Another Sign of the Apocalypse

Oh. My. God.

This is a true sign of the Apocalypse.

Not the actual Flake itself, but the fact that in wartime, with the economy and the Constitution crumbling around our ears, someone would be willing to pay TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for a single Frosted Flake.

The mind boggles.

Best. Comment. Ever.

Susan of Texas said, (at Sadly!No blog)
March 17, 2008 at 15:34

"Conservatives really are perpetual teenagers, raiding the refrigerator, using up all the gas in the car, taking money from your wallet, and constantly whining about how overworked and mistreated they are."

The irony of course, is that this is what's always been said of Democrats. Perhaps, sans the whining... But the state of the World today is frightening, not only for the actual realities, but because it's History Repeating.

Think Jimmy Carter.

Worst President ever, right? Somehow, he's been left with that reputation. Nice guy, but too bad he was such a LOSER.

Fact is, he had a bad situation, and because he did the "hard work" required to actually remedy it, he is reviled. Because he didn't lie to the American public to fudge numbers, as Bush has been doing for years, he's remembered for economic failures. He understood the energy crisis and did something about it. All the good he did during his term was undone by Reagan. And now we've come full circle. With Reagan's bastard child in the White House, we've moved from economic surplus to record deficits, and are now falling headlong into recession. We're more dependent on foreign oil than ever, which has gone from $27 a barrel when he took office to $110 this past week.

You know, I'm not an economist. In fact, I don't know much about economics at all. It seems to me however, that when all of your government's policies encourage American dollars to go overseas, out of our economy, without anything to show for it, it can't be good for America. Some examples?

Major corporations moving their offices overseas, to places where they won't have to pay American taxes or American wages. They pay pennies to manufacture, then sell in the US for really high markups. Which are paid to CEO's, who put the money into offshore accounts, again, untaxed by the US.

War. We supply goods and services to feed the war machine through contractors that we pay far more than market value. Those contractors pay wages to non-Americans, resulting in the money going to other countries. How much money? Well, "The Nation" reported the following estimated figures, as the government will not release actual numbers:

Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of "private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings," according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The cost in dollars? From the same article:

Typical pay of a former U.S. Special Forces soldier working for a private-security company in Iraq: $650 a day, according to Scahill, "after the company takes its cut." That rate, however, can hit $1,000 a day.

But our toops? (according to http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11551)

• Salary of U.S. soldier: $1,100 to $2,500 per month
• Salary of British commando: $3,500 per month
• Salary of Iraqi soldier: $70 per month

Aside from the numbers just being obscene, it also should be evident that all of those dollars are coming from the US and being sent permanently to other countries.

And the most frightening exit of cash; to China. See, we are borrowing MILLIONS of dollars every week from China. Which we pay interest on. And will need to pay back some day. So they take the money we're paying them to loan us money, and buy raw goods to make shoddy items at slave wages, only to sell it back to us at HUGE markups. What do we sell them to even things up? Nothing. Nor do we tax properly their imports, which leads to people buying things made in China because Wal-Mart can sell it cheap, which leads to less domestic jobs, which results in the need to buy cheap goods at Wal-Mart....

You see the difficulty.

Somehow, we got the notion during the Reagan Administration that if the Stock Market was doing well, we all were doing well. I suppose that at some point in history, that might have been true. That was before CEO's got greedy, and Reagan deregulated EVERY FUCKING THING so that CEO salaries could grow to mind numblingly high numbers that can't even be comprehended by mortal beings, while middle class salaries actually dropped. The problem is that the Stock Market is only a part of the economy. The part that makes its income through dividends and interest and mergers. The part that doesn't create jobs, or goods.

I know it's all a lot more complicated; economics is way over my head. But it seems fairly "DUH" to see that our economy is tanking because of the insane economic policies once called "Voodoo" by Daddy Bush.

So what can we do about it? And how can the next President get us out of this mess without being "Jimmy Cartered?"

Don't look at me! I am SO not that smart. I'll just get ulcers worrying about it.

Obscenity

Our AWOL-coward in chief addressed the men and women giving their lives in service to the United States of America today, and told them that war is romantic.

Oh. My. God.

In an attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm assuming he simply doesn't know what war is. So Mr. President, let me enlighten you.

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 3978
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 9
Total 3987

That's pretty bad. Almost four thousand dead. But wait... there's MORE!

Non Mortal Casualties
Wounded - No Medical Air Transport Required 20,416
Wounded - Medical Air Transport Required 8,904
NON-HOSTILE-RELATED MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTS 31,325
Non-Hostile Injuries - Medical Air Transport Required 8,273
Diseases/Other Medical - Medical Air Transport Required 23,052
MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTS (HOSTILE AND NON-HOSTILE) 40,229

Barely comprehensible. And we're still not done.

Self Inflicted	Army	Navy	Marines	Air Force	Total
Died of Self-Inflicted wounds	118	4	23	0	145

Self inflicted wounds. Hello? One Hundred, Forty Five soldiers, trained to live in hellish conditions, who volunteered to serve their country, who have guns and know how to use them, know how to kill... One Hundred Forty Five of these men and women found the conditions they were forced to live in so intolerable that they took their own lives.

Not counting Iraqis, whom I still consider human, despite all efforts to dehumanize them, and not even counting the "coalition" casualties, because after all, Americans count more than anyone else, right? Not counting the impact of the deaths and injuries on the families of these soldiers, who now have to struggle financially because of the programs that our generous Republican administration have cut. Not counting the cost to the productivity of our nation because of the loss of these motivated, well trained people. Not counting the debt we've amassed, or the cost of the degradation of our reputation among the countries of the world. There's such cost involved in this mess called Iraq that isn't counted; but even without all that... the casualties alone are enough to illustrate the cost of war.

Sir, only in your warped perception of reality can war be called romantic. Most of us in the reality based community think war is obscene.

The statistics cited above can be found at Iraq Coalition Casualties and should be on everyone's daily read.