Overcoming the Bush legacy: a people bled, betrayed and frightened

The Power of Propaganda

Just before election day I understood what they had meant to accomplish when, only one month after Obama’s inauguration, Republicans began reciting the litany I would hear many times over the next 20 months, “Just look at the mess Obama’s gotten us into.”

I was so astonished the first time I heard a friend say this, I was literally struck dumb. After a moment, I recovered the power of speech enough to ask, “How can you say that, Barry? Obama hasn’t been in office long enough to know his way around his desktop yet, let alone take any action which could affect the country in any radical sense. What we’re dealing with is directly due to the policies Bush enacted over eight years of bleeding the country dry.”

“May be, but Obama’s the one who’s going to sign off on legislation bailing out the banks who have betrayed the American public,” was the message thrown back in my face.

“Yes,” I protested, “a bailout Bush set up and sold to a Congress which has already been convinced – by the Bush administration- on the need to vote it into law immediately based on the Administration’s claims that the whole country could fall completely apart if they don’t act fast. Congress, along with the American people, have become so panicked they believe there isn’t enough time to consider any other alternatives and undertake the process of analyzing what may work better. At this point, there is no chance of Obama getting Congress’ to agree to abandon support for the Bush bailout in favor of another measure that could stop more piles of money bleeding into the hands of the very wealthy financial institutions – which in fact, caused our economic melt-down to happen in the first place. Congress is committed to Bush’s idea to bail the banks out, and they’re not going to change their mind. But Bush, and not Obama,” I finished, “is the one who set this whole thing up and is responsible for it taking place!”

“But Obama,” I was told, “is the person who is in charge right now, while the bailout is becoming law, and he’s not doing anything to stop it.” As frustrating as it felt to hear that truth, there was no absolutely no way to argue with it.

Bush had cleverly set in motion a financial train wreck which was calculated to impact and explode after his successor had assumed control of the Oval Office. I grasped perfectly how fundamentally unfair it was for Obama to be stuck with the blame for failing to stop it. But I only understood 20 months later, in October 2010, the diabolical genius of beginning to blame Obama for the collapse of our finance and mortgage systems so early in his tenure as president – so early, incidentally, that it was physically impossible for the statement to be true. The Bush set-up of Obama worked as perfectly as framing a victim is intended to do, by casting the victim in a light that makes him appear guilty even when he’s not.

Bush’s propaganda strategy was eerily clear in retrospect: its unmistakable goal was to deliver the message of Obama’s failure day after day, week after week, repeating it to the point where by virtue of being heard so often the message infiltrated the minds of too many Americans and it eventually became, for them, indistinguishable from truth. By the 2010 election season, the public had heard the same false statement over and over again, for TWO YEARS! Those listening to its recitation didn’t remember that the message had started to be delivered at a time in history when it was physically impossible for it have been true; but they did remember having heard it for a long enough time that it had become part of their conscious view of reality.

The power a single message hammered home at frequent intervals has to influence the minds and feelings of victims unaware of the power and mechanics of propaganda campaigns is entirely, and well, understood by the coalitions and parties who have determinedly defrauded vast numbers of Americans of our security, homes, personal financial reserves and public school programs . . . along with the lives of many thousands of our young soldiers who’ve been sent without adequate training or safety gear to die in Middle East wars. Wars that incidentally, have served much more as vehicles for enriching close friends of the Bush family than they have to create better lives, and democratic governments, in the countries where they are being fought.

Bush Betrayed Soldiers and Country to Gain War Profits

Our troops have paid a terrible price for this betrayal. Congress voted to support military personnel who were actually, sent into combat situations in brutal physical conditions overseas deprived of both sufficient training and protective gear. In an apparently rare Q & A exchange in Kuwait with 2,300 in 2004, two years after the start of the war, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld answered one soldier’s questions about his troop’s lack of equipment, with an apparent lack of either compassion or concern for his charge’s welfare.

Q (Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, largely a force of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard):
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?
“… We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry (with) us north.”
A (Rumsfeld): “You go to war with the Army you have – not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Separating Americans from our jobs, homes, money and soldiers lost in pointless wars, wasn’t enough for the Republican machine. They couldn’t rest until they’d demoralized middle Americans enough to cause us to question our ability to grasp the issues at stake in the 2010 election and make us afraid to take positive action by coming out en force and voting our own interests on election day. We needed to keep the balance of representational Congressional power in the hands of the President who inherited the ugly job of bringing America back from the precipice of ruin to fulfill its promise of being a democracy where it’s possible to live the reality of “freedom and justice for all” – and who’s been doing one heck of a job despite an absurdly difficult situation.

