FROM THE RIDGE IN HENDERSON, NEVADA

This space is for Morris Heldt and his group of eclectic friends.  He welcomes their personal views, opinions or comments, no matter how controversial, or if he agrees with them or not.

Henderson, Nevada

October 1, 2008

It has been three years and 50 weeks since "A Record of ‘Misunderestimations’" was written. The computer still doesn’t recognize (misunderestimations as a valid word).

Voltaire has written that a society gets the government that it deserves. While Voltaire directed his satiric pen at the French government during the Age of Enlightenment, his words are quite applicable to the circumstances found in our own country today.

In reviewing the scattered remains of the Cheney/Bush years, it is clear that we are once again at the crossroads. The watchword for the last seven years has been fear…fear of another terrorist attack, fear of a "mushroom cloud", fear of the "Axis of Evil", and a general unease of our place in a world increasingly aligned against us. The Twenty First Century opened with Wall Street figuratively collapsing in rubble---and then literally collapsing seven years later with the home loan crisis.

Eighty to ninety percent of the nation thinks that our nation is moving in the wrong direction, and we now fear, and have concerns, about our own government.

The fear of an imperial presidency; the continuing problem of torture, along with the suspension of writ of habeas corpus; un-warranted tapping of phone lines, and a seeming disdain for the very principals of our constitution…either by design or ignorance.

The record deficits and an out-of-control national debt (the debt ceiling has been raised to $11.2 trillion—it is unclear if this includes the billions for the war in Iraq), environmental concerns, Social Security, and Medicare are also nagging problems that have not been addressed yet.

However, the legacy of the Cheney/Bush years will be judged mainly through the prism of four events: 1) Nine-eleven, and not taking the intelligence seriously, then over-reacting with, 2) a pre-emptive strike on a sovereign nation. 3) Hurricane Katrina, which was an "act of God", however, the government’s reaction was an act negligence, bordering on criminal. And, finally, 4) our current crisis on Wall Street with the collapse of our financial institutions initiated by the home loan upheaval. This apparently was due to the de-regulation of the banking industry, mainly through the efforts of Phil Graham and others, and we are left with a limited number of remedies, all bad.

We are straining the very fabric of our society, economically, culturally, and morally. As a nation we seem to have lost our direction caused by a series of disasters, any one of which would be major taken alone.

Much of what was said almost four years ago is still valid today, the shaded truth and outright lies by both sides are painfully apparent. Hopefully, the nation will be able to sort through the chaff and make an intelligent choice.

We do get the government we deserve; however, we do deserve better.

Duck Creek, Utah

October 15, 2004

 Record of "Misunderestimations"*

Written by Ken Cox

Will Rogers, a self-deprecating political satirist, and native of Oklahoma, once said, "All I know is what I read in the papers". He died with his pilot Wily Post in an air crash near Point Barrow, Alaska in 1935. If he were alive today, I wonder what he would say about the current deceptions, half-truths, and outright lies said and published, not only by pundits and surrogates, but by the candidates themselves.

This leads us to the question: how should we determine the truth in making decisions in an ethically challenged world, driven by winning at all costs---especially during this political season of discontent?

There is a distinct, uneasy feeling that if the candidates were interviewed, which has occurred, the truth would not be high on the agenda. John Kerry, a lawyer by training, would take a lawyer’s approach, as would his running mate John Edwards. The smooth, well-oiled answers would focus on that part of the truth that is favorable, sprinkled liberally with exaggerations. On the other hand, George Bush, not being as verbally adept nor, apparently, as intellectual, would just lie and exaggerate. This would be the tack of Dick Cheney also; both are businessmen and accustomed to circulating misinformation and untruths behind the secretive, closed doors of the boardroom. With either candidate, it would seem that truth, like justice, would be blind, wandering in a strange and hostile land.

Most concerned citizens are not privileged enough to gain direct access to the candidates so are forced to get information second hand, many times third or forth hand, and trust in the accuracy. In reading, viewing, or listening to the information, variety and comparison are the keys. Taking an average of a large volume of "facts", which at times is at a polar opposite, gives selective value and more control. It’s also important to know who the author is. For example, one would not expect a liberal article from Tony Blankly, formally working for Newt Gingrich, nor expect a conservative article from Eleanor Clift, commentator for "The McLaughlin Report"/PBS. Likewise, Pat Buchanan, a "paleo-conservative", would have a different viewpoint from Richard Perle, a "neo-conservative".

