 | Dancing while they die
by George Ochenski
Ugly inauguration an American black eye
The ostentatious corporate binge passing itself off as the Bush
Inauguration is nothing if not a sign of the times. Our nation is deep
in record debt and getting deeper every day. The government is so
corrupt at the highest levels and so poorly run at the lowest that even
the most basic necessities, such as supplying its citizens with flu
vaccine, are beyond the reach of the administration. Meanwhile, in the
single incident that has transformed America the Beautiful into the
most hated and feared nation on Earth, our soldiers continue to die
like flies in the sands of Iraq. What would you do if you were George
W=2E Bush? Why, dance, of course.
So far, corporate interests, many of which are feeding directly from
the federal trough, have "donated" more than $40 million for a
three-day orgy of lavish dinners, formal balls and gala affairs. If,
perhaps, you were living in a cave and didn't know what was going on
in America, you'd think everything was just peachy.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Only weeks ago, one soldier had the guts to confront Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld with the truth about conditions on the ground
in Iraq, where soldiers are scrounging through dumps to find enough
scrap metal to armor their vehicles against daily attacks by
increasingly more powerful explosive devices.
Rumsfeld, in a reflection of this administration's two-faced posture
of "supporting the troops" while doing just the opposite, told the
soldier that "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you
wished you had." Of course Rumsfeld is spending his time in
Washington, D.C., agonizing over which tuxedo to wear to which
inaugural event, not crawling through the sand waiting to be blown up
or shot every minute of the day.
Meanwhile, President Bush is once again rattling what's left of the
nation's depleted sabers, and is now openly threatening to bomb Iran
(we knew it wouldn't take long) over yet another "threat."
Apparently, Mr. Bush didn't like it when Seymour Hersh, the
award-winning investigative journalist for The New Yorker, spilled the
beans this week that Bush had already authorized clandestine military
operations in Iran. Deciding that the best defense was a good offense,
Bush leaped right in like Dr. Strangelove, totally oblivious to the
fact that our nation cannot afford the hundreds of billions of dollars
or the massive human suffering of the wars in which we are already
engaged.
But don't worry, you grunts in the sand, freezing in the Hindu Kush
mountains or waiting to be shipped out, our good president will be
honoring you with a special Salute to Service and the
Commander-in-Chief Ball. According to White House spokesman Scott
McClellan, the events will "celebrate freedom" and "pay tribute
to our men and women in uniform." Amid the champagne, caviar and
low-cut gowns, more than one toast will be lifted to your efforts to
make the world safe-so Halliburton and its clan of corporate raiders
can continue to prosper obscenely through no-bid contracts and outright
exploitation of the world's resources. After all, when you add up
your take in billions with a capital "B," you have a lot to
celebrate. That such profits come at the cost a few thousand American
lives, well, that's just the price you pay for freedom, right?
The icing on this gross cake is that the Bush administration told the
city of Washington, D.C., that it will have to pick up the security
costs out of federal Homeland Security funds. The unprecedented
security levels necessary for the inauguration of the most hated man on
the planet are estimated to surpass $17 million. But hey, it's a
three-day party, so buck up, D.C., and fork out the dough...let's
keep those choppers flying overhead, snipers on the roof, and the
streets closed to traffic while the elite eat crudit=E9s from silver
platters carried, of course, by the servant class.
Needless to say, the lavish excesses of the Bushies are drawing
criticism from a variety of sources. One New York congressman wrote
Bush that "precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be
muted-if not canceled-in wartime." Pointing out that President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt celebrated his second inaugural with cold
chicken salad and pound cake during World War II, Rep. Anthony Weiner
estimates the Bush inaugural could pay for 690 Humvees and a $290 bonus
for every soldier serving in Iraq.
It should be noted, however, that Roosevelt was a real "war
president," not just a chickenhawk in a borrowed flight suit
strutting across an aircraft carrier crowing "Mission
Accomplished." Oh, and FDR also happened to be the president who
established the Social Security system to ensure retirement income to
all Americans; Bush wants us to believe the system is in such dire
straits that the only way to "save" it is to turn it over to Wall
Street profiteers.
Under Bush's presidency, the U.S. dollar has now lost a full third of
its value against the euro. Not to worry, Bush's economic
spinmeisters told us, a weak dollar would enhance the American export
market. But lo and behold, only last week the trade deficit-the
difference between what we import and what we export-grew to what
analysts were calling "Grand Canyon" proportions. When you have a
president who has no problem telling outright lies, it should come as
no surprise to find he's smeared a little lipstick on the corpse of
the once-mighty greenback.
It's hard to believe we have come to this as a country. Blustering
around the world, threatening sovereign nations with destruction,
bankrupting our own treasury, polluting at will and then irresponsibly
foisting the whole mess off on our own kids to deal with as best they
may in some future generation.
The world is burning, but our feckless leaders choose to fiddle, dance
and feast.=20
http://www.missoulanews.com/News/News.asp?no=3D4622
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