Bush is an idiot…

“Bush would do well to stabilize the situation in Venezuela. Too much oil there to ignore.”

“Yeah, Mutt, it's just a chess game. I suggest you join the army and help out with the cause.”

“funny Bush quote:

More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than -- I say more Muslims -- a lot of Muslims have died -- I don't know the exact count -- at Istanbul. Look at these different places around the world where there's been tremendous death and destruction because killers kill." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004”

“And something to provide a contrast with that.....



My fellow citizens, it is an honor and a pleasure to be here today.
My opponent has openly admitted he feels an affinity toward your
city, but I happen to *like* this area. It might be a salubrious
place to him, but to me it is one of the nation's most delightful
garden spots.

When I embarked upon this political campaign I hoped that it could be
conducted on a high level and that my opponent would be willing to
stick to the issues. Unfortunately, he has decided to be tractable
instead -- to indulge in unequivocal language, to eschew the use of
outright lies in his speeches, and even to make repeated veracious
statements about me.

At first, I tried to ignore these scrupulous, unvarnished fidelities.
Now I do so no longer. *If my opponent wants a fight, he's going to
get one!*

It might be instructive to start with his background. My friends,
have you ever accidentally dislodged a rock on the ground and seen
what was underneath? Well, exploring my opponent's background is
dissimilar. All the slime and filth and corruption you could possibly
imagine, even in your wildest dreams, are glaringly nonexistent in
this man's life. And even during his childhood!

Let us take a very quick look at that childhood: It is a known fact
that, on a number of occasions, he emulated older boys at a certain
playground. It is also known that his parents not only permitted him
to masticate excessively in their presence, but even urged him to do
so. Most explicable of all, this man who poses as a paragon of virtue
exacerbated his own sister while they were both teenagers!

I ask you, my fellow Americans: is this the kind of person we want in
public office to set an example for our youth? Of course, it's not
surprising that he should have such a typically pristine background
-- no, not when you consider the other members of his family:
His female relatives put on a constant pose of purity and innocence,
and claim they are inscrutable, yet every one of them has taken part
in hortatory activities.

The men in the family are likewise completely amenable to moral suasion.

My opponent's second cousin is a Mormon.

His uncle was a flagrant heterosexual.

His sister, who has always been obsessed by sects, once worked as a
proselyte outside a church.

His father was secretly chagrined at least a dozen times by matters
of a pecuniary nature.

His youngest brother wrote an essay extolling the virtues of being a
homo sapiens.

His great-aunt expired from a degenerative disease.

His nephew subscribes to a phonographic magazine.

His wife was a thespian before their marriage and even performed the
act in front of paying customers.

And his own mother had to resign from a women's organization in her
later years because she was an admitted sexagenarian.

Now what shall we say of the man himself?

I can tell you in solemn truth that he is the very antithesis of
political radicalism, economic irresponsibility, and personal
depravity. His own record *proves* that he has frequently
discountenanced treasonable, un-American philosophies and has
perpetrated many overt acts as well.

He perambulated his infant son on the street.

He practiced nepotism with his uncle and first cousin.

He attempted to interest a 13-year-old girl in philately.

He participated in a seance at a private residence where, among other
odd goings-on, there was incense.

He has declared himself in favor of more homogeneity on college campuses.

He has advocated social intercourse in mixed company -- and has taken
part in such gatherings himself.

He has been deliberately averse to crime in our streets.

He has urged our Protestant and Jewish citizens to develop more
catholic tastes.

Last summer he committed a piscatorial act on a boat that was flying
the American flag.

Finally, at a time when we must be on our guard against all foreign
isms, he has cooly announced his belief in altruism -- and his
fervent hope that some day this entire nation will be altruistic!

I beg you, my friends, to oppose this man whose life and work and
ideas are so openly and avowedly compatible with our American way of
life. A vote for him would be a vote for the perpetuation of
everything we hold dear.

The facts are clear; the record speaks for itself.

Do your duty.





"Mad's Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political
Smear Speech" by Bill Garvin

[note: Although this version is from Mad, a very similar speech was
actually used by a Florida Congressman named Claude Pepper. Claude
Pepper was running for the US Senate against George Smathers.
Smathers (or his cronies) organized a whisper campaign against Pepper
- "His sister is a thespian, his brother is a homo sapiens, he
matriculated while in college, etc." Pepper returned fire by giving
a speech right before the election, so there wasn't time for the
evening news or the opposing candidate to translate what the speech
really meant; and though it may all have been true, it was very
confusing. Pepper won the election. This version is so similar to
Pepper's that it seems that several lines were lifted straight from
Pepper's speech.]”

“Was Pepper ever a sargeant?”

“No but you are an idiot.”

“To whom are you referring, Sack?”

“He was looking in the mirror.”

“I was just wondering why he would want to bump this thread up.”

“He thought it would make everybody remark how utterly clever he is.”

“I find it funny, that even after almost a year of the orig posting, Bush is still an idiot...”

“Some things never change.”

“Instant Mix Imperial Democracy
By Arundhati Roy

In these times, when we have to race to keep abreast of the speed at which our freedoms are being snatched from us, and when few can afford the luxury of retreating from the streets for a while in order to return with an exquisite, fully formed political thesis replete with footnotes and references, what profound gift can I offer you tonight?

As we lurch from crisis to crisis, beamed directly into our brains by satellite TV, we have to think on our feet. On the move. We enter histories through the rubble of war. Ruined cities, parched fields, shrinking forests, and dying rivers are our archives. Craters left by daisy cutters, our libraries.

So what can I offer you tonight? Some uncomfortable thoughts about money, war, empire, racism, and democracy. Some worries that flit around my brain like a family of persistent moths that keep me awake at night.

Some of you will think it bad manners for a person like me, officially entered in the Big Book of Modern Nations as an "Indian citizen," to come here and criticize the U.S. government. Speaking for myself, I'm no flag-waver, no patriot, and am fully aware that venality, brutality, and hypocrisy are imprinted on the leaden soul of every state. But when a country ceases to be merely a country and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes dramatically. So may I clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of the American Empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticize her king.

Since lectures must be called something, mine tonight is called: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free).