It is also important to determine where the source of the information is located on the political spectrum…such as:

"Vanity Fair"---decidedly liberal. "Time"---left of center. "The Weekly Standard"---neo-conservative. "The American Conservative"---paleo-conservative. Then, after gathering the information on the candidate(s) from the various sources, a personality, a modus operandi, becomes apparent. The aid-er and abettor of misinformation and confusion is the thirty second sound bite on television and radio---on which most people depend.

So, understanding a candidate’s viewpoint and agenda takes a certain amount of effort and responsibility. This is not easy---never said it was. While I sit in the coffee shop reading the morning paper, I watch as customers rush in, wait impatiently, order, and then rush out, burning their tongues with a quick sip before starting out on the daily freeway derby. What are you thinking? The kids? Late for work--- again? Noise under the hood? Life is messy with no time for political-economic issues………and who has time to vote? In a good year possibly 45%-50% of the eligible voters cast their vote, less in local elections. The real irony is: people in Iraq are dying to provide this privilege. I wonder if Iraqis have many of the same thoughts as they go to work in the morning. I wonder if they are worried about political-economic issues---and inform themselves. I wonder if Iraqis have a word in their language for democracy.

These thoughts on making intelligent decisions based on accurate, objective information are leading to the issues at hand in this election year, 2004. The election is basically a referendum on the record of George W. Bush---not what will be accomplished in the next four years for whomever is elected, but what has been accomplished in the previous four years by the current administration. We seem to forget that.

This, then, is a record taken from a variety of sources---"The Wall Street Journal", "Las Vegas Review Journal", "Salt Lake Tribune", "USA Today", "New York Times", "Washington Post", "Vanity Fair", "Time", "Newsweek". Television---"The McLaughlin Report", "Wall Street Week", "Washington Week in Review", "60 Minutes", and the evening news from the major services, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. Seven political books on the operation of this administration. Articles were by a variety of authors/commentators across the political spectrum.

The Record of "Misunderestimations"

The Constitution---First, it must be remembered, with respect to the constitution, that less is better. Bans on gay marriage should be decided at the state level. Is prohibition remembered? These were two unnecessary amendments to the federal constitution. George Bush favors an amendment to define marriage.

Israel/Palestine---The United States has had minimal to no engagement in what should be the focal point in the middle-east. Until boundary problems and human rights issues are resolved, there can be no peace in this critical area. However, with our pre-emptive war in Iraq, we can no longer be honest brokers for peace in the Arab world.

Taxes---Tax cuts for the rich and famous. Fifty three percent of the tax cuts went to the top 5% of the wealthiest taxpayers (this percentage varies from different sources---1%-10%), while approximately 12% went to the 60%, bottom tier. The cuts are highly "elitist" focusing on unearned income over earned income…that is, investment income over labor income. If you are heavily invested in equities, and concerned with capital gains, then you are a winner.

The environment---This is the most environmentally destructive administration in history, if we are to believe what we read, with the one possible exception: the American industrial revolution in the nineteenth century.

---Opening the National Forests to logging operations.

---Attempts to open ANWR to petroleum exploration.

---Mercury, due to pollution (easing of standards), in fresh water lakes and streams. If you’re pregnant, don’t eat the fish, otherwise eat and take your chance.

---The research into alternative energy sources and fuels for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and pollution problems, is almost non-existent. The only exception is a lowering of diesel emission contaminants, which will happen sometime in the future.

---Allows industry, through the "Clear Skies Initiative", to regulate itself by buying and selling credits for pollutants. (It should be noted that the president opposes regulating carbon dioxide emissions now, a reversal of his position in 2000).

---Abrogated the initiatives of the previous administration to set aside public lands that were not for commercial purposes such as mining.

---Failure to adopt the Kyoto Treaty. Russia was the last country to ratify the treaty. The world is moving on without us, even though we are one of the leading planet polluters.

---Refusal to cooperate in reducing or stopping land mine production---an environmental disaster. Land mines maim or kill thousands of innocent victims world-wide each year---the after-effects of previous conflicts.

---The government will continue testing nuclear devices such as the nuclear bunker-buster, while attempting to ban testing in other countries. This testing will be done in Nevada---bad news for the "down-winders" in Utah, and the cancer related medical problems it causes.

