republicans and reality

the republicans in the debate the other night (with the exception of ron paul, of course) all spoke of tax cuts and continuing the war in iraq. john mac went so far as to say that the "surge is working." i wonder just what universe they live in. not the one of reality obviously since their statements when compared to the facts are ludicrous not only on the surface but on all levels.

the surge has driven the iraqi fighters out of badghad but that is just moving pieces around the chess board. no real gains have been made as far as making iraq a" stable government that will be an ally of the united states in the middle east" to quote the great decider. they are not stable, they have made absolutely no progress on the so-called "benchmarks" and, in my opinion, regardless of what government eventually ends up there iraq will never be, for generations to come, an ally of the united states. we attacked them without provocation, destroyed their cities, poisoned their water, bombed their schools, killed hundreds of thousands of their citizens, overthrew their government and put their country into a seemingly endless series of conflicts, bombings and overall chaos. do the republican candidates really believe that the iraqi people will somehow learn to embrace america as a FRIEND? if the situation was reversed would the american people think of iraq as a friend? of course not. a child could figure this out but our want-to-be 'leaders' can't. we have but one option in iraq and that is to leave, issue an apology, give them some money, wish them the best of luck and come home. the republicans talk as if they are willing to leave american troops there forever. are you willing to have your country occupy another hostile country where we will lose troops every week, every month and every year forever? is that what you want? every day we stay we create more people to hate us and some of those people will take up arms against us. is that what you want? an endless low level war against civilians across and around the world.

and in one of our more stupid moves in iraq we are now arming sunni groups to fight al kayda. well al kayda has such a small number of people in iraq that they really aren't a problem and, incidently, it should have been noticed that overall, people in the middle east, generally don't like islamic extremism as practiced by al kayda. they are a small fringe element similiar to the kkk here in the united states. they are a bunch of criminals who pulled off one of history's all time lucky punches in 9-11. (and if the cia, faa. fbi and the military here had been paying attention at all 9-11 would have been twarted way before they even got on the planes)

one republican wrote me and told me how the bush tax cuts had indeed helped the economy and how he (bush) had paid down the national debt as he said he would. jesusfuckingchrist. let us look at the FACTS:

when the great decider came into power the national surplus was 127 BILLION dollars. last year's deficit was 163 BILLION dollars which is about half of it's lowwater mark of 3 years ago. ah, but here is the kicker, BUSH DOES NOT COUNT AS PART OF SPENDING THE MONEY SPENT ON THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANASTAN!!!!!!!! a little bookkeeping bullshit designed to hide from the american people just how far in debt we really are.

helped the economy? yeah, okay. ask the man on the street just how far ahead he has gotten under the rule of bush II. our economy is about ready to tank and we all know it. the stock market had the worst 5 first days of any year in history. millions of people will be thrown out of their homes THIS YEAR. job creation is flat and that is with bush's figures and i think when we find out what the figures really are we will see a decline in the job market. it has to be so because millions upon millions of people in some way or another were employed in the home construction business. from the carpenters to the loan officers and those jobs are gone. where are those people to go? macdonalds? burger king? starbucks? welfare?

and as far as lowering our taxes, bullshit again. we are paying a "tax" at the pump every time we fill up. as i have said a dozen times over the years here in the blog, when idiot george came into power gasoline was selling at 1.46 per gal. today, we are twice that and it was predicted yesterday that gas will hit 3.50 per gal by the spring. this is a direct result of bush's wars. the disruption of the supplies in the middle east allowed opec to raise prices and raise them some more. now, who benefited from this? why, the oil companies who have been recording RECORD PROFITS FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS!!! bush is an oilman. cheney is an oilman. hmmm. you cannot cut taxes and conduct an expensive war at the same time and hope to have your financial house in order. only ron paul on the republican side seems to understand this.

ask the housewife who buys the groceries if her bill has gone up more than her pay has. they don't count food and gasoline in the inflation index...cool huh? and they only count as unemployed those people who are applying for or recieving unemployment benefits and do not count those who have dropped out of the market or have had their benefits run out and do not count at all any independent workers who do not pay unemployment taxes so they cannot file for them. slick huh? once again, go ask people on the street just how well they think our economy is going. or listen to the republicans who will tell you everything is just hunky dory and if we cut the taxes on the rich it will be even better.