Damage from Bush term 'will last for decades'

[deadparrot]

Al Neuharth seems to take a rather myopic view of what makes a bad president in his column "Hillary has it wrong, Bush not the 'worst' " (Plain Talk, The Forum, Jan. 20).

While America will survive President Bush's term in office, the damage from his policies will last for decades. Consider: The invasion of Iraq was not just a giant blunder; it has also drained resources from the effort to catch Osama bin Laden, and the CIA warns that Iraq has become both a recruiting tool and a training ground for Islamic terrorists.

Bush obstructs efforts to stop global warming, which will inflict cumulative damage over the next century greater than any terrorist attack. His economic policies have been a disaster for ordinary Americans; wages haven't kept up with inflation and personal debt has risen.

Furthermore, Bush's lackluster economic growth is built on deficit spending. The billions of dollars he has added to the national debt will have to be paid back, with interest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060127/cm_usatoday/damagefrombushtermwilllastfordecades

[tocqueville]

1. I think you are right, decades at least

because this time, in the Internet era and global communication, it is not the same thing than 100 or 150 years ago when the US played a minor role. This time the US is accused of crimes on a mass-scale at the same time that the president is considered as a dangerous clown. Not even under Nixon was the anti-american sentiment what it is today. Besides Nixon was "fought down" by the "good guys", which showed that the system worked...

[bliss_eternal]

2. What was the last right-wing regime that fubar'd us...?

for decades?...Reagan maybe? Thinking about it, there's still people on the streets from the Reagan era cuts to mental health facilities.

What about Nixon? I'm a bit too young to recall what he fubar'd...anyone?

[Lasher]

14. I remember Nixon's wage/price freeze to slow inflation

Of course, it was really only a wage freeze. My employer was quite enthusiastic about enforcing the wage freeze. As a new employee, I had to go through a 5-year wage progression before I made what other workers in the same job did. I really needed the periodic raise that Nixon ordained I should not have. It seemed particularly unfair to me, because these were not cost-of-living raises.

Still, Nixon wasn't a bad president, compared to other repukes. Unemployment peaked at 5.9% in 1971 under Nixon, which is better than the performance of any later republican president. Nixon also did a good job with the budget deficit, despite the Vietnam War. Nixon's record is one of a true fiscal conservative - in sharp contrast to the borrow-and-spend repukes who came after him.

We could have done better than Nixon. But we have done a lot worse since then.

http://ibew.org/legislative/Rev042304-JustFacts.pdf

[bliss_eternal]

16. Yikes--I'm sorry to hear about the wage freeze--

all I remember from that time was an 'electricity crisis' and having to get gas on even or odd days. Fiscal conservatives don't bother me as much as the neo-cons that are hateful and create ways to divide people.

Thanks for the link--very informative! :hi:

[Erika]

3. W's legacy: Transfer the wealth to the corporate rich

He will be known as the worst president to ever serve. He has bankrupted this country by transferring our wealth to the elite rich. What's sad is the stupid bushbots helped him.

[crizzo5137]

4. Just read a history book...

the middle class has been taxed to nothing... the rich have leveraged the most wealth.. the only entertainment anymore is 'reality' tv..

If you want to know whats going to happen to us, just open a history book...

[ewoden]

6. you mean we will become . . .

Incredibly boring prose accompanied by poor quality pictures and some board student's comical caricatures of lonely, spinster teachers? Keeeriiiiiiist I'm gonna be sick.

[crizzo5137]

7. yeah we will...

but all this crap we are going though, with the dissolution of power, a maniac gaining power, fear controlling, science rebuffed has all happened before... Unfortunately, most people don't have the desire to learn from history... So save your catty little comments until you pop open a book and actually READ.

[ewoden]

9. No need to be irritable, though it is late I suppose

How about the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
you know by Gibbon?
I especially like the passage from Chapter XVI:
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment;
and the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but
dangerous imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred
in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by
the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the
empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil
magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in the
confession) from every mode of superstition which was received in
any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it
was not altogether so evident what deity, or what form of
worship, they had substituted to the gods and temples of
antiquity.

then there is Capter XXXIX:On
such occasions, Theodoric sustained the loud and specious
reproach of disloyalty, of ingratitude, and of insatiate avarice,
which could be only excused by the hard necessity of his
situation. He reigned, not as the monarch, but as the minister of
a ferocious people, whose spirit was unbroken by slavery, and
impatient of real or imaginary insults. Their poverty was
incurable; since the most liberal donatives were soon dissipated
in wasteful luxury, and the most fertile estates became barren in
their hands; they despised, but they envied, the laborious
provincials; and when their subsistence had failed, the
Ostrogoths embraced the familiar resources of war and rapine.

Feel free to comment on the above or perhaps we could discuss some of the following

The Story of Civilization
Durant, Will

Birth of the Modern World Society 1815-1830
Johnson, Paul

The Structure of Politics
Namier, Sir Lewis Berstein

Ten Days That Shook The World
Reed, John

[rodeodance]

19. yes--

[Lorien]

5. Don't forget to rate it n/t

[ananda]

8. I'd say some of the damage is..

.. permanent and irreversible.

