I wonder if there’s any tie-in to Neil Bush’s Ignite! educational software enterprise. Considering how much theft and screwing of taxpayers came out of Brother Neil’s foray into the Savings & Loan industry, we can be confident he’s just as much a crook now.

Combine that with the information found at http://www.elladvocates.org/me…..oct06.html that reveals in 2006 that Ignite’s investors include President Bush’s parents, George H. W. and Barbara, along with Middle Eastern oil interests (like ARAMCO), a fugitive Russian tycoon, and Taiwanese high-tech firms.

Shiny Happy People, sing along everyone!

Great post!

and GeorgeSimian, thanks for your wise questions….

All of their programs were named as the opposite of what their actual function was. The Clear Air Act made the air dirtier. The No Child Left Behind Act left children behind. The Department of Homeland Security dismantled any effective security. What’s crazy is that special interests made tons of money from these programs anyway – and they still had to break the law to make more!

Corruption rots from the top down. We thought Enron had bad leadership, but look at our country.

Bush has effectively performed a coup d’etat. He can commit crimes because he owns the DOJ. He controls the army. He’s taken most of the National Guard to Iraq. He’s got all his buddies on the Supreme Court. What’s going to stop him? Subpeonas that he ignores?

Hey, Georgesimian, I think that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies do enough already to demoralize and disempower the American people. It is their only propaganda triumph–making the great progressive American majority feel like it is the minority. 75% of the American people now oppose their heinous war, despite 24/7 relentless war propaganda. The opposition started at 56% (Feb. ‘03, before the invasion), which would be a landslide in a presidential election–and probably was. And opposition has grown and grown and grown. So the fascist propaganda has failed! And our democracy is creaking back to life, with rebellions everywhere. For instance, there was a big voter boycott of the rigged electronic voting machines in ‘06, with Absentee Ballot voting getting up to 50% and above in some places. There is much more awareness about these Bushite-controlled machines and their “TRADE SECRET,” PROPRIETARY vote counting code, and other forms of election theft. And it appears to me that in ‘06 the voters proved that they can outvote the machines in some cases. (I think this is one of the reasons Rove implemented the US Attorney purge rather hastily in November, to try to turn the tide back.) Anyway, I see a lot of signs of life, and a lot of people working very hard to restore our democracy–and some taking great risks with lives and careers (whistleblowers, for instance).

We shouldn’t be giving vent to statements of defeatism–unless we really, really need to–but instead we should be looking to help people understand that they are not alone in their antiwar and progressive views, despite what they see and hear in the “news,” and helping to re-empower and, above all, to re-enfranchise the American people.

If you encourage people (or yourself) to think that this fascist junta is all-powerful and cannot be defeated, you aren’t doing people a lot of good, and it’s not really true. Think of Nelson Mandela, for instance, in jail for 29 years, to emerge and become the first black president of South Africa. Or think of the vast, long term fascist oppression in South America, where a huge leftist (majorityist) democracy movement is now in progress, with leftist governments elected in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, and big leftist movements in Paraguay, Peru and Mexico (likely to win future elections). How have people survived these enormously corrupt fascist governments? By faith and good will, and by practical means like attention to transparent vote counting and grass roots organization.

If it can happen in South America–where they have suffered so much–it can happen here, where modern democracy was first born.

I see a lot of signs of life, too. I just want people to be aware what’s going on, so we can do something about it. I’m pretty sure we can still get our country back, but when the DOJ won’t investigate crimes in the WH, then the President, by default, has absolute power. Don’t you think?

Oh, yes, I agree. We have suffered a fascist coup. But I would say that Bush, Cheney, Rove and associated felons SEEK absolute power–and have asserted it–but they do not have it yet. Look at the rebellion of the fired US Attorneys, just for an example. Give people just a little hope–a Democratic Congress that will at least investigate–and those who have been abused, or who are outraged at the crime and malfeasance they have witnessed start coming foward. And there have been similar rebellions with the military jag lawyers, the generals and other officers, in the intelligence community, and among grass roots activists who are not going to take election fraud any more, or who are protesting the war, or who are fighting for impeachment–for instance, inspiring impeachment resolutions in about a dozen state legislatures (any one of which has the power under Jefferson’s Rules–the official rules of Congress–to submit a bill of impeachment to the US House, and get impeachment proceedings started).

Then there is Congress, which quickly rescinded that sneaky section of the Patriot Act that gave Bush carte blanche on US Attorneys. I wish they would do the same on the Iraq War Resolution–just rescind it. Hell, I wish they would invalidate the 2004 election and rescind all of Bush’s appointments since then. But we are dealing with a complicit Congress, shaped by Diebold/ES&S “trade secret” vote counting, with many members who voted for the war, and/or war funding, and are hogtied to the ‘military-industrial complex’ and global corporate predators. They are still not very representative of the American people–but are most definitely an improvement over that last bunch of derelicts (the Diebold I Congress).