---The EPA and the environment. The EPA, pressured by the administration, has reduced fines and litigation for enforcement of industrial clean-up by both private corporations and the military. This has thrown the responsibility for clean-up and payment squarely on the back of the taxpayer. There has been a 15% reduction in cleanup from 2000-2004 by industry. Also, there has been 43% reduction by the military in cleaning up environmentally compromised bases, both current and former (ammo dumps, bombing ranges, chemical dumps and spillage). The overall reduction in the $447 billion defense budget has been from 1.5% to .86%.

---Stem cell research---the president has limited the study of embryonic stem cells to a relatively small number of already-established colonies in the laboratory, making effective research negligible.

---Growth---according to "USA Today", the current growth is "less robust than under other recent presidents" (President Carter to the present administration).

---Jobs---This is the first president to lose jobs since President Hoover in 1929 during the "Great Depression"… 75 years ago. After initially losing about 3,000,000 jobs, the current estimates range from 800,000 to 2,000,000 jobs lost, with the unemployment rate hovering at 5.4%. Many who were re-employed have taken major reductions in salary/benefits.

However, it must be noted that the economy moves in cycles irrespective of administrations, but deficits, interest rates, the stock market, etc are ancillary problems that can affect the economic outlook and therefore jobs.

---Education---The "No Child Left Behind" initiative, which was federally mandated, has been seriously under-funded by the administration. Estimates range from $22 billion-$25 billion, leaving severe shortages of funds at the local level.

---Energy---News flash!! Fuel prices are UP! Vehicle fuel price-at-the-pump is up approximately 25%. Home heating oil for winter, 2004 is up approximately 30%. The oil price per barrel is now over $55---and currently climbing. Admittedly, this cannot be totally blamed on the Iraq war. The crisis in Nigeria, and planned lower production levels in Venezuela are part of the problem (Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is clearly not a close friend since our meddling in his recall election last year). But, obviously, the burning oil lines and refineries in Iraq have severely curtailed production in the world’s second leading country with proven oil reserves. This is causing a corresponding rise in petroleum prices world-wide, with lower-tier incomes suffering most.

---Social security---Depending on where you read the statistics, social security is going bankrupt---it’s not a question of will it, but when will it?

The Bush solution is: private accounts. This lets workers invest their money in a risky market. The problem is: workers diverting payroll taxes into personal accounts will leave a gaping financial hole in social security. This will take funds out of the account, thereby reducing benefits to older Americans. George Bush may not totally privatize social security himself, but, by exacerbating the problem, could force this to be done in the future.

---Medical---More people are being forced out of insurance programs (currently 45-50 million are not covered) and those that remain are seeing their premiums rise by 10%-12% per year. The administration’s approach is: privatization of both medicare and medical insurance coverage. With medicare, partial privatization was accomplished with the current Medicare Bill. This program will cost billions more than the administration originally stated---this was revealed after the bill was passed and signed by the president. In medical insurance coverage there are two alternatives: 1) privatization, and 2) a government sponsored program, which would actually cover more people. In these two general plans, there are both pluses and minuses. Essentially, privatization would make health care more expensive for the individual, and a government program would make it more expensive for the taxpayer. The cost is estimated to be about the same for both types. However, a big part of the problem in a medicare/medical insurance evaluation is the acquisition and expense of medicine, with or without insurance. The administration, apparently pressured by the pharmaceutical lobbies, has prohibited the purchasing of less expensive drugs from other countries. On the other hand, government entities such as the Veteran’s Administration (VA) can, at a considerably lower cost. I have found no reasonable explanation for this other than, more money for the pharmaceutical industry, and in the case of the VA, a lowering of government expense.

---Veterans---programs are being cut and many Veteran’s Administration hospitals are being shut down across the country. This is occurring in the face of our attack on Iraq, with over 8,000 American casualties (injured and dead).

---Prisoner abuse---The administration must take responsibility for the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq, which was an egregious violation of the Geneva Convention’s, "rules of war". Also, constitutional failures at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba continue. Prisoners are held without knowing how long or what they are accused of. The Bush administration is "operating in a judicial parallel universe". "New York Times"

Oct. 28, 2004.

---A country and world divided---The president came to Washington as, he said, "A uniter", but has radicalized and polarized the United States electorate, and the world; the "New York Times" speaks of the "gaping, jagged hole" where the moderates used to be. The world has re-aligned itself to counter-balance the radical-right/lone cowboy approach of the current administration.