But what did we do? We grossly failed to back the President up, allowing ourselves instead, to become ensnared by the demoralization campaigning and divisionist tactics of the party that fervently wishes to conserve the balance of power and wealthy in the hands of its own members. We stayed home in huge numbers on election day when we should have been racing each other to the polls to vote for the best hope America’s seen in a very long time to be the catalyst for creating the fairness in our commerce and financial environments which can propel America into being truly the country able to offer excellent opportunities for advancement to hardworking Americans, and decent, affordable living circumstances to every resident.

Systematic and Intentional Ruin of the Country Bush and Cheney Pledged to Serve

Bush Jr. got the country into the financial mess we’re in by first bleeding us of the financial reserves Bill Clinton left to GWB’s administration. Next, he manouvered the country squarely into the hole of phenomenal, crushing, debt by diverting many of the trillions of taxpayer dollars Congression allocated for the enactment of the two preemptive war campaigns Bush declared without Congressional approval, into frequently fatuous and disproportionately costly (when compared to fair market value) payments for goods and services to companies owned by Halliburton other companies with close ties to the Bush administration. In many cases, no-bid contracts were awarded to the sole providers our government approved as eligible to receive contract awards – and all of those appear to have been controlled by friends and family of the Bush-Cheney consortium. Lastly, Bush’s administration helped make it possible for war profits to be conveyed offshore to foreign countries where US taxes on those profits will never be requested or paid.

Commondreams.org reports in a 2005 article,

Under Cheney’s leadership Halliburton out did Enron in using offshore subsidiaries as tax shelters to hide profits to bilk U.S. taxpayers.

At last count Halliburton had 58 offshore subsidiaries in Caribbean tax havens. With Cheney at the helm Halliburton’s tax payments to the U.S. went from $302 million in 1998 to zero in 1999, when they also received a refund of $85 million from the Internal Revenue Service.

Halliburton later set up operations in Dubai, a move which makes it even less likely that any part of the American public’s monies Congress channelled to it will ever return to benefit United States citizens in any way.

How the War Profiteering Scheme Was Carried Out

In the same Commondreams.org article, Tom Turnipseed continues,

Just two years after he was Secretary of Defense, Cheney stepped through the revolving door linking the Department of Defense with defense contractors and became CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton was the principal beneficiary of Cheney’s privatization efforts for our military’s logistical support and Cheney was paid $44 million for five year’s work with them before he slipped back through the revolving door of war profiteering to become Vice-President of the United States. When asked about the money he received from Halliburton, Cheney said. “I tell you that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

The Bush administration has dished out lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq to favored U.S. based corporations including Halliburton and denied contracts to many Iraqi and foreign based companies. To the conquerors go the spoils was the message on December 11, 2003 when Bush said, “The taxpayers understand why it makes sense for countries that risk lives to participate in the contracts in Iraq, It’s very simple. Our people risk their lives, friendly coalition folks risk their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that.”

Bush’s statement is a stunning admission of how much corrupt corporations control our foreign policy.

Turnipseed, an attorney, writer and political activist in Columbia, South Carolina, recalls Sen. Lautenberg’s (D-NJ) request that Cheney,

… sever his financial ties to Halliburton … Lautenberg points out that the company has already raked in more than $10 billion for work in Iraq, and was handed some of the first Katrina contracts. The company has been criticized by auditors for its handling of no-bid contacts in Iraq, and there have been numerous allegations of over charging for services. Auditors found the firm marked up meal prices for troops and inflated gas prices in a deal with a Kuwaiti supplier. The company also built the American prison at Guantanamo Bay. Lautenberg said, “It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it.”

There’s ample evidence that GW Bush misused his position as president to strong arm House and Senate representatives into supporting his initiatives. Bush, Jr. set the stage for awarding defense contracts to companies with close ties to the GW Bush administration by tricking Congress into giving him the power to declare war without Congressional debate and approval, and then pressuring Congress to approve billion-dollar-a-day war budgets under the guise that those funds were needed to “support troops”. Bush Sr. did his part to assist the financial rape of America and as Director on the Boards of companies awarded major Iraqi countries and his vice-president.

Obama Understands

Our best hope for rising out of the complete mess the Bush administration created of America is to forge forward with strong hands, strong hearts – and blinders to keep us from getting distracted by viewing the ruin of America left behind by the leaders we counted on to serve our country, who betrayed rather than protected us. I often say that treachery can be effected on an unsuspecting public by those in power, precisely because decent people cannot imagine that those pledged to help and serve would willfully act in opposition to their oaths of office and the morality of righteousness.

Focusing on truth, justice, charity, neighborliness and trusting in the impressive strength of the great leader we have in Obama, can bring us to a better place.

Rights Protection Alert

Major media forces and internet service providers want to change the internet into a type of huge, interactive TV platform, but we can’t let this happen. Sign the petition to keep the internet accessible to all and educate yourself about this issue. Take action now … A vote is scheduled in Congress for December 21 and we need to be ready!

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