Damnable Lies!

[Joe Fields]

This week we are going to hear a lot from the republican party about George Bush's strong leadership (make me sick), and how he has made us a safer nation. Well I'm here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, half of America buys into this type of empty rhetoric. If the Vietnam war taught Americans anything, it was to question our country's leadership and not place blind trust in it. We were lied to repeatedly by the Johnson and Nixon administrations on both foreign and domestic policies. And we found that what those administrations told us, by and large, didn't jibe with what was actually taking place. Those years turned out to be a wake-up call to Americans. In the last years of Vietnam, and subsequent years we forced a Vice-President and a President to resign because we forced some measure of accountability on our leadership.

But once again mainstream America is asleep at the wheel. Half of us are all too ready to place that blind trust into a leadership that has proven time and again unworthy of any trust at all. If there is one thing that George Bush has learned, and learned well, is that you CAN consistently lie to the electorate and get away with it. All you have to do is repeat the lie over and over again, until it becomes a mantra. Soon thereafter it will seep into your subconscience and you begin to believe them. One other thing - it takes a complicit congress to make this a workable strategy.

So, what is my point? Simply this. The administration has half of the country believing that he is a strong leader, fighting and winning the war on terrorism, while making this country safer at home. One word comes to my mind - BULLSHIT!

I was always taught that it is not so much what people say, but rather what they do that defines them. In Bush's case there are copious numbers of examples to prove that his policies are contrary to his rhetoric.

To begin with, we shouldn't even BE AT WAR. Bush has gotten us into another Vietnam. Fight the Taliban? Go after al-Qaeda and other terror groups? You bet! The country backed him on that score. But Iraq? No way that any intelligent American could or should swallow that bitter pill. But are half of the people in this country so insecure about America's image that the only way we can feel good about ourselves is to pit our overwhelming military might against a decidedly inferior opponent, thus insuring a quick, "feel good" military victory? Are we a nation of warmongers? Doesn't it even matter anymore if the cause is unjust?

All of these actions against Iraq have come at a great cost to our nation. Most, if not all of you readers know the score. We have lost support of the entire world. We have lost credibility. The "coalition of the willing" that Bush talks about is nothing more than a collection of second-tier nations that have been threatened, cajoled and arm-twisted into being our allies in Iraq, with the possible exception of Great Brittain.

What have our actions caused? They have caused a dangerous anti-American sentiment which has spread throughout the world. It is not safe for an American to travel abroad now. We have also caused a cancer-like spread of terrorist chapters throughout the world - precisely the opposite effect that Bush has intended. We have thumbed our nose at the United Nations and we have become an occupier - the very thing we fought a cold war over.

This isn't exactly the resume that Bush supporters will be touting at the convention this week. On the contrary, he will be praised as a decisive, strong leader. He will be praised as a leader who took the fight to the enemy's back yard, instead of waiting for the fight to come to America.

I've got news for him. There is no way you can stop the fight from coming here. We have entered an era where we are no longer in a safe little cocoon. We are NOT immune from acts of terror anymore. Yet, one thing that the president or his people have strangely been silent on has been our preparedness here at home to stop terror, or at the very least be able to adequately respond to it. Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have seen to it that there is little or no money to do the necessary things in our country which will actually make us safer. Not surprisingly, you havent' heard him, or anyone else in his administration talk about the slashing and burning of budgets for programs that will strengthen our country's defense against acts of terror from within our borders.

This is a partial list of things you will NOT hear the administration talking about:

· A cut of $18.3 million in the Border Patrol budget. The administration has turned down requests for 1,000 more agents.

· Cuts totalling $253 million to the Border and Transportation Directorate, which is in charge of securing our transportation infrastructure. Currently, the Transportation Security Administration has neither the proper funding, or a plan to better secure our railways from acts of terrorism.

· $79 million slashed from the Port Security budget.

· $1 billion in funding cuts to law enforcement agencies.

· $245 million in cuts to firefighter grants.

· $233 million in cuts to the bioterrorism budget.



Unfunded and underfunded federal mandates to the states include:



An $805 million shortfall in the First Responders budget.
An estimated $10 billion unfunded mandate for interoperable communication equipment for police, fire and medical personnel.
A mandate for assessing water systems vulnerability. The estimated cost is $900 million, for which there is no federal funding.
Smallpox vaccinations are underfunded by $100 million.
In virtually every department that would actually strengthen our inner defense of terroist acts, Bush has weakened our ability to protect and respond. Still, half of America has bought into his lies and explanations.


America needs another wake-up call, before it is too late and we get another four years of lies covered in empty rhetoric.