The hits keep coming

Okay, normally I don’t print someone else’s post in its entirety (except when I steal Fixer’s), but you’ve gotta read this. From South Knox Bubba:

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There's been so much coming at us for the past week or so it's getting impossible to keep up. It's interesting how these things just blow by with hardly a mention on page A9 and we're on to the next big story like Prince Charles or Michael Jackson. Here's a random sampling of the insanity we call government...

· Bush submitted a $2.57 trillion budget to Congress but failed to include the costs of the Iraq war, which is apparently being run off the books. The other shoe dropped yesterday when Bush asked for nearly $82 billion for the war. Maybe they should deduct the $9 billion that has gone missing in Baghdad.

· Condi Rice said earlier in the month that invasion of Iran is not on the agenda and that "diplomacy can succeed." A few days later, she rattled the sabers and issued the ominous warning that Iran must halt their nuclear program or face the "next steps".

· North Korea claims it now possesses nuclear weapons. Bush says he hopes they will give up their program so life will be better for their impoverished people. So much for fighting the Axis of Evil over there to prevent mushroom clouds over here. I think North Korea just wants us to invade them so they can get in on the reconstruction gravy train. Too bad for them they don't have any oil.

· The 9/11 Commission divulged (conveniently after the elections of course) that the FAA had received more than 50 intelligence briefings with warnings about potential al-Qaida hijackings and suicide missions in the spring and summer prior to 9/11. This story has virtually disappeared off the radar.

· The Senate put up roadblocks against class action lawsuits. This will, of course, benefit Corporate America, and particularly tobacco companies. It will also get these cases in Federal courts, where, guess what, George Bush and Haliburton appoint the judges. We are going to have us some tort reform, a little bit at a time.

· Bush threatened to veto any legislation intended to "fix" the recent Medicare "reforms" that include prescription drug benefits that benefit the pharmaceutical industry, the cost of which Bush lied to Congress about and threatened to fire a DHHS employee if he spilled the beans before they voted on it without reading it. The White House accused Democrats of "undermining these reforms." This is, I believe, what they call "hardball".

· Bush continues to lie to the American people about the looming Social Security "crisis". And he's getting away with it. Mr. Bush, where are the WMDs? And why should we believe anything you say about imminent threats?

· Republicans started their campaign of character assassination against the new Democratic Senate Minority Leader. It's not enough to take everything. Anyone who questions you must be destroyed.

· Karl Rove is promoted to deputy chief of staff and now has an official role in U.S. policy.

· The head of a Republican consulting outfit was sentenced to jail for tampering with the 2002 midterm elections in New Hampshire by jamming Democrat phone lines for people requesting rides to the polls. The executive director of the NH Republican Party also pleaded guilty.

· Top election officials from Ohio and Florida failed to appear before a Congressional committee investigating the 2004 elections. What are they trying to hide?

And that's just a random week in the first month of Bush's second term. We're on the Doom Train with the Masters of Disaster at the throttle. They are drunk on power and determined to run America off the tracks. And nobody seems to care, or really even notice.

OK, then.

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The problem seems to be convincing others that it’s real, and that these things matter. Come on, people, wake up!!! And stop telling me how your life hasn’t changed. Yes, it has. It may have changed in ways you don’t see, but care of the Patriot Act, you have less right to privacy than you used to if you’re ever suspected of a crime; care of the class action legislation mentioned above, you have less chance to win a fair settlement if a corporation defrauds and/or injures you or a loved one; care of Bush’s foreign policy blunders, you are less safe than you used to be, as anti-American sentiment has increased around the world during his tenure as president; care of exploding deficits, tax cuts during wartime, and other fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration, your dollar is worth less than it used to be; care of a railroaded and spineless media and an administration that endorses propaganda, you are less informed about the truth than you used to be; and that’s just to get us started.

The world around you is changing, and if your life has changed so infinitesimally that you have yet to notice, it won’t stay that way forever. And what of the people whose lives are changing? The neighbor who loses his job, then his healthcare, then his home to pay hospital bills? How close does it have to get for you to notice?

How much do we all have to lose before you feel like it’s worth paying attention?!

Fuck.