Way back in 1988, on the 3rd of July, the U.S.S. Vincennes, a missile cruiser stationed in the Persian Gulf, accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner and killed 290 civilian passengers. George Bush the First, who was at the time on his presidential campaign, was asked to comment on the incident. He said quite subtly, "I will never apologize for the United States. I don't care what the facts are."

I don't care what the facts are. What a perfect maxim for the New American Empire. Perhaps a slight variation on the theme would be more apposite: The facts can be whatever we want them to be.

When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC News poll said that 55 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein directly supported Al Qaida. None of this opinion is based on evidence (because there isn't any). All of it is based on insinuation, auto-suggestion, and outright lies circulated by the U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "Free Press," that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests.

Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a multi-tiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.

Apart from the invented links between Iraq and Al Qaida, we had the manufactured frenzy about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. George Bush the Lesser went to the extent of saying it would be "suicidal" for the U.S. not to attack Iraq. We once again witnessed the paranoia that a starved, bombed, besieged country was about to annihilate almighty America. (Iraq was only the latest in a succession of countries - earlier there was Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, Grenada, and Panama.) But this time it wasn't just your ordinary brand of friendly neighborhood frenzy. It was Frenzy with a Purpose. It ushered in an old doctrine in a new bottle: the Doctrine of Pre-emptive Strike, a.k.a. The United States Can Do Whatever The Hell It Wants, And That's Official.

The war against Iraq has been fought and won and no Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found. Not even a little one. Perhaps they'll have to be planted before they're discovered. And then, the more troublesome amongst us will need an explanation for why Saddam Hussein didn't use them when his country was being invaded.

Of course, there'll be no answers. True Believers will make do with those fuzzy TV reports about the discovery of a few barrels of banned chemicals in an old shed. There seems to be no consensus yet about whether they're really chemicals, whether they're actually banned and whether the vessels they're contained in can technically be called barrels. (There were unconfirmed rumours that a teaspoonful of potassium permanganate and an old harmonica were found there too.)

Meanwhile, in passing, an ancient civilization has been casually decimated by a very recent, casually brutal nation.

Then there are those who say, so what if Iraq had no chemical and nuclear weapons? So what if there is no Al Qaida connection? So what if Osama bin Laden hates Saddam Hussein as much as he hates the United States? Bush the Lesser has said Saddam Hussein was a "Homicidal Dictator." And so, the reasoning goes, Iraq needed a "regime change."

Never mind that forty years ago, the CIA, under President John F. Kennedy, orchestrated a regime change in Baghdad. In 1963, after a successful coup, the Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq. Using lists provided by the CIA, the new Ba'ath regime systematically eliminated hundreds of doctors, teachers, lawyers, and political figures known to be leftists. An entire intellectual community was slaughtered. (The same technique was used to massacre hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and East Timor.) The young Saddam Hussein was said to have had a hand in supervising the bloodbath. In 1979, after factional infighting within the Ba'ath Party, Saddam Hussein became the President of Iraq. In April 1980, while he was massacring Shias, the U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi declared, "We see no fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United States and Iraq." Washington and London overtly and covertly supported Saddam Hussein. They financed him, equipped him, armed him, and provided him with dual-use materials to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. They supported his worst excesses financially, materially, and morally. They supported the eight-year war against Iran and the 1988 gassing of Kurdish people in Halabja, crimes which 14 years later were re-heated and served up as reasons to justify invading Iraq. After the first Gulf War, the "Allies" fomented an uprising of Shias in Basra and then looked away while Saddam Hussein crushed the revolt and slaughtered thousands in an act of vengeful reprisal.

The point is, if Saddam Hussein was evil enough to merit the most elaborate, openly declared assassination attempt in history (the opening move of Operation Shock and Awe), then surely those who supported him ought at least to be tried for war crimes? Why aren't the faces of U.S. and U.K. government officials on the infamous pack of cards of wanted men and women?

Because when it comes to Empire, facts don't matter.

Yes, but all that's in the past we're told. Saddam Hussein is a monster who must be stopped now. And only the U.S. can stop him. It's an effective technique, this use of the urgent morality of the present to obscure the diabolical sins of the past and the malevolent plans for the future. Indonesia, Panama, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan - the list goes on and on. Right now there are brutal regimes being groomed for the future - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, the Central Asian Republics.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recently declared that U.S. freedoms are "not the grant of any government or document, but?.our endowment from God." (Why bother with the United Nations when God himself is on hand?)

So here we are, the people of the world, confronted with an Empire armed with a mandate from heaven (and, as added insurance, the most formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in history). Here we are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy cutters. Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb).

But then perhaps chinks, negroes, dinks, gooks, and wogs don't really qualify as real people. Perhaps our deaths don't qualify as real deaths. Our histories don't qualify as history. They never have.



Speaking of history, in these past months, while the world watched, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq was broadcast on live TV. Like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the regime of Saddam Hussein simply disappeared. This was followed by what analysts called a "power vacuum." Cities that had been under siege, without food, water, and electricity for days, cities that had been bombed relentlessly, people who had been starved and systematically impoverished by the UN sanctions regime for more than a decade, were suddenly left with no semblance of urban administration. A seven-thousand-year-old civilization slid into anarchy. On live TV.

Vandals plundered shops, offices, hotels, and hospitals. American and British soldiers stood by and watched. They said they had no orders to act. In effect, they had orders to kill people, but not to protect them. Their priorities were clear. The safety and security of Iraqi people was not their business. The security of whatever little remained of Iraq's infrastructure was not their business. But the security and safety of Iraq's oil fields were. Of course they were. The oil fields were "secured" almost before the invasion began.

On CNN and BBC the scenes of the rampage were played and replayed. TV commentators, army and government spokespersons portrayed it as a "liberated people" venting their rage at a despotic regime. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "It's untidy. Freedom's untidy and free people are free to commit crimes and make mistakes and do bad things." Did anybody know that Donald Rumsfeld was an anarchist? I wonder - did he hold the same view during the riots in Los Angeles following the beating of Rodney King? Would he care to share his thesis about the Untidiness of Freedom with the two million people being held in U.S. prisons right now? (The world's "freest" country has the highest number of prisoners in the world.) Would he discuss its merits with young African American men, 28 percent of whom will spend some part of their adult lives in jail? Could he explain why he serves under a president who oversaw 152 executions when he was governor of Texas?

