Johnny Hanoi wrote:
> Bush Administration That Couldn't
> Rebuilding the American Economy, Bush-Style
> By Tom Engelhardt
> TomDispatch.com
> Thursday 27 March 2008
>
> No one was prepared for the storm when it hit. The levees meant to
> protect us had long since been breached and key officials had already
> left town. The well-to-do were assured of rescue, but for everyone
> else trapped inside the Superdome in a fast-flooding region, there
> was no evacuation plan in sight. The Bush administration, of course,
> claimed that it was in control and the President was already assuring
> his key officials that they were doing a heck of a job.
>
> No, I'm not talking about post-Katrina New Orleans. That was so
> then. I'm talking about the housing and credit crunches, as well as
> the Bear Stearns bailout, that have given the term "bear market" new
> meaning.
> Now, don't get me wrong - when it comes to the arcane science of
> economics, like most Americans, I'd benefit from an "Economics for
> Dummies" course. What I do know something about, though, is history,
> a subject that hasn't been on the Bush administration's course
> curriculum since the President turned out not to be Winston Churchill
> and conquered Iraq refused to morph into occupied Germany 'n Japan
> 1945.
> History may not repeat itself, but the administration's repetitive
> acts these past seven years make an *****sment of our economic
> situation possible, even if you are an economics dummy.
>
> Just consider the record: Administration officials proved
> incapable of rebuilding two countries that their military occupied
> and damaged. In Afghanistan and Iraq, while talking up the
> President's "freedom agenda," they were the equivalent of a natural
> disaster, a whirlwind of destruction.
> In the case of Iraq, in disbanding its military, its government,
> and even its economy, they were literal nation-wreckers. On taking
> Baghdad, their first act of omission was to let the capital be
> looted. ("Stuff happens," commented Secretary of Defense Donald
> Rumsfeld at the time.) Soon after, the administration's new viceroy
> in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III, promptly plunged the country into the
> equivalent of the Great Depression - without a Bear Stearns bailout
> in sight.
> In the case of Afghanistan, only a staggering boom in opiate
> growing - the country now supplies an estimated 93% of the global
> market in illegal opiates, bringing about four billion dollars into
> the country - has slightly offset the disaster of "liberation." By
> just about any other measure, Afghanistan is a wreck.
>
> In the case of New Orleans, the Bush administration not only
> couldn't rebuild an American city that nature (and the Army Corps of
> Engineers) damaged, but turned a natural disaster into a man-made
> catastrophe that has yet to end.
>
> Despite a reputation for being the most disciplined, tough, and
> focused administration in memory, Bush's men and women couldn't even
> secure their fondest inside-the-Beltway dream: constructing a
> generation-long Pax Republicana in Wa****ngton. In fact, it looks
> suspiciously as if Republicans in the House and Senate, fleeing
> Congress as if it were New Orleans - it's politely called
> "retirement," not cutting and running - could even be swept into
> minority status for a generation.
> And now, with a mere ten "lame duck" months to go, comes the
> American economy ...
>
> You don't faintly need to understand economics to grasp the
> immediate danger. The people overseeing the handling of this crisis
> have done little these last years but hand money over to the rich,
> while running American power into the dirt.
>
> Let me review our history lesson for a moment: No to
> nation-rebuilding, no to city-rebuilding, no to Congressional
> majority-building ...
> Who dares imagine that the people who brought you Iraq, the war,
> could begin the rebuilding of an economy, or even successfully caulk
> the cracks in the levees of a system that, in its complexity, puts
> Iraq's feeble economy to shame?
>
> In some ways, an administration - whatever its periodic changes of
> personnel - can be compared to an individual. At a certain age, its
> urges become predictable, its habits set, its limits largely known.
> While change may be possible, you wouldn't want to bet your house on
> it.
> So what exactly has the Bush administration proven itself good at?
> The twin skills of destruction and looting would stand at the top of
> any list. Perhaps that's because it chose to put its "eggs" in only
> two baskets - those of the U.S. military and crony cor****ations.
>
> Awed by the shock-and-awe force of forces that fell into their
> hands, administration officials moved to transfer as many powers of
> civil governance as possible to the Pentagon. From diplomacy to
> disaster relief, nation-building to intelligence gathering, an
> organization built only to destroy was designated as the go-to outfit
> for activities normally associated with those who have building in
> mind.
> At the same time, the government was being staffed, top-to-bottom,
> with ill-prepared political pals, while a small set of crony
> cor****ations, of which Halliburton is certainly the best known, was
> given the nod in every rebuilding situation. It really didn't matter
> where you looked, they were the ones camped out, making money, on the
> landscape of destruction. With their no-bid, cost-plus contracts,
> these companies ran up the hours and then tended to jump ****p when
> the going got bad. The same cor****ations that had essentially looted
> Iraq - it was labeled "reconstruction" - were the first ones called
> in when New Orleans went down. (Of the initial six contracts the Bush
> administration offered for the reconstruction of the city, five went
> to companies previously involved in Iraq's reconstruction program.)
> Unsurprisingly, the Bush administration has proved serially
> incapable of building anything, even - in the long run - their own
> machine. And, from the Enron moment to the Bear Stearns one, whenever
> it looked like the Titanic might have hit an iceberg, it was a lock
> that those passengers assigned to the limited places in the lifeboats
> wouldn't be from steerage (or be weighed down with subprime
> mortgages).
> So rebuilding. No. Saving people who aren't already friends. No.
> Doing a heck of a job in a crisis. No. Now, our latest and greatest
> crisis is upon us, the sort that, in a matter of weeks, has sent
> media commentators and pundits from reluctant discussions of whether
> we might be heading into a recession straight to references to the
> "d" word, "1929," and the Great Depression. And they're not alone. A
> recent USA Today/Gallup poll indicates that a startling 59% of
> Americans already believe we're heading for a long-term depression,
> not a recession (and 79% are worried about the possibility). Leave
> the definitional details to the experts. Most Americans have
> undoubtedly *****sed the Bush administration's proven incapacity in
> perilous times and drawn the logical conclusions.
> Ten months is a long, long time when only their hands are near the
> pilot's wheel of the ****p of state and water's already seeping
> through the hull. It's an eon for an administration capable of
> sinking New Orleans in a matter of days, and Iraq in little more than
> months. Or, thought of another way, it's plenty of time if your
> expertise happens to lie in deconstruction. After all, barring a
> miracle, you're talking about the little administration that
> couldn't, no matter how hard Ben Bernanke may try.
> So, even if you, like me, know next to nothing about economics, you
> already know enough to be afraid, very afraid.
>
>
> Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com,
> is the co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, "The End
> of Victory Culture" (University of Massachusetts Press), has been
> updated in a newly issued edition that deals with victory culture's
> crash-and-burn sequel in Iraq.
>
> Lil creepy Bush failed Murka terribly. Boo hoo hoo.
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