's expenses instead of the super-rich
- Unions = Protect against worker abuse and cost-cutting measures from ownership
The constant goal for the super-rich (who tend to be White and Republican) is to get the 'not rich' White people to momentarily think that they too are part of the super-rich crowd. It's like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey cart in those months leading up to an election.
Then the image is created that the Democratic candidate is going to rob your hard-earned money and give it all away to lazy Blacks who sit home all day and eat fried chicken and smoke crack.
As if Obama went to Columbia University, Harvard Law School, and the Chicago University of Law; all to learn the loopholes in the Constitution so he can swindle more ways to steal money from Whites and give it to Blacks for crack-smoking purposes. He had nothing better to do with all the time he spent studying that he made this his life goal.
All the while its these super-rich "job creators" and "small-business owners" who are mainly hurting the 'not rich' Whites, yet almost every election the 'not rich' Whites are scared into voting for a freedom-loving Republican candidate who will continue to give them heartache in the short and long term.
The "job creators" and "small business owners" don't want a "Big Government" to stop them from:
- Laying off US workers and outsourcing jobs to India for cost-cutting purposes
- Insider trading scams like Enron
- Buying up smaller companies - selling off their stock, laying off workers, then using it as tax write-off
- Disposing hazardous materials into the environment
- Designing $50 million golden parachutes for C-Level Officers
- Batting Unions looking to prevent employee abuse in wages and benefits
- Encouraging wars so they can win lucratives contract from the US Government
Since most Whites aren't in position to receive a $50 million golden parachute or aren't faced with decisions concerning where they can drill for oil, something such as Obama's idea to slightly increase taxes on the super-rich doesn't really apply to them. They are led to believe that Obama is out to get their money, but actually he isn't. The super-rich are afraid that for the first time in a long time, they're going to have to pay the bill, whereas a Republican President is more apt keep sending the check to the (shrinking) Middle and Lower classes.
The reason America's middle class has been shrinking is that since the Reagan Era the middle class has been barring the burden of the country's expenses while the super-rich get the tax breaks to finance their supermodel dates and South of France getaways.
The excuse of course is always: you can't tax the rich because they need that money to hire workers. That money doesn't go to hire more workers - it goes to keep some 23 year-old trophy wife in mink. The other is, you need to keep money at the top because then it trickles down - first of all, even Mitt Romney of all people said during the debates, "Trickle down economics doesn't work", and secondly, since the middle class is shrinking and the lower class can't ever rise above, its a clear indication the money goes to the top and stays put!!
Once the super-rich have their guy in power, then the 'not rich' Whites are kicked out of the cocktail party are left with a crumbling infrastructure, rising crime, rising interest rates, depleted unions (loss of benefits), amongst many other ills, and are yet still tapped to bare the burden of paying the country's taxes while some "job creator" collects his $75 million retirement package and heads off to Bali while a polar bear has to be shot for moving inland in search of food.
Anything that suggests that the super-rich should pay more taxes is combated with scare-tactic phrases such as "Communism", "Socialism", and "Big Government". Communism is a money-less and class-less society, for some reason I haven't seen or heard any action from Obama that indicates he is heading in this direction. And even if he wanted to make America a Communist State, it will take more than his four or eight years in office to do it. The next is socialism, which is a government co-ownership of society businesses, like the US Post Office for example. Those evil bastards!!
People may not realize, but walk down any street in a busy city like Manhattan, and half the businesses and real estate are owned by a foreign government such as Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia. So in way, we already are in a socialist society, and even worse, the government ownership many times isn't even American, its Chinese or Norwegian. Again, other than the Post Office and parts of the Obamacare Bill, Obama hasn't shown a drive for government take-over of US businesses, and even if he did, he would take more than two-terms in office to so. Many point to the 2009 Stimulus Bill as an attempt to buy out GM and the banks, but they were broke badly and needed a loan real fast. Would Republicans and TEA Party followers prefer the Saudi Arabians swoop in instead to lend the money to the US banks?
Speaking of Obamacare, and borrowing the US Post Office for another example. The way we send our mail basically sums up the whole plan. If you want to keep or buy into a private healthcare provider, such as you would use DHL, UPS, or Fedex to deliver your mail, then go-ahead. On the hand, if you rather buy into a lower-costing government option for your healthcare, such as delivering your mail with the US Postal Service, then go-ahead.
