WATCH THAT PEA

[Guest guest]

Original Article at

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_john_m___051104__b_watch_that_

pea__b.htm

 

 

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November 4, 2005

 

Watch That Pea

 

What the administration is doing while you're watching Scooter &

Sammy.

 

By John M. Kelley

 

It seems interesting to me that while all of the Democratic voices

have gone gaga over the

indictment of Scooter Libby and the nomination to the Supreme Court

of Samuel Alito, the administration is continuing to tighten its

control over the national economic/political process.

 

On the one hand you have Democrats swooning about how this is the

beginning of the end for Bush and how the white knight Fitzgerald is

going to slay the Neo-Con dragon. They are ecstatic that a majority

of the country now sees the war in Iraq as a tragic mistake. They

feel that high gas prices, stagflation and the national deficit are

winning allies from independents and moderate Republican circles

every day. I saw a political cartoon today that implied Rove, Cheney

and Bush were all on the run and had fled the country.

 

On the other hand they are gearing up for a fight over Judge Alito,

even before it is clear whether there should be one. The Neo-Cons are

promising the nuclear option if Alito's nomination is filibustered,

while some Democrats are already promising to shut down the Senate if

they can't win. Recent polls have given them hope that they will gain

public support for a filibuster if Alito can be portrayed as clearly

against Roe vs Wade. The Democrats can almost smell a house majority

in the 2006 elections.

 

Hokum, they aren't watching the pea. First let's talk about the

things that are being ignored that are significant and then this roll

the Democrats think they are on.

 

Taxes

 

For starters the new budget bill proposes $70 billion in new tax

breaks for the rich while cutting $10 billion in Medicare and

Medicaid for the elderly and poor. A new tax code is being

recommended that would tax labor more heavily then dividends or

capital gains. In other words if you make money shoveling, you'll pay

a higher tax rate then the guy going by in the back of his

chauffeured Rolls-Royce.

 

The government just allowed approximately $300 billion in offshore

earnings to enter the country under a special deal that only taxes it

a rate of 5%. So the government won't find itself in the embarrassing

position of having to work out special deals for its campaign donors

in the future, the new tax code recommends that corporations not pay

any tax on money earned overseas.

 

Even though most corporations pay never pay any real taxes, the

corporate rate would be reduced to 31.5%, cheaper then they have ever

been. Most would likely increase the payment of dividends which would

be tax free to individual shareholders although not to most of the

little folks who own stock through mutual funds and retirement

vehicles, they would pay 15% on investments. Meanwhile the wealthy

would pay a top capital gains tax on average, of 8.25%,

 

Setting a cap on corporate deductions for health insurance premiums

would encourage more and more companies to drop their plans as health

care costs continue to outpace inflation and employers squeeze for

more profit. In the place of a number of current deductions for

healthcare, retirement and education would be three tax exempt

savings accounts for individuals which you could put up to $20,000 a

year into. Great, I always have an extra 20k that I don't need lying

around to salt away in a tax free account.

 

In addition the abolition of certain tax breaks like the deductions

for state and local taxes will hurt the little guy a lot more then

the rich. The loss of the property tax deduction would wipe out any

interest deduction for most small homeowners as well as increase

resistance to raising local taxes at a time when the feds have

shifted more of the costs to local and state governments.

 

While doing away with the alternative minimum tax for individuals,

which at least needs to be indexed, it would also do away with the

alternative minimum tax on corporations which has been virtually

ignored in the press.

 

Media Concentration and Control

 

In notable but unheralded telecommunications acquisitions, SBC

acquired AT & T and Verizon purchased MCI, which will yield further

consolidation and concentration of telecommunication/media control.

The few anti-monopoly restrictions placed on them will all expire

after a maximum of 30 months allowing them to raise rates, shut out

competition and restrict competitive use of access.

