I am (for those who know me) known for blasting the Democratic Party, who I feel have, more or less, let down the American People. This diary is not about that, and anyone who wants to argue with me about that, let's save it for another day.
This diary is about the malfeasance of the party in power, the Republican Party, the GOP -- and the danger of their rule to our very way of life.
It's also about the theft of billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars since the Bush gang came to power. Now, the politicians and the fat cats have long been ripping off the treasure of this nation, and of other nations. But I would propose that the Bush gang have reached stratospheric levels of thievery, dishonesty, and fraud, such that their very crimes have transcended the ability of the general population to comprehend them.
Here's what I mean... (read on)
Does anyone really know how much a billion dollars is? I mean, what it looks like, feels like.
If you made a million dollars every year, and then lived for a thousand years, then you'd know what a billion dollars is.
If I were to construct a table, with a scale that had an inch represent the number 1,000,000 (one million), I would need a piece of paper over 83 feet high to represent the number one billion.
Getting the picture?
How many billions are the oil companies/defense companies/etc. making/stealing under this current GOP regime? Billions and billions. How much money does the cozy royalities setup save the oil companies? 35 billion dollars, according to mcjoan's diary today. That's worth 35,000 millionaires, or the population of a small American city -- all millionaires!
The rulers of this country count on the fact that no one can appreciate the concreteness of these numbers. They are thieves, robber barons, and they are out to fleece you and your children and your children's children.
A few relevant examples:
Exxon Mobil posts record 4Q profit of $10.71 billion
The company's earnings amounted to $1.71 per share, up from $8.42 billion, or $1.30 per share, in the year ago quarter. The result topped the then-record quarterly profit of $9.92 billion Exxon posted in the 2005 third quarter.
Audit shows $8.8 billion in Iraq funds missing 8/19/2004
At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon.
The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority's own inspector general blasts the CPA for "not providing adequate stewardship" of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.
To this day, no one can say where the money went. -- Getting outraged yet? Or just feeling numb?
Daily Kos's own molly bloom wrote a fantastic diary the other day:
Public Citizen has released a report... detailing how "18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion."
70 billion, 10 billion, 35 billion... I haven't even mentioned the cost of the Iraq War yet. Let me rectify that; from Bloomberg.com today:
April 27 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of the war in Iraq will hit $320 billion once Congress approves an emergency spending measure that's now before the Senate, and that figure probably will double before the war ends, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The cost in fiscal 2006 alone will reach $101.8 billion, double the $51 billion spent in fiscal 2003, the nonpartisan service said. Even if U.S. troops start to leave this year, the total costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will jump by $371 billion during the withdrawal, the report said, citing an estimate from the Congressional Budget office.
I guess I've made my point. The numbers boggle the mind. And that is not a political statement, only, but a psychological one. Part of the evil genius of these bastards, or their pure good luck, is that the human mind cannot grasp such numbers. We can create them, write about them, etc., but we cannot feel them, if you will. The same phenomenon can be seen in the response to the millions and millions who died in the 1st and 2nd world wars: it's almost impossible to relate to it. It's Strangelovian calculus.
But there is no doubt about this: these are the statistics of a robber baron rule, of a criminal enterprise that runs roughshod over the civil body politic.
If someone were coming into your house night after night and stealing from you, what would you do? The GOP-run Congress and the Republican Administration may not be only the worst politicians in history, they may be -- no, they must be -- the biggest criminals in the history of the planet.
The GOP must be run out of office. I don't know if the Democrats are up to it. The courageous Democrats who do stand up -- Conyers on impeachment, Feingold on censure, Wyden on tax breaks for Big Oil -- are NOT backed by the Democratic Party establishment.
Hey!!! You said (I can hear you saying) that you wouldn't bad mouth the Democrats.
Yeah. But when the hell are the people of this country going to wake up to the enormity of the crimes being perpetrated? When the capitalist-generated wars topple their homes and send them -- should they be lucky enough to survive -- wandering like refugees through the land. (And hasn't this already happened with the victims of Katrina?)
I know I'm being a Cassandra here, but time is growing short. It's not just about the 2006 elections anymore. Something much more fundamental is brewing. We want leaders who will speak to that, who will lead us in the fight against the rule of the 21st Century Robber Barrons.
The last thievery is to steal the very dignity of our humanity.
Stop them!