It's hardly fair for you to ban me from the President Bush thread for citing an article recently published in South America. The article was to show what other people in other lands not far from here think of the President. I believe my posting fit into the realm of your criteria for the forum which you say is "vigorous discussion is always welcome here, but uncivil rudeness and/or vulgarity are not acceptable." I was neither uncivil or rude. For those interested, I've pasted the article in question below. When did the President Bush forum become a place for lemmings only?
ET
George Walker Bush will likely pass into history as the worst president of the United States. He might not even finish his second term. The reason: deliberate wrongs like the "telephone eavesdropping" of society, govenment decision-making in the hands of lobbyists tied to petroleum interests and weapons dealers that surround the president, and schemes of political extortion like that of Jack Abramoff , a dealer of influence to the highest bidder.
George W. Bush: Owes alot to dad.
-------------------------------------- The youth of George W. Bush (whose grades never exceeded the "C" level) was a tempestuous one. He took strongly to bourbon and cocaine, "was uncontrollable," and had several "weekends of perdition" in Mexico. For Michael C. Dannenhauer, former chief of staff during the presidency of Bush Sr., "the worst wasn't the cocaine or the women," but the drinking. George W. admits to having has a great deal to drink in his youth, but "with regard to his cocaine use, he has systematically evaded the subject," though as asserted by Toby Rogers and Nick Mamatas, he began using cocaine "a bit prior to 1977."
The news first became known in the Houston Public News, which interviewed Dannenhaur on April 21, 1998, and later in The Village Voice, High Times, and The Times (of London). Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession, and, as punishment, performed community service. His father, then director of the CIA (during Gerald Ford's Administration), erased any trace of the incident from his son's criminal file. Years later, Dannenhauer (an employee of Bush Sr. since 1985) gave three versions of the Bush story: 1) he said the interview with the Houston Public News never happened; 2) he said the interview was conducted years earlier; and 3) he stammered something incoherent, like some regretful informant.
The case of Bush Jr. reminds me of the son of Donna Rinak, U.S. ambassador to Bolivia (1998). Her son enjoyed the criminal "Carrion Game," in which privileged sons attending Calvert, the exclusive La Paz school, would kill someone ... for fun. This brat - who was summoned to appear in court - left Bolivia in a hurry with the help of his mother. With good reason, the journalist Robert Parry (who was afterwards forced to retire from Newsweek) notes that, "the crimes of these privileged sons disappear forever without them having to face the law."
Bush Jr. was also a failed businessman. [Italian journalist] Francesco Piccioni asserts that in the late 70s he created Arbusto Energy with the help of James Bah and the capital of Khaled Bin Mafouz and Salem bin Laden, a relative of Osama bin Laden.
A GROUP CLOSE TO POWER
George H. W. Bush:
The ultimate revenge?
------------------------------------ The Bush clan is boastful. Its members are "conservative Republicans with militaristic leanings" and belong to the aristocratic tradition of the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Bush Sr. controls his son's political decisions through this clan, which is composed of Richard Cheney, Karl Rove, and strategic groups representing military, petroleum, financial and intelligence interests.
Those groups became allied when Bush Sr. lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton in 1995, and he decided (with a CIA-type operative) to "make" his son George W., the president. That explains the electoral fraud revealed by Michael Moore and his documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11."
The group that "handles" President Bush belongs to organizations like the Bilderberg Group , Skull & Bones and the Illuminati , and has as its guiding principle Social Darwinism , that theory of superior and inferior races; the latter, they would argue, should be semi-enslaved by means of consumption and diversion ("bread and circuses"). One member of the clan is Paul Wolfowitz, director of the World Bank.
ERROR 1: MEDIOCRE INTELLIGENCE AND ESPIONAGE AGAINST SOCIETY
-------------------------------------------------------- The U.S. "intelligence community" (NSA, CIA, FBI) is ineffective. It couldn't decipher (until the 20th of September, 2001) the message "tomorrow is zero hour" intercepted on the 9th of September. And in Laurel, Maryland, the very home of that "community," many of the Twin Tower terrorists left tracks behind, as was revealed in the Washington Post on 6/2/2002. That intelligence community also believed "Curveball," the discredited ex-employee of the Iraqi chemical industry who said that Iraq had nuclear weapons, a claim Bush used in his public speeches. [Most importantly, his 2003 State of the Union ].