Before the war on Iraq began, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) sent the Pentagon a list of 16 crucial sites to protect. The National Museum was second on that list. Yet the Museum was not just looted, it was desecrated. It was a repository of an ancient cultural heritage. Iraq as we know it today was part of the river valley of Mesopotamia. The civilization that grew along the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates produced the world's first writing, first calendar, first library, first city, and, yes, the world's first democracy. King Hammurabi of Babylon was the first to codify laws governing the social life of citizens. It was a code in which abandoned women, prostitutes, slaves, and even animals had rights. The Hammurabi code is acknowledged not just as the birth of legality, but the beginning of an understanding of the concept of social justice. The U.S. government could not have chosen a more inappropriate land in which to stage its illegal war and display its grotesque disregard for justice.

At a Pentagon briefing during the days of looting, Secretary Rumsfeld, Prince of Darkness, turned on his media cohorts who had served him so loyally through the war. "The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over, and it's the same picture, of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times and you say, 'My god, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?'"

Laughter rippled through the press room. Would it be alright for the poor of Harlem to loot the Metropolitan Museum? Would it be greeted with similar mirth?

The last building on the ORHA list of 16 sites to be protected was the Ministry of Oil. It was the only one that was given protection. Perhaps the occupying army thought that in Muslim countries lists are read upside down?

Television tells us that Iraq has been "liberated" and that Afghanistan is well on its way to becoming a paradise for women-thanks to Bush and Blair, the 21st century's leading feminists. In reality, Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed. Its people brought to the brink of starvation. Its food stocks depleted. And its cities devastated by a complete administrative breakdown. Iraq is being ushered in the direction of a civil war between Shias and Sunnis. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has lapsed back into the pre-Taliban era of anarchy, and its territory has been carved up into fiefdoms by hostile warlords.

Undaunted by all this, on the 2nd of May Bush the Lesser launched his 2004 campaign hoping to be finally elected U.S. President. In what probably constitutes the shortest flight in history, a military jet landed on an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which was so close to shore that, according to the Associated Press, administration officials acknowledged "positioning the massive ship to provide the best TV angle for Bush's speech, with the sea as his background instead of the San Diego coastline." President Bush, who never served his term in the military, emerged from the cockpit in fancy dress - a U.S. military bomber jacket, combat boots, flying goggles, helmet. Waving to his cheering troops, he officially proclaimed victory over Iraq. He was careful to say that it was "just one victory in a war on terror ? [which] still goes on."

It was important to avoid making a straightforward victory announcement, because under the Geneva Convention a victorious army is bound by the legal obligations of an occupying force, a responsibility that the Bush administration does not want to burden itself with. Also, closer to the 2004 elections, in order to woo wavering voters, another victory in the "War on Terror" might become necessary. Syria is being fattened for the kill.

It was Herman Goering, that old Nazi, who said, "People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.? All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

He's right. It's dead easy. That's what the Bush regime banks on. The distinction between election campaigns and war, between democracy and oligarchy, seems to be closing fast.

The only caveat in these campaign wars is that U.S. lives must not be lost. It shakes voter confidence. But the problem of U.S. soldiers being killed in combat has been licked. More or less.

At a media briefing before Operation Shock and Awe was unleashed, General Tommy Franks announced, "This campaign will be like no other in history." Maybe he's right.

I'm no military historian, but when was the last time a war was fought like this?

After using the "good offices" of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million children dead, its infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons had been destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be unrivalled in history, the "Coalition of the Willing" (better known as the Coalition of the Bullied and Bought) - sent in an invading army!

Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don't think so. It was more like Operation Let's Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees.

As soon as the war began, the governments of France, Germany, and Russia, which refused to allow a final resolution legitimizing the war to be passed in the UN Security Council, fell over each other to say how much they wanted the United States to win. President Jacques Chirac offered French airspace to the Anglo-American air force. U.S. military bases in Germany were open for business. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer publicly hoped for the "rapid collapse" of the Saddam Hussein regime. Vladimir Putin publicly hoped for the same. These are governments that colluded in the enforced disarming of Iraq before their dastardly rush to take the side of those who attacked it. Apart from hoping to share the spoils, they hoped Empire would honor their pre-war oil contracts with Iraq. Only the very naïve could expect old Imperialists to behave otherwise.

Leaving aside the cheap thrills and the lofty moral speeches made in the UN during the run up to the war, eventually, at the moment of crisis, the unity of Western governments - despite the opposition from the majority of their people - was overwhelming.

When the Turkish government temporarily bowed to the views of 90 percent of its population, and turned down the U.S. government's offer of billions of dollars of blood money for the use of Turkish soil, it was accused of lacking "democratic principles." According to a Gallup International poll, in no European country was support for a war carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies" higher than 11 percent. But the governments of England, Italy, Spain, Hungary, and other countries of Eastern Europe were praised for disregarding the views of the majority of their people and supporting the illegal invasion. That, presumably, was fully in keeping with democratic principles. What's it called? New Democracy? (Like Britain's New Labour?)

In stark contrast to the venality displayed by their governments, on the 15th of February, weeks before the invasion, in the most spectacular display of public morality the world has ever seen, more than 10 million people marched against the war on 5 continents. Many of you, I'm sure, were among them. They - we - were disregarded with utter disdain. When asked to react to the anti-war demonstrations, President Bush said, "It's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group. The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security, in this case the security of the people."

Democracy, the modern world's holy cow, is in crisis. And the crisis is a profound one. Every kind of outrage is being committed in the name of democracy. It has become little more than a hollow word, a pretty shell, emptied of all content or meaning. It can be whatever you want it to be. Democracy is the Free World's whore, willing to dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of taste, available to be used and abused at will.

Until quite recently, right up to the 1980's, democracy did seem as though it might actually succeed in delivering a degree of real social justice.

But modern democracies have been around for long enough for neo-liberal capitalists to learn how to subvert them. They have mastered the technique of infiltrating the instruments of democracy - the "independent" judiciary, the "free" press, the parliament - and molding them to their purpose. The project of corporate globalization has cracked the code. Free elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities on sale to the highest bidder.

