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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (104883)	8/5/2006 2:20:14 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

You actually have a better chance of winning the lottery. -ng- Chispas found this...pretty much nails it, IMO. What happens when the Dream dies? The Bush administration is squeezing the cash out of the middle class at home and pursuing a foreign policy that is failing on many fronts. By Jerry Landay The Providence Journal It slowly dawns on Americans that their lives are changing. For more and more of us, "the American Dream," which we assumed as our birthright -- founded on infinite plenty, a bottomless cup of creature comforts and fair rewards for hard work -- is fading. The material components of the Dream were steady jobs, inexpensive mortgages and other credit, cheap gasoline, secure pensions, and flag-waving confidence in imperial America -- an invulnerable power, which could do no wrong. But the deadly albatross of Iraq, gasoline at over $3 a gallon, weak growth in jobs and pay, by companies that won't share productivity gains with workers and do export their work to Asia, have produced the sharpest drop in consumer confidence since the recession of the early 1980s. The Dream -- powerful, pervasive, energizing, defining -- has been the holy writ of the middle class. But today, ask the 20,000 union workers about the American Dream at bankrupt Delphi who face permanent layoffs, while thousands of others confront the prospect of pay cut in half. Or ask the thousands more union and salaried workers with jobs at risk at General Motors and Ford. Or ask the retired guys who've been told by the company they served for decades that they're being stripped of their "assured" pensions and health benefits. Those young homeowners lured by cash-free adjustable-rate mortgages to buy homes beyond their means confront rising interest rates, corrosive debt and possible foreclosure. The redistribution of our dwindling wealth under President Bush widens the gap between the "wealth aristocracy" and the rest of us. The American consumer economy is operating on two tiers. On top are the relative handful of CEOs and investment people, immune from assault. The Republicans' gratuitous tax cuts on investment income have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans by an average of about $500,000. Bush continues to press Congress to make permanent cuts for the privileged while the deficit goes through the roof. The rest of us are in a squeeze as inflation is driven by energy costs, medical care and prescription drugs. As for America's standing in the world, the fog of the endless Iraq war has cost us friends that it took two world wars to win. Americans who felt pride in our triumphs see the leverage and reputation of this nation squandered. We are reduced from a beacon of hope to a saber-rattling thug. The Bush foreign policy is nonexistent. The radical right exploits the formless "war on terror" -- which can't be won -- to retain power by keeping us afraid. Our ebbing strength inspires reckless challenges from rogue national leaders. In the power vacuum, Iran and Syria unleash their puppets in Lebanon. Kim Jong Il, of nuclear North Korea, blithely ignores Washington and launches his rockets. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad cold-shoulders blustering Washington and continues to enrich uranium. He and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez make threats against our petroleum supplies. Competition by Asian industrial powers for shrinking oil reserves further threatens the assumed right of this NASCAR nation to cruise free and easy. Then there is climate change, which Bush and the carbon-based energy giants want us to shrug off. We high-consumption Americans, who haven't been asked to sacrifice much of anything since World War II, are unused to belt-tightening and uncertainty. The ultimate question is how will we behave when it dawns on us that the glory of the American Dream hath departed? When dreams fall apart, humans often respond with rage, hysteria, hopelessness and fear. How many more will find false comfort in the preachments of dangerous demagogues? ? Will the great ideas that have animated America vanish with the retreat of the good life that came to define the American Dream? With what shall we replace them? Jerry Landay, a retired CBS News correspondent, wrote this column for The Providence Journal in Rhode Island and Scripps Howard News Service.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (104883)	8/6/2006 8:59:27 AM
From: Madharry	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

See yugoslavia. It seems to me that the US will have to pick a side in the war inside iraq sooner or later. Seems clear to me that the US should be spending their money on develping alternative energy sources. electric cars. development of coal plants, solar energy etc. Our world has changed forever- in 10-15 years some countries in europe will probably be governed by sharia law. Democracies are kidding themselves if they dont take a ruthless stand against terrorism now.