It is not easy to overturn a fascist coup by peaceful, democratic means. It takes patience and persistence. I think the matter rests with the American people–not with our leaders–and I have always had faith in the American people through our darkest hours. And I’ll tell you why. It was two stats: 56% opposed the war from the beginning. And 63% oppose torture “under any circumstances” (May ‘04). It’s hard to recall now how dark those days were. When I read those stats, to tell you the truth, I felt like crying. They moved me deeply. And I also thought: What’s wrong with this picture? These people are not crazy Bushnuts. These people are DISENFRANCHISED.

MOD NOTE: ZIG ALERT

Bush poll numbers are drifting lower, towards all-time low — per Rasmussen. Note the very high percentage of those who “strongly disapprove” = 45% now.

That’s three time the number of strongly support, by the way! Bush’s numbers in the Rassmussen poll, which generally massages the data in the Republicans favor…have been consistently under 40% this month, and look as if they have plunged to seek a new lower plateau.

The “surge” is an utter failure and the corruption of this Administration is finally getting the sanitary effects of sunlight.

The MSM can’t easily ignore the Senate Hearings and people are steadily relying on direct media to get their information.

And this was all before the Tilman Cover-Up hit the press circuit! When those Joe-Bobs that worshipped Tilman hear about the cover-up of the Friendly Fire incident…they won’t trust anything that comes out the Pentagon’s gobs anymore!

puppethead @ 31

Phule @ 17

Just wait until they find out about the baby slave trading being done by the Department of Health….(And I hope I’m only joking)

You’d like to hope so, but there was the alleged child prostitution ring under Bush the Elder, which got quite a bit of news coverage.

Oh wait, no not really. It’s all from The Washington Times, so twenty years ago the Moonies were trying to destroy the Bush family. Now they’re doing business with them.

That is a true story I remember when it was on the news.

Maybe a deal was struck to suppress the information in exchange for….

But if the story was a slander, one wonders why Bush Jr. and his brothers would want to have anything to do with the Moonies and the Washington Times. I mean if someone falsely accused me (or my father) of being involved in a child sex ring that would make them anathema for eternity.

And wasn’t Dubya and some of the brothers also implicated in this in some way?

Funny how power, political influence and money tainted this “great man of principle, George W. Bush”….. bwahahahahahahahaahaha!

Priscilla, Queen of the Beach @ 148 -

I read your post & feel like weeping. My children attended a Title 1 school when NCLB was enacted and it’s absolutely the worst piece of legislation passed in decades. I read something in the Post at the time quoting right-wing groups in New York who were pushing this as a way to essentially gut the public school system. I’m stopping here because I could write reams (as I’m sure you could) about the actual awful effects of this legislation and the letters we wrote to politicians and the State Board of Ed. people in Maryland. Amazingly enough, the best response was from a Republican, Wayne Gilchrest, who was our representative back then. He had been a teacher and voted against it! He’s the only republican I’ve voted for since I changed party back in ‘92.

The modern republican party is a criminal enterprise.

Beth, thanks for the comment. Thankfully, there are many committed teachers who refuse to let NCLB drive us away from doing what we love to do: making a difference in children’s lives. I support anyone of any party who opposes this terrible law. Sadly enough, it’s a group of Republican House members who have tried to introduce legislation to allow states to opt out of the testing requirements without losing federal funding.

The Democratic party has been strangely silent or they only talk about “fully funding” the monstrosity (Kennedy’s and Miller’s statement) and creating “national standards” to replace the ad-hoc state standards.

What needs to be done, IMHO, is to trash the dang thing and actually work to combat poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, inadequate medical and mental health care, and create living-wage jobs, family support networks, affordable housing, and supportive, fully-funded public schools that ACTUALLY provide the same resources to ALL children, no matter the color of their skin, their home language, or the political (or non-political) bent of the neighborhoods where they live.

This is the future of America that we are talking about, after all. For years I heard that “we” couldn’t afford to fix the crumbling schools and then PRESTO! billions upon billions pulled out of the hat for the Iraq war. Priorities, America!

I read your post & feel like weeping. My children attended a Title 1 school when NCLB was enacted and it’s absolutely the worst piece of legislation passed in decades. I read something in the Post at the time quoting right-wing groups in New York who were pushing this as a way to essentially gut the public school system. I’m stopping here because I could write reams (as I’m sure you could) about the actual awful effects of this legislation and the letters we wrote to politicians and the State Board of Ed. people in Maryland. Amazingly enough, the best response was from a Republican, Wayne Gilchrest, who was our representative back then. He had been a teacher and voted against it! He’s the only republican I’ve voted for since I changed party back in ‘92.

The modern republican party is a criminal enterprise.