Column: It’s time to move beyond politics

By Stephen Dick
THE HERALD BULLETIN (ANDERSON, Ind.)

ANDERSON, Ind. May 05, 2008 02:11 pm

— Are we seeing some sort of endgame in the U.S.? Most people alive today have never seen things this bad — unless they’re old enough to remember the Great Depression and World War II.
The extraordinary changes — all for the worst — since George W. Bush was appointed president in 2000 have been breathtaking in their all-encompassing disdain for America.
When Bush took office the country was in a boom that melted down in a post-Sept. 11, 2001, recession. In 2001, gas averaged $1.46 a gallon. After Dick Cheney’s secretive energy commission got together in 2001, gas prices have been on a steady climb. It could just be a coincidence that the commission members were made up of Big Oil CEOs who rubbed their hands with glee at the obscene profits they knew they’d make without interference from oil-loving Bush and Cheney.
Big Oil execs were recently called before Congress to explain their multi-billion-dollar profits. Don’t blame us, they said and read off a litany of lies to protect their bottom lines.
They decried higher demand for gas. It’s true that India and China are using more and more gasoline. World refineries could produce more, but why would they? Keeping supply low means higher profits.
Meanwhile renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are ignored. Energy fads, such as ethanol, are propped up with subsidies even though it takes an enormous amount of energy and water to make the fuel. Ethanol also causes food shortages, which American consumers are seeing in grocery stores now. But Americans are lucky. Some countries are having riots over disappearing food.
It’s a trap everyone saw coming but chose to ignore because they saw big bucks based on misery. The impact on consumers, particularly the poor and middle class, was never taken into account. A recent article in USA Today focused on Princeton, Ind., a small community that has a Toyota plant. Median income in Princeton is $26,000. How do these people cope with rising gas and food prices on that pittance? How do they raise a family? What does ExxonMobil, which made $34 billion in profit in 2007, think about places like Princeton? Does anyone care?
Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are talking about these grassroots issues, but are spending all their time one-upping each other rather than laying the blame on Bush who should be first and foremost in their outrage at the ruination of this country. Tying Sen. John McCain to this monumental and intentional political failure should go without saying.
Recently, Bush’s, unfavorable rating hit 70 percent, not a record but close. It makes one wonder who makes up the 30 percent that could possible give this idiot one iota of credibility. Another poll had two-thirds of historians calling the Bush administration the worst in U.S. history.
It’s not just kitchen-table issues that have roiled this country though they affect voters directly. It’s also the wholesale disregard of the law of the land, the active subversion of the Constitution for political purposes and the nightmare in Iraq that characterize this administration.
April saw the highest amount of U.S. causalities in Iraq since September when the administration and its apologists in the media crowed about how great the surge was working. How does Bush answer after April? He asks for another $200 billion for Iraq and more troops for Afghanistan.
A recent Time article compared Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech to 2008. They’re nearly identical. That means in five years, he’s not learned a thing.
It’s starting to come out now — something anyone with a brain knew from the beginning — that member of the administration, including Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, gathered to talk about torturing suspects before the policy was approved by Bush.
How could Americans have tolerated all this? The spineless Democrats in Congress refused to pursue impeachment. It’s too late now, but last week’s Newsweek had a column by Dahlia Lithwick that lays out in detail the war crimes of this administration and draws a parallel between administration and Guantanamo prisoners: “High-ranking administration officials and enemy combatants may have broken the law.... Those alleged lawbreakers at Guantanamo can never be acquitted for purely political — as opposed to legal — reasons. The alleged lawbreakers in the Bush administration can never be held to account on precisely the same grounds.” In other words, the spinelessness goes on, and the Gitmo prisoners are going down. Guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.
Overcoming the purely political and using the considerable powers of the presidency to restore a sound economic base and the rule of law should be the top priority for Obama and Clinton. They must never lose sight of the scum that sacrificed the integrity and fortunes of this country for political and false ideological gain.

Stephen Dick writes for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind. He can be reached at steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com.

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