---The debt ---In 2000 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected a 10 year $5.6 trillion surplus. In 2004 the projection is (2005-2014) a $2 trillion deficit---a $7.6 trillion reversal! The deficit for fiscal year 2004 (ending September 30, 2004) was a record $415 billion. This deficit does not count much of the money spent on the Iraq war (Approximately $225 billion total since the invasion of Iraq, including a new request of $70 billion, according to a "New York Times" editorial, October 26, 2004). Trade deficit---$550 billion in 2003. This is equal to 5% of the overall economy. It should be noted that to pay the interest on the debt, America must borrow about $1.7 billion daily, mainly from China and Japan, and foreign assets in the United States total about $10 trillion. This is a lot of money that isn’t ours. Some possible results: 1) protectionism that could stifle capital flows making the problem of a high trade deficit worse. 2) a rise in interest rates. 3) volatility in the stock market.

---The war in Iraq---"Make no mistake about it, we are going to win". Lyndon B. Johnson, on the war in Vietnam.

Nothing has changed in the Middle East for a thousand years since the crusades, which extended over a period of 200 years. Of the five crusades, all were bloody and only the first was marginally successful. The invaders were able to maintain a lonely Christian outpost in a hostile Muslim world for about 80 years, then they were repulsed. The next four crusades were largely unsuccessful. The Arabs have resisted western intervention, beginning with Saladin, who first united the various Muslim factions to repel the Christian crusaders from the "holy city". These divisions and passions are no less evident in the modern era.

After the First World War and the refinement of battlefield killing machines, oil became the driving force behind the new imperialism. So it was, after that first great blood-letting, that the British and French carved up the middle-east. The old Babylon of the bible became the new Iraq with its oil. However, again, the British did not reckon on the religious fervor aroused by modern "crusaders".

Eventually the crescent won over the cross, and the British left after installing a dictator favorable to their interests, being unable to subdue the Muslim zealots.

The Crusaders were not welcome, the British were not welcome, and America is not welcome; we are the infidels. Hegel, the German philosopher, has said, "Man learns one thing from history: that he learns nothing from history".

In our current crusade Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld and other neo-conservative advisors have provoked a needless "pre-emptive" war. An ill-prepared, ill-advised president has taken this road, in the name of a terror that did not exist, for two reasons: 1) The Iraq/Al Qaeda connection, no evidence to date, and 2) weapons of mass destruction, none found and none expected to be found. Apparently, the weapons inspections were effective in preventing Sadam’s march to Armageddon. (Coincidentally, while American forces were searching for weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, they seemingly lost weapons that did exist! Three hundred and eighty tons of highly fissile materials were spirited off, possibly by terrorists, at the beginning of our Blitzkrieg to Baghdad).

Since we have no plan for a successful extraction or peaceful conclusion in a mistaken war, it now appears that there will be no honorable way out of this essentially religious confrontation---regardless of whom we elect as president. The critical thing to remember is: who started the war in the first place…………and why?

In summary, then, this is an odyssey of reading and studying the record of the four years that this administration has been in charge---it is by no means complete. To use an analogy, if I were on a corporate board of directors and saw the record of this CEO, I would vote to replace him before he could do anymore damage, both collectively, to the nation, and individually to my well-being as a citizen. He would need something smaller than a nation to manage, clearly not the most globally important superpower in the world today. However, as Mr. Bush stated in Bentonville, Arkansas on November 6, 2000, "They Misunderestimated Me." And indeed we may---again.

Alexis de Toqueville, traveling, in our newly-formed republic, from France in 1830, lamented in his classic, Democracy in America, that in America, 51% decide the fate of 49%. (This would actually be 51% of the approximately 50% that do vote).

Today, Will Rogers might not believe all that he "read(s) in the papers", even though it may be true.

   Epilogue

"There is no joy in Muddville tonight, Mighty Casey struck out".*

On November 2, 2004, as I sat watching the evening election returns, a slow realization began spreading through my body like the accumulation of Republican "red states" won by George Bush as they spread across the map of the US. It appeared as though the map were hemorrhaging, and only a massive transfusion would save it, however, as I learned the following day, that would not happen. Apparently we misunderestimated Mr. Bush------and the electorate. Contrary to what Abe Lincoln thought, we are able to fool all of the people all of the time.

*From: "Casey at Bat"

Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Morris Heldt   Sept. 18, 2008

The Death of JFK   by Morris Heldt  Nov. 22, 2003