George Bush and the Four Horsemen
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 11, 2005



 

It’s becoming apparent to even the most avid Bush loyalist that the current charlatan-in-chief has been the greatest catastrophe in the nation’s 200-year history. Regrettably, there are strong indications that the Crawford albatross is planning to pull us further downward towards the ocean floor.

At present, the republic is buckling beneath the weight of deception, violence and incompetence. In Iraq, the plan to chop up the country into three smaller parts is moving ahead despite the intensity of the resistance or the objections of the Sunni minority. Bush has assumed the mantle of an Iraqi Jefferson Davis championing the merits of reformation and regional autonomy. The new constitution provides only the thinnest cover for a neocon master plan that destroys what little is left of Iraqi society while legitimizing a permanent American occupation. Al Jaafari, Talibani, Chalabi and the long list of rogues and collaborators have made their Faustian bargain with their US overlords and put their country on a course that will result in decades of hardship and slaughter.

All for what?

A mottled earthen hut in the world’s most perilous gated community -- the green zone?

At home the effects of Bush’s rule have been equally harsh. The anarchic Bush has rummaged through the Bill of Rights like a draught horse in a steeple case. No statute, law or amendment has escaped his withering attention. One by one, he’s savaged the constitutional protections that once shielded the citizen from the long arm of the state. He’s cut through 800 years of English and American jurisprudence like the Grim Reaper on saint's day, leaving nothing behind but the gulags that house his victims.

In the next six months the country will face its greatest challenge since the Civil War. The confluence of potential threats is unprecedented. Experts are predicting that oil supplies will not meet demand in the first quarter of 2006. This is bound to cause skyrocketing prices, long lines at gas stations, a downward trend in the economy, and a declining dollar. The American economic landscape, already full of potholes, is heading for an even bumpier road ahead. The soaring deficits, the jobless recovery, the humongous housing bubble, and a personal savings rate lower than any time since the Great Depression, all foreshadow an end to the giddy Clinton-era prosperity. Meanwhile, the Bush troupe is on a spending bacchanal that’s put the country on the fast track to ruin. Bush is like the girl who couldn’t say no, shoveling out the bucket loads of cash to every mega-corporation that lines up at the White House lawn with a begging bowl in hand. A quick review of Iraq (where the $18 billion in reconstruction money vanished into the flannel pockets of Bush constituents) or New Orleans (the next destination for the ravenous corporate parasites) shows that the well-oiled system of cronyism is in full meltdown mode. There’s simply not enough payola to fill the coffers of every crook in the Bush phone directory.

The market is getting increasingly anxious with the drunken spending frenzy and needs only the slightest shove to put it into a nosedive. As Allan Greenspan admitted, the spending is “out of control,” and yet the stealing continues unabated. No Fed chieftain or money managing magician is strong enough to rescue the drowning economy from its doldrums. The rock hard foundation of fiscal solvency has been utterly abandoned.

America’s energy future is looking even more tenuous than the economy. Oil supplies are stretched to the limit and available resources are reaching the point of diminishing returns. The double whammy of Katrina and Rita has put the entire Gulf region on life-support making our dependence on foreign oil greater than ever.

It’s no wonder the Bush administration chose Iraq as the second domino in its global crusade.  The oil business is built on projections and we can be reasonably certain that they saw that the wiggle room was disappearing from the market. The collection of corporate kingpins in the administration is not persuaded by sentimentality; they don’t trudge off to war for freedom or democracy, but cold, hard cash. The chance to control the last of the world’s oil proved irresistibly seductive, especially since it was the only way to perpetuate the caste system that has dominated the planet since the eighteenth century. It’s impossible to imagine that Bush or his fellows would abdicate what they believe is their birthright: the continuation of elite white male rule into perpetuity.

But now, of course, they’ve hit a glitch. Iraq has changed from cakewalk to quagmire in a matter of months and the entire project is going sideways. The combination of poor planning, insufficient numbers of troops and the most inept civilian leadership in Pentagon history has torpedoed the Bush strategy to extend the realm and secure vital oil supplies. In other words, we’re up the creek.

Bad luck follows Bush like a shadow. Another three years and the frogs and locusts will be collecting at the borders ready to pick the last flaccid strands of flesh off the American dream. Even barring another onslaught of biblical type hurricanes, the steady militarization, the flat-lining economy, and the bird flu will certainly finish us off. The first major wrinkles in the oil supply are expected sometime in January. We can assume the credit weary, overextended American public will be gasping for air shortly thereafter.

It was a great run while it lasted. We reached Olympus long enough to unfurl the banner before tumbling back down to terra firma. What more can we expect?  Maybe we should just quietly take our seats on the USS Hindenburg and let our madcap captain point us towards the blackest thundercloud on the horizon.

We’re doomed anyway.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.

