Be afraid to pick up a newspaper, turn on MSNBC or call up Yahoo! News because wherever you look right now, you’re going to see staggeringly bad things going on. Virtually overnight, things have turned very dark and they continue to get worse by the day. There is an air of meanness and cynicism pervading our culture, our government and our economy on a level perhaps never seen before. It’s the ice-cold meanness of power hungry people who now have unbridled power. From the moment Clarence Thomas and William Renquist appointed our new Prime Minister, the masks came off and the enemy revealed itself. That’s right folks, “To Serve Man” is a cookbook and we’re all in the stew. Checks and balances be damned, the VRWC (vast right-wing conspiracy) is in a better position than it’s been in since it’s Post-Word War II beginnings. Once again, the Republican time honored battle tactic of disgracing and discrediting their most vocal opponents has worked like a charm. On Inauguration Day, Bush and his henchmen literally walked from the podium following the hallowed ceremony and into a power meeting to begin scrutinizing the (at that moment, wildly popular) exiting President’s pardons and environmental safe guards. The immediate addressing of the environmental restrictions was obviously done to see what could easily be nipped in the bud but why would digging through the pardons be of such a high priority that it was begun before the new President had his first meal? Moral outrage? Please. Disgrace and discredit. It’s been the only way the Right has been able to effectively fight this most intelligent of Presidents and it followed him right out the door. Is it a coincidence that the Clintons and Jesse Jackson, who vowed not to let go of the Florida debacle, were silenced by media scandal in Dubya’s first week? This new President, bearing no mandate and facing a constituency who, by in large, considered him a dolt, entered a prolonged honeymoon based entirely on covering his critics in so much shit that he looked better by comparison.
Our foreign policy is being dictated by the Military, specifically the same people who brought you Arms For Hostages, The Rise Of Saddam Hussein, The Gulf War and Wolf Blitzer. With fanatical glee only imagined by Kubrick’s Dr, Strangelove, this team is now attempting the oxymoronical task of reheating the Cold War. To hell with Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Korea. That was never as fun (or profitable) as going toe to toe with the Ruskies. Our energy and environmental policies are being dictated by the greediest of Texas oilmen. Bush is currently moving to appoint an old friend of his, Pat Wood III, currently chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission, to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Any thought of controlling the energy price-gouging Californians (and whoever is next in line) will face this summer is now out of the question. Did anyone really believe Dubya’s outrageous, bold-faced campaign lie about seeking mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants? Are we really that gullible or are we just not paying attention. Let’s open our eyes and see the real agenda as it unfolds with alarming speed. During the Presidential campaign, we were made to feel a great fear of “Big Government.” You know, the kind that Franklin D. Roosevelt created in order to save the United States from complete ruin at the hands of completely unregulated capitalism. Greed is the adrenaline of capitalism and, in moderation, is quite healthy. Too much, however, makes this great system clutch its chest in painful palpation and, unwatched, will surely send us to the floor with twelve billionaires standing on our chest. It makes us do silly things like kill a Workplace Safety Bill to protect against repetitive motion illness and then destroy the Patient’s Bill Of Rights for when the poor bastards in the cubicles get disabled. Not recognizing the importance of ergonomic safety in the Information Age is the equivalent of the corporate greed that fought workplace safety regulations at the dawn of the Industrial Age.
No matter how it was packaged and presented, the campaign of 2000 was a choice between Big Government and Big Business and, in the sordid, shady end, the corporations won. This has now put us in the position of helpless spectators of an American powerplay of unprecedented arrogance. Stop the presses of the National Register! Put a ban on hiring any government employees until we can control it and, for God’s sake, keep that liberal National Bar Association out of here! We’ve got a country to take over! Oh, and we’re taking 1.6 trillion dollars. Here’s a buck for you. Buy yourself something pretty.