Commentary
Let us count the ways
By Frank Pitz
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Mar 28, 2006, 01:21

Okay, let’s see, the cost to the US taxpayer for the conflagration in Iraq is now in the neighborhood of $250 billion. We taxpayers are spending about $5.8 billion per month in Iraq, or on a more personal level, about $730 for each and every one of us.

Now, I don’t know about you folks out there, but I can little afford $730 a month for Bush’s folly. I have enough of a problem with my own indebtedness without having to prop up the madness of the dictator-in-chief. What is even more galling is the fact that the majority of those dollars go to Bush and Cheney’s corporate buddies, you know, Halliburton and the gang.

Let’s do a little comparison thing here, just taking the costs of the Iraq war, $250 billion. According to the National Priorities Project that $250 billion could pay for over 33 million kids to attend Head Start. It could as well provide medical insurance for over 150 million kids. Also, $250 billion could hire over 4.5 million teachers, or it could award over 12 million college scholarships. And you want to know just how many public housing units could be built with $250 billion? The answer is, 2, 252, 316.

But that’s not all, $250 billion would also fully fund global anti-hunger efforts for the next 10 years; it could also fully fund worldwide AIDS programs for the next 25 years. But no, Bastard Bush and his corporate bloodsuckers would much rather put that money in their pockets. Death, destruction and profit as New World Order.

If we factor Afghanistan into the equation we are now looking at over $400 billion to prop up Bush’s ego. Add to that the fact that over 50 percent of the income taxes we pay go to the military-industrial complex, and what do you have? What you have, bunky, is that on the backs of the poor, and the hard working middle class, Bush and company are riding high on our distress and with our bucks. Profits for the corporate bloodsuckers are at all time highs, and Amerikan social structures are at an all time low. Can you see the correlation yet?

We can extrapolate that out a bit more to add another perspective. When one looks at overall global military spending in the last two years, that spending has increased by about 18 percent, or $980 billion. The main reason behind this increase (globally) is the massive escalation in U.S. spending in the military-industrial sector. The United States accounts for damn near half of that global total.

So we really have Bush & Company to thank for the rise in this type of runaway spending on militarism, all at the expense of social and economic development in the United States as well as those other countries. We can readily see that Bush’s actions have fueled a new rush towards the brink of Armageddon. Bush’s military budget for fiscal year 2007 is $462.7 billion, and this total does not include money for the Afghanistan or Iraq wars.

Bush’s continued out of control spending is in effect leading to a world crisis, vis-à-vis, rushing headlong into global bankruptcy. Unfortunately for those of us here in the U.S., we as individuals do not have the luxury of just being able to print more paper money to cover our indebtedness. As well, we no longer have the option of filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy as personal debt, fueled by this neocon madness, overwhelms us. The corporate issuers of credit cards have seen to it that the already squeezed middle class will remain squeezed until not a drop of blood is left.

Record job losses since Bush took office, over 48 million folks uninsured-and climbing, since the monkey boy was sworn in, mean not a damn thing to the corporate bloodsuckers. The madness just continues unabated.

In the last article I published on these pages I was mildly surprised at the response it engendered, all of it positive by the way. In that very unscientific sampling, it appears that a hell of a lot of people out there, in addition to being frustrated as all get out, are looking for some kind of leadership, someone to tell them what to do. My response to all of them was, basically, quit looking for someone to tell you what to do, just do it! Whatever it may be.

That’s the problem you see, we’re hung up in this whole leadership thing. A revolution needs no leaders; it just needs the people who are desirous of making a change for the better. And there are a lot of us out there who desire such change.

Here’s something to think about, in a little over a month from now (May 1) International Worker’s Day will be here. This is the true Labor Day and commemorates the historic struggles of working folks. By the way, this day is recognized in every country except the United States, Canada and South Africa. Oddly enough, even though this day is not recognized by the United States, it all began here in the 1880s with the battle for an eight-hour workday.

The impetus for that movement was in Chicago. Those of you who know your labor history know about Haymarket Square, and the corporate carnage at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory which lead up to the events in Haymarket Square. That incident was used by corporate Amerika of that time to attack the entire labor movement, in addition to hanging a few folks: Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer and George Engle.

Corporate Amerika has effectively covered up the history of May Day, successfully painting it as holiday celebrated in Moscow’s Red Square. Our revisionist historians, along with the compliant media declared May 1 to be “Law Day.” To be sure they threw labor a bone by naming a day in September as “Labor Day.” But all true sons and daughters of those Chicago Anarchists of so long ago know the true meaning of May 1.

By denigrating the true meaning of International Worker’s Day, corporate Amerika, politicians and the media covered up an entire history of dissent in this country. It’s time to uncover that history, and bring it back to the forefront.

So to all those people who responded to my last commentary, as well as all other progressive radicals on this site and the many other alternative venues out there in cyberspace, let’s get together and have an old fashioned celebration on May 1. Let’s ring the globe in honor of those who have gone before us. Let’s ring the White House and the Halls of Congress in tribute of International Worker’s Day and give the plutocrats something to think about.

Just do it!

Frank Pitz is a reporter who writes for a small weekly in the high desert of the Mojave in southwestern Nevada. You can contact Frank at fpitz76@hotmail.com.