In article <georgek-F1722D.08533326122005@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
A Veteran for Peace <georgek@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> <http://www.millionphonemarch.com/fisa.htm>
Kucinich was saying Bush's invasion of Iraq was wrong even in its
planning
stages, well before anyone else was saying so.
God knows what else he has said that too many have ignored, at their own
peril.
==========================================================
The Truth About the State of our Union
by Dennis J. Kucinich
On Tuesday night President Bush will stand before the Congress and the
nation, to deliver his annual State of the Union address. We are sure to
hear a rosy tale of an economy on the rebound, a blossoming democracy in
Iraq, a terror network on the run, and a Gulf Coast region rebuilding
better and stronger than ever before. As is most often the case with
this
Administration, the rhetoric does not match reality.
The facts are clear. Our economy is struggling and leaving tens of
millions of Americans behind. According to the non-partisan National
Journal, since President Bush first stood before Congress and the nation
in 2001, the median income in this country has decreased, the jobless
rate
has jumped from 3.9% to 4.9% and the number of families living in
poverty
has increased from 8.7% to 10.2%. Our trade deficit has doubled.
Inflation
has gone up. Personal bankruptcies have gone up. Consumer debt has gone
up. College tuition has gone up. And, the price of gas has gone up. All
the while, this Administration has turned a $128 billion federal budget
surplus into a $319 billion deficit.
Today, almost 6 million more Americans do not have any health insurance
than when President Bush took office. In total, over 45.5 million
Americans, or over 15% of our total population, have no health care
coverage at all.
During his 2003 address, President Bush told the nation that Saddam
Hussein "had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters
of anthrax", "materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of
botulinum toxin", "as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve
agent" and "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical
agents".
Today, almost three years after the start of the President's war of
choice, we know Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had no
connection
to al-Qaeda and posed no threat to our nation. Yet, our armed forces are
bogged down in the middle of civil war that our own generals say cannot
be
won by military force. Our presence in Iraq is counterproductive and has
cost the lives of over 2,200 US troops and $250 billion.
President Bush has delivered four State of the Union addresses since the
attacks on our nation on 9/11. In four speeches, the President has never
once mentioned Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the terror attacks on
this nation. The status of the FBI's most wanted man apparently is not
im****tant to the state of our union. Yet, in the same four speeches,
President Bush has mentioned Saddam Hussein 24 times, and Iraq 78 times.
President Bush used the opening of his 2003 State of the Union to praise
the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. This year our
nation,
and the world, saw the result of the failure of this massive
reorganization of our government. As Katrina rolled ashore, destroying
large cities and small towns in four states, it was FEMA, once an
independent cabinet level agency--but now rolled into Department of
Homeland Security--that failed to react. The searing image of thousands
of
Americans stranded without food and water dying on American streets will
be the lasting legacy of the Department of Homeland Security, not a
reorganized government "mobilizing against the threats of a new era" as
the President described in his speech.
In his 2004 and 2005 addresses, the President spent a considerable
amount
of time advocating policies that would roll back much of the social
progress made since the New Deal. In 2004, the President touted a
Medicare
prescription drug bill that will fatten the pockets of the
pharmaceutical
industry, endangering the future finances of the entire Medicare
program,
while leaving seniors confused and empty handed as they try to fill
their
prescriptions under the new plan. In 2005, the President used his
address
to promote his plan strip seniors of the guaranteed promise of Social
Security, and replace it with a risky scheme to gamble their future in
the
stock market.
What the President has in store for his message this year is not known
yet. But, we do know the President Bush will speak in glowing terms
about
the state of our union. The truth is the state of our union is in great
peril. This Administration is conducting a war with no end in Iraq,
illegally spying on Americans at home, overseeing an economy that is
increasingly leaving more and more Americans behind and abandoning Gulf
in
their hour of great need.
If recent history is any precedent, then next week we should see more of
the same old dance around reality that has been the hallmark of
President
Bush's annual address.
Since being elected to Congress in 1996, Kucinich has been a tireless
advocate for worker rights, civil rights and human rights. He represents
Ohio's 10th District.
Published on Friday, January 27, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0127-24.htm
--
http://hume.realisticpolitics.com/
The real danger to the future of humanity is the preference
for surrendering to fear, superstition, and faith
in absolutist belief systems, and so to submit to these
willingly and to the control of those demagogues who
make use of these, rather than preferring
to reason with one's own mind.
and the OIL stocks have gone up.
--
Impeach Bush ! a noble cause
And visit.. alt.impeach.bush
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