Other Articles by Mike Whitney

* Bunker Days with Reichsführer George
* Martial Law and the Advent of the Supreme Executive
* The Evil of Torture and the Power of Non-Violence
* Why Not Torture Judith Miller?
* The Occupation of New Orleans
* Brownie's Comic Opera
* Apartheid Justice in America: Krugal vs. Padilla  
* The Impending Cakewalk in Iran
* Farewell to the Democratic PartyBunker Days with Reichsführer George
* Basra: Another Milestone in the War on Terror
* The Inevitable War with Iran
* Let Them Die Or Let Them Go
* Who’s Blowing Up Iraq?
* The Second American Revolution
* Hurricane Hugo at the UN
* Tal Afar: Crackdown in the Sunni Heartland
* John Roberts’ Role in the Guantanamo Hunger Strike
* Jose Padilla and the Death of Personal Liberty
* Rodney King in New Orleans
* Rehnquist Paved the Way for the Imperial Presidency
* The New Orleans Looters Are the Bush Progeny
* The Devastating Impact of Hurricane George
* “Transformation”: How Rumsfeld Smashed the National Guard
* The Lords of War
* Robertson’s Fatwah: “A Whole Lotta Smitin’ Goin’ On”
* Turning Cindy Sheehan’s Victory Into Defeat 
* “My Son Died for Nothing”
* "Shoot to Kill": Tony Blair’s First Trophy
* Greenspan’s Role in the Housing Bubble
* Failing in Iraq
* Revving Up World War III
* Pretty Hot in Crawford, Pretty Hot in Hell
* Straight-Shootin’ George Galloway
* “Operation Community Shield”: Comrade Chertoff’s Preemptive Crackdown
* Kristallnacht: What Happens When the Public Says Nothing? 
* Burying Blair: Post-Mortem for the British PM
* “Withdrawal” from Iraq?: Forget About It
* The Globalization of State Terror
* Tom Friedman: Fabricating the Roots of Terror
* Doomsday: The Final Months of the “Housing Bubble”
* John Roberts and the National Security State
* Guantanamo: the Calculus of Human Misery
* Did Greenspan Know About the London Bombings Two Days Before?
* Another Casualty in Rumsfeld’s Information War
* Genesis of an American Gestapo
* Bush's Orgy of Carnage
* Goodbye to Sandra Day O’ Connor . . . and Good Riddance
* The Rumsfeld Solution: “Liberating Iraq, One Journalist at a Time”
* Show Your Independence on the 4th -- Burn a Flag
* "Up in Smoke": Bush Flops in Prime Time
* More Rumsfeld Lies About Insurgent Meetings
* Incinerating Iraqis: The Napalm Cover-Up
* Guantanamo: The New-World Icon
* The Bush Radio Address: More Delusional Blather While Iraq Bleeds
* The Friedman Solution: Reinstate the Draft
* Body Slamming the 4th Amendment
* Operation Desperation: Rumsfeld’s Baghdad Fiasco
* The EU Constitution: Don’t Believe the BS
* Protecting the Plutocrats
* What Was Laura Bush Doing at the Al Aqsa Mosque?
* Free Jose Padilla!
* Alberto Gonzales’ Kristallnacht: Purges for a Safer America
* Tom Friedman: The Imperial Chronicler
* Gods, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
* A Tentative Strategy for Ending the War
* The Specter of Violence in America
* Free Speech in the Crosshairs
* Why America Needs to be Defeated in Iraq
* More Madness at the Bush News Conference
* Ratzinger’s Plan to Hide the Pedophiles
* Let’s Let Atheists Back into Politics
* Pope Ratzinger: More “Pie-in-the-Sky” for the Struggling Masses
* The Purveyors of Violence: The NY Times in Falluja
* Screw You, Paul Volker!
* Pope TV and the New World Media
* The Economic Tsunami: Sooner Than You Think
* Destroy Abu Ghraib!
* Terri Schiavo and the Battered Judiciary
* Railroading Moussaoui
* The Wolfowitz Appointment: A Red Flag for the Coming Wars
* “Economic Meltdown” -- Sorry, but We’re Toast
* John Bolton and the Road to Tehran
* Clearing the Way for the American Police State
* Challenging the Language of Violence
* Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments
* Crushing the UN for a Stronger America
* Europe to Bush: “Hands Off Iran”?
* The Incredible Shrinking Dollar
* Assassinating Al-Hariri Fits Washington’s Plan
* Washington’s Plan to Foment Civil War in Iraq
* Condi’s Euro-Tour
* Folksy Tom Friedman and New Age Imperialism
* Government Without Consent
* The Desperate State of the Union
* Iraq’s Election Fiasco
* Boarding Up the “Window of Opportunity”
* KGB Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security
* Bush’s Grand Plan: Incite Civil War
* Pink Slips at CBS

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