To fully comprehend the extent to which Democracy is under siege, it might be an idea to look at what goes on in some of our contemporary democracies. The World's Largest: India, (which I have written about at some length and therefore will not speak about tonight). The World's Most Interesting: South Africa. The world's most powerful: the U.S.A. And, most instructive of all, the plans that are being made to usher in the world's newest: Iraq.

In South Africa, after 300 years of brutal domination of the black majority by a white minority through colonialism and apartheid, a non-racial, multi-party democracy came to power in 1994. It was a phenomenal achievement. Within two years of coming to power, the African National Congress had genuflected with no caveats to the Market God. Its massive program of structural adjustment, privatization, and liberalization has only increased the hideous disparities between the rich and the poor. More than a million people have lost their jobs. The corporatization of basic services - electricity, water, and housing-has meant that 10 million South Africans, almost a quarter of the population, have been disconnected from water and electricity. 2 million have been evicted from their homes.

Meanwhile, a small white minority that has been historically privileged by centuries of brutal exploitation is more secure than ever before. They continue to control the land, the farms, the factories, and the abundant natural resources of that country. For them the transition from apartheid to neo-liberalism barely disturbed the grass. It's apartheid with a clean conscience. And it goes by the name of Democracy.

Democracy has become Empire's euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism.

In countries of the first world, too, the machinery of democracy has been effectively subverted. Politicians, media barons, judges, powerful corporate lobbies, and government officials are imbricated in an elaborate underhand configuration that completely undermines the lateral arrangement of checks and balances between the constitution, courts of law, parliament, the administration and, perhaps most important of all, the independent media that form the structural basis of a parliamentary democracy. Increasingly, the imbrication is neither subtle nor elaborate.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, has a controlling interest in major Italian newspapers, magazines, television channels, and publishing houses. The Financial Times reported that he controls about 90 percent of Italy's TV viewership. Recently, during a trial on bribery charges, while insisting he was the only person who could save Italy from the left, he said, "How much longer do I have to keep living this life of sacrifices?" That bodes ill for the remaining 10 percent of Italy's TV viewership. What price Free Speech? Free Speech for whom?

In the United States, the arrangement is more complex. Clear Channel Worldwide Incorporated is the largest radio station owner in the country. It runs more than 1,200 channels, which together account for 9 percent of the market. Its CEO contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush's election campaign. When hundreds of thousands of American citizens took to the streets to protest against the war on Iraq, Clear Channel organized pro-war patriotic "Rallies for America" across the country. It used its radio stations to advertise the events and then sent correspondents to cover them as though they were breaking news. The era of manufacturing consent has given way to the era of manufacturing news. Soon media newsrooms will drop the pretense, and start hiring theatre directors instead of journalists.

As America's show business gets more and more violent and war-like, and America's wars get more and more like show business, some interesting cross-overs are taking place. The designer who built the 250,000 dollar set in Qatar from which General Tommy Franks stage-managed news coverage of Operation Shock and Awe also built sets for Disney, MGM, and "Good Morning America."

It is a cruel irony that the U.S., which has the most ardent, vociferous defenders of the idea of Free Speech, and (until recently) the most elaborate legislation to protect it, has so circumscribed the space in which that freedom can be expressed. In a strange, convoluted way, the sound and fury that accompanies the legal and conceptual defense of Free Speech in America serves to mask the process of the rapid erosion of the possibilities of actually exercising that freedom.

The news and entertainment industry in the U.S. is for the most part controlled by a few major corporations - AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corporation. Each of these corporations owns and controls TV stations, film studios, record companies, and publishing ventures. Effectively, the exits are sealed.

America's media empire is controlled by a tiny coterie of people. Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Michael Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has proposed even further deregulation of the communication industry, which will lead to even greater consolidation.

So here it is - the World's Greatest Democracy, led by a man who was not legally elected. America's Supreme Court gifted him his job. What price have American people paid for this spurious presidency?

In the three years of George Bush the Lesser's term, the American economy has lost more than two million jobs. Outlandish military expenses, corporate welfare, and tax giveaways to the rich have created a financial crisis for the U.S. educational system. According to a survey by the National Council of State Legislatures, U.S. states cut 49 billion dollars in public services, health, welfare benefits, and education in 2002. They plan to cut another 25.7 billion dollars this year. That makes a total of 75 billion dollars. Bush's initial budget request to Congress to finance the war in Iraq was 80 billion dollars.

So who's paying for the war? America's poor. Its students, its unemployed, its single mothers, its hospital and home-care patients, its teachers, and health workers.

And who's actually fighting the war?

Once again, America's poor. The soldiers who are baking in Iraq's desert sun are not the children of the rich. Only one of all the representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate has a child fighting in Iraq. America's "volunteer" army in fact depends on a poverty draft of poor whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians looking for a way to earn a living and get an education. Federal statistics show that African Americans make up 21 percent of the total armed forces and 29 percent of the U.S. army. They count for only 12 percent of the general population. It's ironic, isn't it - the disproportionately high representation of African Americans in the army and prison? Perhaps we should take a positive view, and look at this as affirmative action at its most effective. Nearly 4 million Americans (2 percent of the population) have lost the right to vote because of felony convictions. Of that number, 1.4 million are African Americans, which means that 13 percent of all voting-age Black people have been disenfranchised.

For African Americans there's also affirmative action in death. A study by the economist Amartya Sen shows that African Americans as a group have a lower life expectancy than people born in China, in the Indian State of Kerala (where I come from), Sri Lanka, or Costa Rica. Bangladeshi men have a better chance of making it to the age of forty than African American men from here in Harlem.

This year, on what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 74th birthday, President Bush denounced the University of Michigan's affirmative action program favouring Blacks and Latinos. He called it "divisive," "unfair," and "unconstitutional." The successful effort to keep Blacks off the voting rolls in the State of Florida in order that George Bush be elected was of course neither unfair nor unconstitutional. I don't suppose affirmative action for White Boys From Yale ever is.

So we know who's paying for the war. We know who's fighting it. But who will benefit from it? Who is homing in on the reconstruction contracts estimated to be worth up to one hundred billon dollars? Could it be America's poor and unemployed and sick? Could it be America's single mothers? Or America's Black and Latino minorities?

Operation Iraqi Freedom, George Bush assures us, is about returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people. That is, returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people via Corporate Multinationals. Like Bechtel, like Chevron, like Halliburton.
Once again, it is a small, tight circle that connects corporate, military, and government leadership to one another. The promiscuousness, the cross-pollination is outrageous.