 

Meanwhile over at the Corporation of Public Broadcasting Board ofs, the new GOP fundraiser Chairperson and Kenneth Tomlinson

replacement, Cheryl Halpern is fast turning public broadcasting into

a pro government propaganda machine. She hired former co-chair of the

Republican National Committee, Patricia de Stacy Harrison, as

President. She in turn has brought along her old subordinates from

the State Department Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy Division

(read Ministry of Foreign Propaganda) to do their magic on the

American people via public television and radio. They include Tom

Igsitt, Vice President for Government Affairs; Mike Levy Vice

President of Communications; and Helen Mobley, director of Corporate

Communications and Planning. All three have extensive overseas

propaganda experience.

 

The Continued Removal of Corporate Responsibility

 

The corporate owned congress continues to feed its contributors and

give the bill to the American people. Having passed bills that

relieve corporate accountability for fast food and guns they now want

to help the pharmaceutical industry. Stating that limiting liability

is the only way to get companies to produce avian flu vaccines it is

just a foot in the door to relieve them from any liability for future

development of new pharmaceuticals.

 

All of these laws tote personal responsibility while totally ignoring

the constant marketing barrage people are subjected to, starting in

childhood to buy their products, the valuing of profits before

negative impacts or outright deceptive practices used to increase

sales. I wonder if my heirs can sue if the weight loss medicine I am

using causes me to become so depressed I shoot myself.

 

The Growth of the Police State

 

Right now the President and Vice President continue to argue for the

right to torture people at their discretion. The President continues

to hold American citizens in seclusion without charges, trial or

access to a lawyer. He maintains that the government continues the

need to secretly invade American homes, search them and not tell

anyone until much later. The man who advised the administration on

how it could avoid war crimes prosecution is now the Attorney General

and the head of the death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua is in

charge of all intelligence foreign and domestic in the United States.

 

We learn that in addition to people being picked up and send to

countries where they can be tortured by other governments our own

government is now maintaining secret prisons abroad where they

presumably are exempt from any standard of civil rights or humane

treatment. In Guantanamo, 21 prisoners who have been held almost four

years without charges or trial are being subjected to forced feeding

through nose tubes while strapped to beds so they can't pull them out

and choose death over their hopeless existence. Acts the Secretary of

Defense calls " some people chose to go on diets for various reasons " .

 

Forget the battle over Chief Justice Roberts and nominee Alito's

views are on abortion. That pales next to their well-documented

beliefs on the supremacy of the corporation and the total faith in

the dictatorial powers of the Presidency. These are the votes that

can install the Divine Right of Kings and primogeniture succession in

America. Add to that the international judgment that the United

States ranks 22nd in its freedom of the press and you are looking at

an increasingly closed society.

 

Last week the President states that his plan for dealing with the

avian flu was to offer more liability protection and subsidies to

pharmaceutical companies to gear up vaccination production. They at

their humanitarian best said they didn't think it would be worth it

for a one-time disease. A projected 200 million people would die in a

world wide pandemic. Anybody need another reason for a national

healthcare program.

 

Basically, the President said his goal was to get 20 million vaccines

available for first responders including the military. If you include

professional healthcare workers (7 million alone), medical support

staff, firemen, police, military and their families that means the

other 280 million people are on their own. One public health official

put it this way (I paraphrase) " local governments will primarily be

on their own. A pandemic could last from 1-3 years during which time

many people would be out of work, have trouble obtaining food and

other basic necessities. Hospitals would be overwhelmed with schools

and stadiums being used as makeshift medical facilities. Morgues

would not be able to handle the numbers of dead. " Estimates talk of

deaths in the millions in the U.S. alone. The Presidents plan seems

to be, put federal and National Guard troops around an infected area

and let them ride it out.

 

Bush's Alcoholic Mastery of Denial Will Not Surrender

 

What the Democrats don't seem to understand is that by going to the

wall on the Alito nomination is they can only lose on all accounts.

While both sides can fill their coffers for the 2006 elections and

unify their bases by a full scale fight, a democratic filibuster in

the Senate followed by a Republican nuclear option it is a self

destructive strategy. Between the enmity that it will create with

moderate Republicans and the filibuster gone, the Republican arm-

twisting machine will move into full throttle before the next

election occurs. The filibuster will be useless on every other issue

that comes up.