Now, Saul Landau notes , Rove and the clan are distracting American society by showing how "patriotic" Bush's government is. The "protection of national security" is the new pretext being used to justify the massive monitoring of telephone calls, so-called "vital intelligence." American citizens finance, with their tax dollars, military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq - and the espionage being practiced on their own telephone calls. Already in May of 2006, the telephone companies AT&T, Verizon, and Pacific Bell were accused of voluntarily handing over to the National Security Agency (NSA) lists of international phone calls made from within the U.S., and John Negroponte (head of the NSA) was authorized to decide what corporations remain, for national security reasons, subject to external controls, required to provide lists of daily transactions and accounts.
ERROR 2: GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY IN DECLINE
And so the decline began. The failures of the intelligence community followed those by the Congress, which remains embroiled in the Abramoff controversy; and the Justice Department, which under John Ashcroft legalized torture in the fight against the global terrorism. And what is there to say of the economy? James Petras is pessimistic in his evaluation of the "State of the Empire, 2006 ," he anticipates a raft of speculative bankruptcies like the Savings and Loan debacle, the dot-com bust, or Enron, and the agitation of an uninformed electorate with little capacity to defend its rights. To that, we can add Bush Jr.'s low opinion numbers (less than 30% according to pollsters).
Jack Abramoff: Greasing the wheels.
------------------------------------------ In turn, economist David Harvey , author of the book "The New Imperialism," cited by Veronica Gago, notes that only two of the ten leading car companies (Ford and General Motors) are from the U.S., and those have growing financial difficulties. The U.S. still dominates "agri-business" through subsidies, but borrows almost $2 million per day from the central banks of Eastern and Asian countries, yet it has a decisive vote in the IMF, World Trade Organization and Wall Street, and is the chief regulator of the capital markets though it itself lives in a dangerous "speculative bubble." And increases in "external military costs" is being offset by reductions in domestic spending. According to American Democratic lawmakers, this will increase prices on medicine for the elderly and will further limit the financial aid available for college students.
But none of this matters when it is power that is being traded. Dennis Sett, former U.S. ambassador to Peru [and dean of the University of Florida International Center], wrote in the May edition of the Peruvian magazine Caretas, that, "The lobbies have replicated themselves inside the Bush Administration. Every decision, every regulation, every action of the government is for sale. He who pays more, wins. And Bush never ceases to lie to Congress and the taxpayer."
ERROR 3: THE CASE OF JACK ABRAMOFF
The Jack Abramoff scandal is a typical case of dealing influence to the highest bidder. The lobbyist, who donated $1.25 million to the Republican Party and bribed more than ten senators in exchange for lucrative contracts for his "clients," is a benefactor of the Jewish community. According to Orlando Lizama, Abramoff owns two luxury restaurants near the Capitol where well-known Republicans go wearing hats (so as not to be noticed), and a $147 million fleet of casino-boats purchased with a loan from Konstantinos Baulis, another dealer in the political game who was found dead shortly afterward.
The procedure followed by Jack, according to himself, is to have the right people elected through economic trickery, and to place corporate financial officers in favorable position to influence legislation and judicial decisions.
Tom Delay: Casualty of Corruption?
------------------------------------------ Those are several others implicated along with Abramoff (a "good friend" of Bush). Tom Delay, chief Republican legislator, Bush fundraiser and an influential Washington politician resigned, accused by a Texas jury of criminal conspiracy, of violating election financing rules and of channeling millions of dollars in corporate donations to Republican candidates in the 2003 Texas legislative election. Denis Hastert had to return $69,000 in donated funds. Even Bush had to return $6,000, given by Jack for his electoral campaign. Abramoff has pled guilty to conspiracy and money laundering.
Democracy in the United States is eroding. It is being driven by an oligarchy which uses Bush Jr. as a mere communicator/messenger boy. That much is clear as water. And will continue.
(*) Edgar Ramos Andrade. Spokesman for UNLP-Argentina. Investigator and social activist. Author of the books "Agony and Social Rebellion [aGONIa y Rebelión Social]" and "Inclusion and the Dignity of Native Peoples [Inclusión y Dignidad Indígena]." Tel (00591) 772-20736 email: sdiprensa@latinmail.com
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