Consider this: the Defense Policy Board is a government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon. Its members are appointed by the under secretary of defense and approved by Donald Rumsfeld. Its meetings are classified. No information is available for public scrutiny.

The Washington-based Center for Public Integrity found that 9 out of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board are connected to companies that were awarded defense contracts worth 76 billion dollars between the years 2001 and 2002. One of them, Jack Sheehan, a retired Marine Corps general, is a senior vice president at Bechtel, the giant international engineering outfit. Riley Bechtel, the company chairman, is on the President's Export Council. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is also on the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group, is the chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. When asked by the New York Times whether he was concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest, he said, "I don't know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it. But if there's work to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it."

Bechtel has been awarded a 680 million dollar reconstruction contract in Iraq. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bechtel contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaign efforts.

Arcing across this subterfuge, dwarfing it by the sheer magnitude of its malevolence, is America's anti-terrorism legislation. The U.S.A. Patriot Act, passed in October 2001, has become the blueprint for similar anti-terrorism bills in countries across the world. It was passed in the House of Representatives by a majority vote of 337 to 79. According to the New York Times, "Many lawmakers said it had been impossible to truly debate or even read the legislation."

The Patriot Act ushers in an era of systemic automated surveillance. It gives the government the authority to monitor phones and computers and spy on people in ways that would have seemed completely unacceptable a few years ago. It gives the FBI the power to seize all of the circulation, purchasing, and other records of library users and bookstore customers on the suspicion that they are part of a terrorist network. It blurs the boundaries between speech and criminal activity creating the space to construe acts of civil disobedience as violating the law.

Already hundreds of people are being held indefinitely as "unlawful combatants." (In India, the number is in the thousands. In Israel, 5,000 Palestinians are now being detained.) Non-citizens, of course, have no rights at all. They can simply be "disappeared" like the people of Chile under Washington's old ally, General Pinochet. More than 1,000 people, many of them Muslim or of Middle Eastern origin, have been detained, some without access to legal representatives.

Apart from paying the actual economic costs of war, American people are paying for these wars of "liberation" with their own freedoms. For the ordinary American, the price of "New Democracy" in other countries is the death of real democracy at home.

Meanwhile, Iraq is being groomed for "liberation." (Or did they mean "liberalization" all along?) The Wall Street Journal reports that "the Bush administration has drafted sweeping plans to remake Iraq's economy in the U.S. image."

Iraq's constitution is being redrafted. Its trade laws, tax laws, and intellectual property laws rewritten in order to turn it into an American-style capitalist economy.

The United States Agency for International Development has invited U.S. companies to bid for contracts that range between road building, water systems, text book distribution, and cell phone networks.

Soon after Bush the Second announced that he wanted American farmers to feed the world, Dan Amstutz, a former senior executive of Cargill, the biggest grain exporter in the world, was put in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq. Kevin Watkins, Oxfam's policy director, said, "Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission."

The two men who have been short-listed to run operations for managing Iraqi oil have worked with Shell, BP, and Fluor. Fluor is embroiled in a lawsuit by black South African workers who have accused the company of exploiting and brutalizing them during the apartheid era. Shell, of course, is well known for its devastation of the Ogoni tribal lands in Nigeria.

Tom Brokaw (one of America's best-known TV anchors) was inadvertently succinct about the process. "One of the things we don't want to do," he said, "is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq because in a few days we're going to own that country."

Now that the ownership deeds are being settled, Iraq is ready for New Democracy.

So, as Lenin used to ask: What Is To Be Done?

Well?

We might as well accept the fact that there is no conventional military force that can successfully challenge the American war machine. Terrorist strikes only give the U.S. Government an opportunity that it is eagerly awaiting to further tighten its stranglehold. Within days of an attack you can bet that Patriot II would be passed. To argue against U.S. military aggression by saying that it will increase the possibilities of terrorist strikes is futile. It's like threatening Brer Rabbit that you'll throw him into the bramble bush. Any one who has read the documents written by The Project for the New American Century can attest to that. The government's suppression of the Congressional committee report on September 11th, which found that there was intelligence warning of the strikes that was ignored, also attests to the fact that, for all their posturing, the terrorists and the Bush regime might as well be working as a team. They both hold people responsible for the actions of their governments. They both believe in the doctrine of collective guilt and collective punishment. Their actions benefit each other greatly.

The U.S. government has already displayed in no uncertain terms the range and extent of its capability for paranoid aggression. In human psychology, paranoid aggression is usually an indicator of nervous insecurity. It could be argued that it's no different in the case of the psychology of nations. Empire is paranoid because it has a soft underbelly.

Its "homeland" may be defended by border patrols and nuclear weapons, but its economy is strung out across the globe. Its economic outposts are exposed and vulnerable. Already the Internet is buzzing with elaborate lists of American and British government products and companies that should be boycotted. Apart from the usual targets - Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds - government agencies like USAID, the British DFID, British and American banks, Arthur Andersen, Merrill Lynch, and American Express could find themselves under siege. These lists are being honed and refined by activists across the world. They could become a practical guide that directs the amorphous but growing fury in the world. Suddenly, the "inevitability" of the project of Corporate Globalization is beginning to seem more than a little evitable.

It would be naïve to imagine that we can directly confront Empire. Our strategy must be to isolate Empire's working parts and disable them one by one. No target is too small. No victory too insignificant. We could reverse the idea of the economic sanctions imposed on poor countries by Empire and its Allies. We could impose a regime of Peoples' Sanctions on every corporate house that has been awarded with a contract in postwar Iraq, just as activists in this country and around the world targeted institutions of apartheid. Each one of them should be named, exposed, and boycotted. Forced out of business. That could be our response to the Shock and Awe campaign. It would be a great beginning.

Another urgent challenge is to expose the corporate media for the boardroom bulletin that it really is. We need to create a universe of alternative information. We need to support independent media like Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio, and South End Press.