The super-rich private healthcare companies are worried that they'll lose customers to the new government option, so they're pressing the FOX News and Mitt Romney buttons to criticize Obamacare as Socialism and another example of Big Government spending. It's social programs such as this, and others created by FDR in the 1940's and LBJ in the 1960's which led to the creation of a strong middle class (good for Whites) in America and inspired industrial growth that created manufacturing towns in America.
Republican Party Wrap-Up:
It's silly to say only Democrats are good or only Republicans are bad; it all depends on who are the candidates at that particular time and what are the surrounding circumstances. For instances, speaking of stiffs, in 1988 David Dukakis was not the right person for the job. In that particular scenario George H. W. Bush was the more qualified candidate and the right person won, the same with Nixon over McGovern in 1972, or Reagan over Carter in 1980. The bigger picture needs to be studied; from the economic and international status of the country, to the candidates themselves and what type of gravitas they emit. That being said, in 2012 the Republican Party is in bad shape and sending Romney to the race shows they're desperate and there's really no strong personalities in the party at this time.
Let's not forget, four years ago in the 2008 election, this same Republican Party said that in the possibility that John McCain would be incapacitated as President (which is very possible for a 72 year-old to fall asleep and not wake up), then the country would be in the careful hands of Sarah Palin, who when interviewed by Katie Couric, couldn't name one singular magazine or book she likes to read (a sneaky liberal media trick question). We can also add on Palin thought Saddam attacked America on 9/11 and she had the uncanny ability to see Russia from her native Alaska, although its not scientifically possible.
The Republican Party wasn't in any better shape in 2008, and the Palin move was a desperation hand grenade to seem progressive in submitting a woman Vice President candidate to combat the progressiveness of Obama winning the Democratic primary as a Black man (or at least half-Black).
The Republicans were also hampered by the eight years of President Bush which left America with an alarmingly high National Debt and two wars that had no end in sight. Four years later, the Republicans and Bush himself were so proud of the achievements between 2001 - 2008 that Bush didn't even show his face at the 2012 Republican National Convention (or he was instructed to stay away like Sarah Palin was). Both George W. and Palin ruined any chances for McCain in 2008, the Republicans didn't want those two around to ruin whatever chance Romney might have. Or better yet, once Bush and Romney would be on stage together, Americans can realize that they're all one in the same.
The Lesser of Two Evils:
With thousands and thousands of Americans lining up in front of Apple stores to spend $600 on the new version of the iPhone which does all the same things the previous version does, its safe to say America hasn't been hit by the kind of Depression seen in the 1930's.
Obama was handed a country in bad shape and taking Ronald Reagan's famous question, "Are you better now than four years ago?", I would find it hard to believe America is in worse shape now than in 2008 when Bush left office. The Republicans don't have a strong candidate at this time and there doesn't seem to be a superstar in their midst based on the most recent primary.
With everything he's done since 2008; from saving the country from going Greece, from finally getting Bin Laden, and easing down the level of hostility in the Middle East, he deserves a shot at another four years. Was McCain going to be able to reduce the National Debt and lower unemployment any better? Probably not. Plus, Obama was nearly thirty years younger, and with Romney shaping up to be Bush #3, Obama should get the nod so America is as far away from '2001 - 2008' as possible.
When going to the voting booth, just remember the Electoral College ensures that your vote bares no impact on who wins. Maybe make it a movie night instead......
Just so you know, TSA agents made at least $30/hr. way back in the day during their inception. Then it was offered at a lower hourly rate when they discovered that a good number of the hires had a criminal background. Ironic.
ReplyDeleteAt some point, technology will take over their positions. They had the right idea in the 1990 film, Total Recall. I wonder what the delay is.
http://crapaganda.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/total_recall_xray.jpg
Great post though!
Yeah, it does seem some suspicious-looking characters do get those jobs. And recently, 60 Minutes or one of these news shows ran a story on how TSA workers have been stealing iPads and other items from people's luggage. Although, I'm sure 98% of them are good workers.
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