CURRY: You don’t agree with that? It has nothing do with the economy, the war — spending on the war?

BUSH: I don’t think so. I think actually the spending in the war might help with jobs…because we’re buying equipment, and people are working. —Think Progress

Explains a lot, doesn’t it? We sink a trillion dollars into his idiot wars, and he’s claiming victory because a handful of his rich friends are getting richer. The wars go badly, the economy is tanking, but life looks good in Bushville because somebody’s raking in obscene profits.

We can all be thankful that this reign of errors is almost over. But we have to wonder whether President Obama will be able to seriously change the war machine. As Robert Scheer writes:

The U.S. already spends more than the rest of the world combined on its military, without a sophisticated enemy in sight. The Bush budget cuts not a single weapons system, including the most expensive ones, those designed to combat a Soviet military that no longer exists. Those sophisticated weapons have nothing to do with combating terrorism and everything to do with jobs and profits that motivate both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

This is why we are forever marching off to foreign wars, and why we will never win nor stopping fighting the domestic war on drugs: too many people are making money making war. Peace is a huge threat to these people and because they have the weapons, the money, the media, and the political power they won’t give up without a fight.

And fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity — we simply cannot stop them using their means and methods. Which is why millions of people taking to the streets were not enough to stop one little man from having his invasion.

The only peace movement that can change all of this must come from within the power elites. More than anything, we need an American President to finally start doing the right things and to inspire the rest of the politicians and talking heads to get on board.

They are pretending to have money and desperately cadging loans from all comers to keep appearances up, but the loans can’t come in fast enough. The appearance of confidence is crucial (as it is, of course, in any “con” game) to keep the investors (depositors) at bay. If a bunch of investors (depositors) all got nervous about the solvency of a given bank, they might try to slip in there during business hours and withdraw or redeem their “money” and perhaps translate it into items of value like gold coins, bottles of vodka, or cases of 9 millimeter pistol ammunition. —Jim Kunstler

I’ve always been optimistic, easy to believe in all things “new age,” and happily naive when being realistic meant feeling awful. As the father of a teenager, who I will too soon be releasing into the wilds of modern America, I want nothing more than to feel that steady optimism — to look her in the eye and tell her about the exciting wonders that await her and to go on and on about how much I envy her.

It’s getting to harder and harder to sustain such feelings these days. I find myself saying things like, “Sounds great, honey, if we still have air travel in the future.” And, “You can get into any college you really want to, assuming it still exists.” And, “Sure, you could start a business with that money grandma left you, unless the markets totally tank and the money disappears.”

I feel a little guilty every time I say or even think such things. But I feel even worse about the frikkin mess we’re leaving our kids. Having come awake to the harsh realities of our times I am determined not to go back to sleep.

Which means, among other things, being totally honest, if depressingly so, about the facts of modern life. The nine horses of the likely American apocalypse — militarism, unilateralism, monotheism, sexism, xenophobia, greed, competition, secrecy, and anti-environmentalism — are all in full thunder, stampeding down Main St, Wall St, and every other street, destroying everything that was once good about this effing country. Enjoy your inheritance, sweetie.

Maybe once Bush and his army of rapture-monkeys are purged from the government things will get better, though not everything can be expected to bounce back after eight years of criminal incompetence. And hopefully, before he unites and reconciles everyone, President Obama will see that prominent members of the Bush-Cheney gang are fairly prosecuted and sent to Guantanamo.

Really can’t say I’m optimistic….

The centerpiece of the Bush legacy is a “war on terror” based on a vast disconnect between military expenditures and actual national security requirements that the presidential candidates all fully understand. The question is whether the voters and media will force them to face that contradiction or whether we’re in for more of the same — no matter how much the candidates go on about change.
—Robert Scheer, Truthdig.com

How perfect that John McCain has become the Republican candidate. Much as the party base might hate the man for some of his fiscal and social policies, he’s got the perfect résumé for taking over America’s War on Everything.

As a confessed war criminal — “I am a war criminal,” McCain said on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.” — he’ll be able to step into Bush’s primary responsibilities from day one. High-altitude bombing of dark-skinned people? No learning curve for McCain!

As a former prisoner of war, he’s got the inside track on the whole torture debate. Though he has spoken sensibly against torture in the past, with the White House in his sights he’s changed his story and now appropriately rails against Islamo-fascism and the need to do whatever it takes — break out the waterboards, boys — to stop the evil terrorists.

Though he has complained much about Donald Rumsfeld’s prosecution of the Iraq War, the main thrust of his complaints is that we didn’t do enough. Not enough troops, not enough bombs. McCain LOVES the surge, and thinks we ought to stay in Iraq (and, presumably, anywhere else that America has significant economic interests) for the next hundred years.

Most importantly, as he admitted during a debate, the economy is not his strong suit. So, we could count on a McCain presidency to continue expanding military budgets — More troops! More bombs! — all the way to the monumental economic fubar that awaits our world.

Even if we overlook the many moral issues that inevitably arise for any nation-at-perpetual-war — the death of innocents, the lying leaders, the unconscionable tactics, the suspension of civil rights — even if we ignore all of that, the ever-inescapable problem of war is that it causes a suicidal diversion of national resources from essential social needs to the Military-Congressional-Industrial-Complex.

John McCain is just fine with all of that. There should be no limits on spending for the war machine. Indeed, it’s unpatriotic to even ask the question, “How will we afford it?” Bomb now, pay later.

Unfortunately, the supposedly anti-Iraq-war Democratic party — it’s why we elected all you guys and gals two years ago, if you’ll recall — is just as war-addicted. Since their historic return to power, they have given into EVERY pro-war action or initiative that Bush and his cohorts have wanted. “Shameful” doesn’t come close to describing it.

While we all want to think that either Clinton or Obama will end this madness, the record of the past two years is sobering. America has become one great prisoner of war, from sea to shining sea. Until a viable candidate can stand up and pledge to seriously reduce all military spending and to redirect the nation’s resource to its people, then there’s no escaping from this prison.

Back from another hiatus caused by my inability to process Bush and all the damage wrought. For 7+ years we’ve pointed out the lies and mistakes, we’ve accurately predicted the inevitable disasters, and we’ve called in vain for somebody in power to take a stand against this awful, awful man.

The ‘06 elections returned real power to the Dems and allowed us to believe again in American democracy. For about a month, until our new leaders made clear that they would continue to kiss the ring and bow to the idiot demands of this awful, awful man.

But an end is finally in sight — to him, at least, though his many crimes will plague us for years — so the muse is shaking off the rust and dusting off the keyboard.

While I rediscover my own voice,  here’s a little from Scott Ritter, one of few who has been right about Iraq from the very beginning:

The collective refusal of any constituent in this complicated mix of political players to confront Bush on Iraq virtually guarantees that it will be the Bush administration, and not its successor, that will dictate the first year (or more) of policy in Iraq for the next president. It also ensures that the debacle that is the Bush administration’s overarching Middle East policy of regional transformation and regime change in not only Iraq but Iran and Syria will continue to go unchallenged. If the president is free to pursue his policies, it could lead to direct military intervention in Iran by the United States prior to President Bush’s departure from office or, failing that, place his successor on the path toward military confrontation. At a time when every data point available certifies (and recertifies) the administration’s actions in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere (including Afghanistan) as an abject failure, America collectively has fallen into a hypnotic trance, distracted by domestic economic problems and incapable, due to our collective ignorance of the world we live in, of deciphering the reality on the ground in the Middle East.