The battle to reclaim democracy is going to be a difficult one. Our freedoms were not granted to us by any governments. They were wrested from them by us. And once we surrender them, the battle to retrieve them is called a revolution. It is a battle that must range across continents and countries. It must not acknowledge national boundaries but, if it is to succeed, it has to begin here. In America. The only institution more powerful than the U.S. government is American civil society. The rest of us are subjects of slave nations. We are by no means powerless, but you have the power of proximity. You have access to the Imperial Palace and the Emperor's chambers. Empire's conquests are being carried out in your name, and you have the right to refuse. You could refuse to fight. Refuse to move those missiles from the warehouse to the dock. Refuse to wave that flag. Refuse the victory parade.

You have a rich tradition of resistance. You need only read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States to remind yourself of this.

Hundreds of thousands of you have survived the relentless propaganda you have been subjected to, and are actively fighting your own government. In the ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the United States, that's as brave as any Iraqi or Afghan or Palestinian fighting for his or her homeland.

If you join the battle, not in your hundreds of thousands, but in your millions, you will be greeted joyously by the rest of the world. And you will see how beautiful it is to be gentle instead of brutal, safe instead of scared. Befriended instead of isolated. Loved instead of hated.

I hate to disagree with your president. Yours is by no means a great nation. But you could be a great people.

History is giving you the chance.

Seize the time.”

“good one tilt....

here's some food for thought;

"If you've gone over to the forces of nuance, Kerry's your guy --
or your nuancy boy. He's got nuances coming out of his nuances.
As the New York Times put it in its endorsement of the Senator:
'What his critics see as an inability to take strong, clear
positions seems to us to reflect his appreciation that life is
not simple. He understands the nuances.' ...I'm sure there are
millions of Kerry supporters who'd like to take a tough Kerry-like
stand this November. The best way to do that, in the spirit of
his war votes, is to vote for Bush and then spend the next 10
years solemnly explaining that that was your bold courageous way
of expressing your opposition to Bush." --Mark Steyn”

“Kerry may waffle, but that does not change the fact that Bush is still an idiot.”

“"Those are big words for the leader of a country that wouldn't even be in existence, if it werent for the US economy."

Hey they did fine (in fact probably better) long before the United States was in existance.

In fact the Inca, Aztec, and Ponca civilizations thrived and were very prosperous until the Europeans got here.

Why is it every conservative thinks that no country can survive without the United States?

Just like all the idiots slamming France and staying that there would be no France if we hadn't got into WWII. They forgot that England would have won the revolutionary war if it wasn't for france.

Conserative's suffer from "compound ignorance", they don't know that they don't know.”

“President Bush is not an idiot. There is no evidence that he is. He has a degree from Harvard and a degree from Yale. He flew jets in the National Guard. He is President of the United States.

Do you think all of that makes him an idiot.”

“No bacpac, I think he's an idiot in spite of all that. Did you see him fly jets in the National Guard?”

“From dailykos.com:

Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he's for it.

Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he's for it.

Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he's for it.

Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he's for it.

Bush is against nation building; then he's for it.

Bush is against deficits; then he's for them.

Bush is for free trade; then he's for tariffs on steel; then he's against them again.

Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State.

Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.

Bush first says he'll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn't.

Bush first says that 'help is on the way' to the military ... then he cuts benefits

Bush-"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. Bush-"I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care.

Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.

Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.

Bush first says the U.S. won't negotiate with North Korea. Now he will

Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say's he shouldn't have.

Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote

Bush said the "mission accomplished" banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.

Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he's against it.”

“Yes, 'The Srub' sucks.Kerry sucks and all of you suck. Good night ladies .”

“"[San Francisco Mayor Gavin] Newsom has inspired leftists in
government positions across the country to violate their oaths
of office in order to 'bring people together.' The 26-year-old
mayor of New Paltz, N.Y., Jason West, has issued marriage
licenses to 21 gay couples in his village. Ithaca Mayor Carolyn
K. Peterson said her city will now accept marriage licenses
from same-sex couples. Ditto Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The
mayors of Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Plattsburgh, N.Y.,
have all chimed in to support Newsom's urban guerrilla tactics.
Many astute observers have noted the media elite's double standard
in covering the liberal Newsom's defiance of California's
marriage law (he's praised as a pioneer) versus conservative
Alabama Judge Roy Moore's defiance of a federal court order to
remove the Ten Commandments from his courthouse (he's condemned
as a zealot). But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Saboteurs
in three-piece suits have been making mincemeat of the rule of
law on a daily basis without so much as a shrug from the anti-Roy
Moore watchdogs.... The shiny pied pipers of the lawless Left are
leading us to drown in societal chaos. Oh, well. At least we'll
have 'diversity.'" --Michelle Malkin




JIHAD BUSH! ! ! ! ! ! !”

“"President Bush is not an idiot. There is no evidence that he is. He has a degree from Harvard and a degree from Yale. He flew jets in the National Guard. He is President of the United States.

Do you think all of that makes him an idiot."

Hey rectal thermometers have degrees also and we know where they put those! You can buy an education but not common sense.

The 9/11 terrorists used panes as WMD. Does that make them smarter then Bush?

As far as the Air National Guard:
There were over 100 people in that unit. All but one can not remember seeing him there. The one who can has a tabacco stained beard, green teeth and is a prime candidate for casting the heavy lead in Deliverance II.

I don't know if Bush is an Idiot but as far as I am concerned, in light of all the information that has come forward, anyone who votes for him is.”

“I distinctly remember him, immediately before invading afghanistan, calling the hunt for bin laden a "crusade"... Twice.


That is certainly not the work of a genius.”

“I distinctly remember him, immediately before invading afghanistan, calling the hunt for bin laden a "crusade"... Twice.


That is certainly not the work of a genius."
Phaedrus
06:36:22 PM
03/08/04

What you witnessed was probably the only true intent that this guy ever exposed.”

“BAGHDAD, Iraq — President Bush's offer to demolish Abu Ghraib prison — made in a speech Monday night — found little support among Iraqis, with the head of the Governing Council yesterday calling the idea "a waste of resources."

"We must not be sentimental," Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer told reporters. "As the Governing Council, we do not agree with demolishing it and the matter will be left for the transitional government," which is scheduled to take office June 30.

He called the idea of destroying the prison "a waste of resources."

