There have been a lot of conversations regarding the investigation and prosecution of Bush / Cheney & Co. for their criminal destruction of lives and property in pursuit of wealth for themselves and their friends. There are also a lot of questions regarding the TARP money like where is it going and why? Both lines of questioning are vital to our country. Guaranteed that I myself will be sounding the charge on both of these as well as every progressive blog in the country.
(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)
I think we’re missing something here. We are all in shock over our economy. There is a desire for us to band together as a nation to pull through this. I agree, but I don’t think we can do that until we really look at how we got here. The simple fact being, that if we don’t really know how we got here, then our solutions will likely be ineffective. We cannot recover our economy or our government, if the people created this disaster are still in power, spinning the recovery plans themselves as either a cover-up to their own guilty deeds or as simply perpetrating even more of the same greedy manuvers
In the 8 years of BushCo gluttony, thievery, murder and lies; our country has spent (lost) trillions of dollars. The US Federal deficit increased. The Federal debt is now at 10 Trillion dollars. Certainly, Bush & Cheney didn’t spend it all, but for the part that they did spend – where did it go? I mean, we borrowed money from China and all over the place so we could spend it on something today. Right here and right now. But…where did we spend it? Whom did we pay it to?
Some things we know about:
- Ungodly amounts of cash gone missing in Iraq: Here, here and here.
- Defense Industries: all hail the king, lord & master of taxpayer money sucking!
- US military spending accounts for 48 percent, or almost half, of the world’s total military spending
- US military spending is more than the next 46 highest spending countries in the world combined
- US military spending is 5.8 times more than China, 10.2 times more than Russia, and 98.6 times more than Iran.
- Companies like Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumann, Boeing, General Dynamics, KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater, etc.
- Since the 1950’s when President Eisenhower warned us in his farewell address, the war profiteers have been waving flags in our faces while they suck most of the money out of every the US taxpayer. More than anything else, really.
Someone mentioned camping at the door of these execs…attractive idea because of the public accountability aspect. Much better to publicize them by name on the Internet and list exactly how much they made. I want to see the faces and know the names of the people that stole America’s future. Over $4 trillion in Defense spending since Bush took office. Checks were written and cashed. Like the FBI says when chasing organized crime…follow the money.
This is not about some Liberal desire for a witch hunt. This is about fixing the problem. The criminals that robbed the American taxpayer of trillions of dollars are exposed to the light of day, the system of corruption will continue. When they invoke ‘national security’ as an argument for their continued secrecy, I will say ‘bullshit’ that’s just a cover up. Besides, our national security, the real national security has gone down the toilet because we allowed these war profiteers to plunder the nation. Their call for secrecy is a manipulation of real concern for our country into a shell game to keep their foul deeds from seeing the light of day.
People with nothing to hide, don’t hide.
These thieves, liars, murderers and despots fear scrutiny. That’s why Net Neutrality is the big deal that it is. It is no coincidence that there is pressure for the Internet to be regulated in ways the allow them to silence dissenters by making the Internet too expensive for them. The war profiteers and resource rapists (oil, coal, mining) reap their insane profits through secret deals made with secretive politicians.
So, today as Barack Obama begins his journey, so do we all. I can tell you now that I am not ‘letting this go’ for ‘the good of the country’ as the all-too-familar chorus sounds from GOP congressmen & women. The country has already ‘let this go’ quite far enough. The way to stop corruption and deceipt is to name them, see them, admit they exist and by what power. It does not end by cleaning up after them in silence. That only sets the stage for the problem to be even worse when it comes back around (and it will come back around).
-gadfly
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