 

Once used the nuclear option will push the Republican party past the

point of no return. The Republicans will be faced with the prospect

of a Democratic majority using it in revenge or insuring the

Democrats never come to power again. Republicans will hammer them

with it on every issue. The corporations, the religious right and the

neo-con militarists will want to push through everything they can in

case there is a public backlash against the house, and the party will

want to limit the ability for Democrats to win and be willing to push

through repressive changes in the Voting Rights Act before the next

election. Moderates will be forced by the need for contributions and

base solidification to march to the beat of the far right. It will be

a scorched earth policy.

 

A better strategy would be to thoroughly expose all of Alito's

beliefs about abortion, executive power, corporate power and other

views repugnant to the citizenry. Claim the moral high ground and

vote as a party against him if that is what it takes to stake out a

position to move forward from. There is still a majority to protect

Roe vs Wade and we won't be powerless to filibuster even more

repugnant legislation that the administration surely will try to push

through if the nuclear option is used. Having not used the filibuster

on the supreme court nominee the Republicans will be hesitant to use

the nuclear option on anything less.

 

Secondly, the Libby/Rove prosecution/investigation is likely to be

obstructed for years (anybody remember Whitewater). Claims of

Executive Privilege and Classified information will stall the

investigation and trial to a crawl. Libby may finally go to jail, but

certainly with a promise of a pardon on Bush's last day in office

which will be about the time he actually has to show up there and for

Rove, the same. The Bush family has a history of being very forgiving

of those who participated with them in crimes against the country.

Even if Cheney resigns, possible but doubtful, Bush will probably

stumble on to the end of his term alone, isolated and paranoid. That

in and of itself is a scary scenario.

 

Over at the U.N John Bolton is going full speed ahead to destroy any

official world opposition to U.S. policy in that body. Bolton and

Rice are fomenting expanding the Iraq war to Syria and have driven

Iranian leaders backwards into a theocratic frenzy suggesting to them

that they have nothing to lose by becoming more militant. The

Iranians are angry, paranoid and threatened. Their reactions are

unifying the world along cold war lines with the U.S. again

dominating the discussion and direction.

 

Opposite of Bush's promise, the Iranian hardliners have grown in

power. They know a war with the United States involving Syria as well

is their best chance of survival internally and would unite much of

the Muslim war against the U.S. In response Bush has indicated a

willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons. Even if used against

buried military targets with limited loss of life and no collateral

damage, it would outrage the world and explode the anger of a billion

Muslims, many who would be willing to carry the terrorist war to

America.

 

The history of the Bush administration is when questioned refuse to

answer, when caught lie, when cornered get do something more extreme

to change the subject, but never, never give up. Expanding the war to

Syria and Iran, using massive bombing, nuking the Democrats in the

Senate over abortion, pushing through a tax plan that favors

corporations and the rich while further limiting their liability,

expanding media consolidation and propaganda efforts while further

crushing dissent are quite frankly all things that will gain support

on the right among the radical theocratic, ideological and corporate

bases.

 

Bush is most likely an untreated alcoholic who is either actively

drinking or on a dry drunk. Alcoholics in this position resort to

megalomania as long as they have the resources to maintain their

illusion, and presidents have a lot of resources for self delusion at

their disposal. When they become overwhelmed by the consequences of

their actions they resort to blame, rage and destructive actions.

Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on the other hand are hard-core

ideologues who are willing to sacrifice any number of people to

execute their plans for world domination.

 

Given this administrations willingness to ignore public opinion and

forge on in spite of its mistakes, exposed lies and corruption it is

not a far stretch to imagine what kind of power it might try and

seize in case of a national emergency like a flu pandemic. If you

think the last two elections have been a farce, what about no

election because of a pandemic, what about the suspension of congress

and the prohibition of any public gathering enforced by the military.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but then again maybe anybody who believes

this administration is on the run hasn't been reading past the

headlines.

 

 

 

Authors Website: www.mytown.ca/johnkelley