Bush told an audience Monday night at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., that Abu Ghraib, scene of prisoner abuse by U.S. troops and notorious for torture under Saddam Hussein, will be destroyed "as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001939953_prison27.html”

“MEDIA MATTERS
Talk host: Death penalty
for Bush
Says president, Rumsfeld guilty of 'war crimes' over Abu Ghraib posted: May 27, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

A self-described liberal talk-show host known for his disdain of the Bush administration called for the death penalty for the president and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for "war crimes," according to an audiotape.

Mike Webb, who has a late-night show on KIRO radio in Seattle, denied a report last week by Talon News, but the Internet site said yesterday it has a tape that proves the host make the statements on the air.

The prison abuse in Iraq "is a war crime, committed by the president of the United States," Webb declared on his show. "And do you know what the punishment for that is? Death!"


Webb, who often mentions on the air his homosexuality, compared the president with death row convicts in Texas, Talon News said.

"So, I say if this man has committed a war crime, and they can prove it, let's let George Bush get the final justice that he has meted out as governor of Texas, laughing at people who have been sent to the death chamber, let him face the death penalty for the war crime he has committed," Webb contended.

Webb insisted administering the death penalty to the president is "constitutional," Talon News said, and included other administration leaders who "should get the death penalty," including Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, because they are all "war criminals."

The host said the Geneva Conventions back his beliefs.

"If this is proven to be true, that he knew what was going on [at Abu Ghraib prison], it's a violation of the Geneva Conventions," Webb stated. "When you commit a war crime, which is punishable by death."

Webb then asked: "Should George Bush get the death penalty? I say yes."

Talon said many listeners to Webb's show have inquired about how to report his comments to federal authorities.

KIRO, one of Seattle's leading stations, is owned by Entercom Communications.

In a previous story, prior to acquisition of the audiotape, Talon said Webb denied the news service's claims, decrying "lies told by right wing websites."

Webb admitted, however, he received many "e-mails and phone calls from very angry listeners" who claimed he was "calling for the death of the president."

He told Talon News last week these listeners simply misunderstood what he said and it is "absolutely not true" that he called for Bush to be put to death.

In a letter to the editor regarding the Talon News story, Webb said he "would never call for the death of anyone, let alone the president."

"I simply reviewed the War Crimes Act of '96 in conjunction with Sy Hersh's New Yorker piece and the Newsweek expose of a memo warning Bush in 2002 about adhering to the Geneva Conventions."

Talon said, in its story last week it did not accuse Webb of making death threat statements but reported he was accused of that by one of his listeners.

Webb said he has been bombarded by "every nutcase and his grandmother" since the Talon News story ran.

"I stand by my words: No death threat, just a sensible review of the facts surrounding culpability during wartime," Webb contended.”

“The death penalty would prolly be too harsh.



”

“I don't know, Donny looks like he's enjoying it!”

“I'm still mystified why anyone would think that tearing down that prison would make a damn bit of difference.

The only answer to the issue is openly bringing ALL responsible to justice and instilling measures to insure that it never happens again.”

“I agree that all responsible need to be held accountable but it seems some are going too far and are dangerously close to the same attitudes that got us into this mess in the first place”

“A boom with legs
Larry Kudlow
May 28, 2004


The following numbers perfectly describe the fledgling Bush boom:

Over the past year, following the enactment of the president's tax-cut plan, real economic growth has increased 5 percent with only 1.6 percent inflation. After-tax profits have increased 37 percent (fully adjusted for depreciation and capital consumption). Business spending on equipment and software has grown 12.5 percent. Since last August, 1.1 million jobs have been created. Spendable income has increased 4.9 percent in real terms. Consumer spending is up 4.3 percent.

The economy is roaring at its fastest pace in 20 years, and there's no clear reason why the prosperity trends won't continue. Why can't the naysayers see it?

Inside the economics profession, demand-side Keynesians are predicting a slowdown in the second half of 2004. They believe the only impact a tax cut has is when it puts more money in people's pockets. When that money evaporates, they argue, consumer spending and the recovery at large deflates.

Supply-siders have a completely different view. Uncle Sam's tax bite on investment has dropped by nearly 50 percent as a result of lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains enacted last year. Such tax incentives have staying power. So does the incentive effect of 7 percent income-tax relief across all IRS brackets. (Small businesses, don't forget, are the biggest beneficiaries of lower personal tax rates.)

Keynesians don't recognize it, but tax incentives matter enormously. They change economic behavior. When the after-tax returns to work and investment are raised, you get more of both. That's why investment funding of business and the stock market has exploded over the past year. That's also why more people are working at lower tax rates and taking home more pay.

The incentive power of tax cuts, on the margin, is the principal force behind the Bush boom. Just as economic growth exploded after the JFK tax cuts of the 1960s, the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s and the Clinton-Gingrich tax cuts of the 1990s, economic takeoff is occurring today. And the incentive effects of the Bush tax cuts won't run out for at least four years -- possibly much longer, if voter's deliver the president a second term.

Keynesians see the world only through the eyes of consumer demand. But supply-siders know that consumers derive their income and spending power from new job creation. It is business that creates jobs. And it is business that requires investment funding from capitalists who put their money at risk.

The supply-side trajectory is from tax cuts to investment funding to jobs. The Bush tax cuts relieved the double and triple taxation of investment, and today the jobless recovery is over. This year alone, we're on track to create 2.6 million new jobs. Not even uncertainties over the war on terrorism have been able to smother the cascading tide of job-creating investment funding at lower tax rates and higher after-tax returns.

By the way, lower taxes are also counter-inflationary. If inflation is classically defined as too much money chasing too few goods, then the wave of goods production unleashed by new tax incentives will absorb new money created by the Federal Reserve, thus preventing any outbursts of inflation.

The Fed will move to normalize its base policy rate in the months ahead, as it should. An emergency 1 percent fed funds rate is no longer necessary. Meanwhile, the combination of lower taxes, record productivity and more rapid economic growth will keep inflation in a manageable 2 percent zone.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts a mere 2.8 percent annual growth rate of GDP in the years ahead. This phony baseline misses all of the supply-side points. At 3.2 percent productivity gains, with a normal 1.5 percent yearly rise in population growth, the U.S. economy's potential to grow is rising above 4.5 percent a year. At this rate, budget deficits will evaporate rapidly as the economy quickly marches toward full employment.