Humanity's life on this planet will end much sooner because
of BushInc and Reeptile aggression.

Sue

[ewoden]

12. explain

[izzie]

10. Well we kept what we liked from FDR and he came in in the 30's

It does seem to take time to get over a president and congress that works together. Usually we have a mixed bag in DC and I do fell safer that way.I just feel we are better off when less gets done. I like the fighting with both parties and that has what it has been in our history.I think with the Dem. we also did not have so much lock step govt. Also Congress was not running all the time. They used to go back to their home states and when in DC worked not just got money. Do recall it was really just to hot to stay in DC. We drag war and the results around for a life time of a man for sure and may be longer. Look at the Civil War on both free men and slaves and what has happen from all that. The Civil Rights movement must have come from a 100 years before. This will not be the first President that gave us another war to try and get over. My big kick is he seems to make a mess of every thing he gets near. But can it be any worse than our founding days, Civil War or great depression/WW2? That I am not so sure about.

[ewoden]

11. You should also mention the activities of Samuel Adams and

Woodrow Wilson. Adams championed the AntiSedition Act. Oliver Wendel Holmes supported the censorship of the press. Wilson perfected the terms of the AntiSedition Act and instituted his own brand of Secret Service to enforce it. This nation has survived some great challenges to it's Constitution. It will endure the lightweight challenges of this administration as well. Of that I have confidence, though I fear the struggle may decay to more than just words before the dust settles on what has been again given life.

[AndyTiedye]

13. I Don't Think The Country Will EVER Recover

Bush has fucked this country forever.

If we can get back into power in 2009 we MIGHT still be able to prevent the rest of the world from :nuke:ing us.

That is a really big IF.

[regnaD kciN]

17. I would agree, because...

...with Bush's Court appointees most likely making the unitary executive theory the law of the land through precedent-setting decisions, this will give any future President dictator-like powers should they choose to use them.

Note, I said any President. Not just Bush. Now, Bush may be megalomaniacally insane, and thus in a separate category, but every future President will have to deal with the temptation to use those absolute powers. We all know the saying "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Is it too far out of line to suggest that, eventually, at least some of them will yield to the temptation? Not just Republicans, either -- is there anyone of either party who you feel you could fully trust, when the chips were down and their only hope to get out of a crisis would be to take the law into their own hands (and knowing that they could do so without any consequences), to do the right thing and hold back, even at the cost of their career or their plans to "make the country better?"

And, really, this would change the nature of our entire political life, as we would have no protection from a President run amok. Sure, you might get a candidate who will make a Carter-esque promise to "never use authorities beyond the written law," but, once they were in office, they could disregard that promise with impunity. Voting would really be a matter of picking the one candidate you trust the most, then praying like mad that that trust wasn't misplaced, since neither you nor anyone else would be able to stop them once they took the oath of office. It would, truly, be electing a dictator for a four-year term.

:-(

[Lasher]

15. Having read through all the messages in this string...

a thought ocurrs to me: King George II seems to have all the negative characteristics of every president who has gone before.

[rodeodance]

20. Read this DU thread--trying to find place in hx for 9/11-argues it is ove

rated. also how other pres and americans have reacted to historical events.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x187567

[Lasher]

22. Good thread, thanks

I agree with most of it. I see 9/11 more of an important milestone than a crossroad. There is a very real threat that does exist today: Terrorists might (some say inevitably will) attack us with one or more nuclear devices. This danger existed before the 9/11 attacks, however, and exist afterward as I have said.

[AndyTiedye]

23. 9/11's Place in History Will Be Similar to that of the Reichstag Fire

[Daphne08]

18. Yep. n/t

[rodeodance]

21. rec.

[ninkasi]

24. As bad as it is

I don't think the damage of the Bush administration has been fully realized yet. It is extensive, and will take many, many years to undo. If I were able to have any influence on Democratic policies, it would be to urge that in case we are able to take back Congress in 2006, and the White House in 2008, I would suggest strengthening our ties with our neighbors to the south.

The Bolivarian revolution in South America, the governments of Hugo Chavez, and Evo Morales, would be a perfect opportunity for us to return to the policies of FDR, and start the flow of money back from the top to the bottom. Please understand, I am not politically knowledgeable as so many of my fellow DUers are, but from my ordinary person's point of view, it would seem that since we are neighbors, our futures are connected with the futures of the rest of the Americas.

Together, we could undo so many years of right-wing oppression, fear,death squads, and exploitation. Why not give it a try, and let government do as it was intended, and serve all of the people, instead of the elite few? Canada, of course, has always been a good neighbor, we just need to learn to respect that country, instead of try to dictate to it.

Instead of meddling in Middle East politics, and making things worse, causing such death and destruction to the innocent people of Iraq, and killing and maiming our own, let us bring our soldiers home, and rebuild our Gulf Coast with that money. I know, there are probably thousands of reasons my wishes are not practical, or wouldn't work. I'm only expressing what I wish would happen.

So much pain, so many deaths, so much damage, has been caused by the Bush cabal, and his greedy, corrupt cronies...it won't be easy to even begin to undo the damage, but for the sake of the world, I hope we can at least give it a try.

[gator_in_Ontario]

25. Duhhhhh