According to an internal OMB document published by The Washington Post, the administration is making a new push for spending restraints in next year's budget, which will help leverage economic growth into faster deficit reduction. Timely vetoes of the pork-barrel highway bill and a defense appropriation that fails to close unnecessary military bases in the United States would also send a strong deficit-cutting message.

The tax-cut-driven Bush boom has legs. It is no onetime event. It will maintain strong growth at low inflation for years to come. And it will send an important signal to our terrorist adversaries: We'll have ample resources to guarantee your defeat. Reagan sent the same message to the former Soviet Union when he cut taxes in the Cold War 1980s. It's exactly the right message. Bush is sending it loud and clear.”

“Economy Grows at 4.4 Percent Rate, Faster Than Previously Estimated
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, May 27, 2004

WASHINGTON – The economy grew at a 4.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter of this year, slightly faster than previously thought and fresh evidence that the recovery possessed good momentum as it headed into the current quarter.
The increase in gross domestic product from January through March reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday marked an improvement from the 4.2 percent pace first estimated for the quarter a month ago and the 4.1 percent growth rate registered in the final quarter of 2003.

The GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States. While the latest reading was just shy of the 4.5 percent pace that some analysts were forecasting, it nevertheless represented a solid performance.

Separately, the Labor Department reported that new applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week by a seasonally adjusted 3,000 to 344,000, another hopeful sign for a labor market recovery.

Although consumers and the federal government did their part to support the economy in the first quarter, the better reading on GDP for the period in large part reflected stronger investment by businesses to build up inventories, a good sign that companies are more confident about the economy's prospects.

From April to June, the economy is expected to grow at a rate in the range of 4.5 percent to 5 percent, according to some analysts.

The economy has been among the issues that President Bush and presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry have jousted over in the presidential campaign.

The country has lost a net 1.5 million jobs since Bush took office in January 2001, something Kerry points to as evidence that the president's economic policies aren't working. But Bush says they are, and that the best way to create jobs is to make the economy stronger.

The nation's payrolls, which had been posting lackluster gains, expanded by a sizable 288,000 in April on top of a hefty increase in March, leading some economists to believe that the long awaited for recovery in the labor market was finally coming about.

With the economy growing solidly and inflation beginning to stir, a growing number of economists believe the Federal Reserve might order its first rate increase in more than four years next month. Some, however, believe a rate rise won't come until August or later. The main short-term rate used by the Fed to influence economic activity has been at a 46-year low of 1 percent.

An inflation gauge tied to the GDP report and closely watched by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan showed that core prices, excluding food and energy, rose at a 1.7 percent rate in the first quarter. Although that was lower than the 2 percent pace first estimated, it still represented a pickup from the 1.2 percent growth rate in the previous quarter.

Consumers, whose spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States, increased their spending in the first quarter at a 3.9 percent rate. That was slightly stronger than previously estimated and up from a 3.2 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter.

Businesses boosted spending on equipment and software in the first quarter at a 9.8 percent rate. Though that was less brisk than first estimated and down from a 14.9 percent growth rate in the fourth quarter, it still represented a sizable advance.

Stronger inventory-building by businesses in the first quarter added 0.75 percentage point to the GDP, compared with a 0.27 percentage-point gain first estimated. That marked the largest contribution to GDP from inventories since the third quarter of 2002 and was a key reason why first-quarter GDP was revised upward.

Other reasons: stronger growth in exports during the quarter and a smaller cut in spending by state and local governments.

Military spending by the federal government grew at a 13.2 percent pace in the first quarter, down from the previous estimate but a big pickup from the previous quarter's 3 percent growth rate.




© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.”

“1.6% inflation. Try adding in gasoline and food and tell me about low inflation. More BS!

Personally, I am making more than I used to and feeling stretched thinner than ever. Guess I'm just a whiner with a vivid imagination?”

“© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."


Busted dude.”

“doesn't say anything about copy/paste

8P”

“Typical Republican rationalizing ;)”

“Jesse Helms threatened President Clinton once. The guy(?) Webb was wrong strat...I'll give you that.

Let me see...Bush is sort-of threatened by a gay guy. Hmmmm!

I think he'll survive. Will you? Don't get your whitey-tighties all bunched up over it.”

“Sorry TB, those number do include gasoline and food. I guess you just enjoy being a whiner.”

“"Sorry TB, those number do include gasoline and food


And you know this for sure?”

“I was reading about these stats recently and the Labor Dept. numbers weere not adjusted including food and gas. They were based on home sales, cars, etc. Not things i buy every day. If I could just recoup a portion of what I spend for my family in the grocery store alone, I'd be a happy dude. BTW, No Prob, you are one who always lays into anyone who is less than conservative on this board for name calling. Look at your post above. Got any more names for me?”

“Greenspan showed that core prices, excluding food and energy, rose at a 1.7 percent rate in the first quarter.”

“I'll bet if housing was up eleventy zillion percent, the admin would say...... Inflation only rose 1 percent


























except for housing.”

“Noprob just enjoys being an abrasive liar.”

“TB, I was just repeating from your post above. You said you were a whiner, I just repeated it. You are right, I do find name calling pretty tiresome and not very productive (kind of third graderish), so I try to avoid it, but sometimes I forget. But this time I was just repeating what you said, kinda.

As for my source, I don't know for sure, I got it off of a report on radio, I didn't catch the source they were quoting. WSJ, maybe. Pretty sure it wasn't movingon.org.”

“I think the context of my statement was obvious...




...even to a third grader!”

“The consumer price index does not take fuel and food prices into account due to their volatility.
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm”

“No answer from Mr. noprob..... figures.


Logic states that if you are called a whiner by someone who is calling you a whiner due to the fact that he is lying, than the person making the accusations is both a liar and a whiner.

Congrats noprob!”

“BB, OK I'm obviously not smart enough to participate in this discussion. Cause I don't have a clue what you just said (I guessing you don't either).

TB, sorry, after all the crap you dish out on this forum, I didn't realize that you were so sensitive. Guess I should have known.”

“Bitpusher is the self-proclaimed crap purveyor of this forum. Don't rain on his parade...”

“"BB, OK I'm obviously not smart enough to participate in this discussion."

NoProb
03:07:11 PM
05/28/04

Chill noprob, this forum wouldn't be any fun if we didn't have Bush Sheep on the farm. :)”