Tag: funds

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Time To Get Out

The pro-war crowd has been emphasizing the recent drop in American casualties in Iraq, measured by the month, but the fact remains that 2007 has been the most lethal year of war for Americans, and it’s not over yet.

At this writing, 853 Americans have died in 2007, which tops the previous record of 849 in 2004. Altogether, 3,858 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. The sad thing is that they are dying for nothing, because the cowardly Congress refuses to stop the war by cutting off the funds.

The administration defines “winning” as a stable, democratic Iraq able to defend itself. That’s really a definition of a no-win war. The only way to establish stability with Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites at each other’s throats is to find another dictator ruthless enough to force stability at the point of a gun. In other words, you can have stability with no democracy or democracy with no stability. Take your choice.

Either way, it is not worth the life of a single American.

It’s time for the American people to face the question, “What’s in it for us?” That’s not being selfish. It’s our blood and our treasure, so surely the American people have a right to expect some gain for this sacrifice. So what is it?

The answer is nothing. The corporate friends of the Bush-Cheney gang have gained plenty of profits, but they haven’t shared them with the dead soldiers — or with the American people, for that matter. Whether Iraq has a new dictator or becomes an Islamic republic aligned with Iran, Americans will have no friends in a country we wrecked while killing at least 100,000 Iraqis and displacing 2 million more. It will be a long time before any nonsuicidal Americans put Iraq on their places-to-visit list.

The Bush administration has been the most secretive and deceptive bunch to occupy the White House in history. The truth is, nobody knows for sure what the motive for going to war against Iraq really was. I read one theory that the neocons, the chief proponents and pushers of the war, envisioned the convicted embezzler and exile Ahmad Chalabi running the country and making peace with Israel. If it’s true, it was a pipe dream based on ignorance. Nobody in Iraq who had suffered through Saddam Hussein’s rule was going to turn the country over to some corrupt exile who had been living the high life in London and Washington.

Regardless of why we went in, it’s past time for us to get out. The Iraqi people don’t want us. As long as we stay, we will be looked upon as occupiers, and the insurgents will keep whittling away at our forces. Occupation cannot be sustained in a hostile environment, and bribery won’t change the way the Iraqis feel. We have done the people of Iraq way too much harm for them to forgive us.

There is no reasoning with President Bush. He’s as likely to attack Iran as he is to withdraw troops from Iraq. The only answer is to pressure Congress to find the nerve to cut the purse strings. There will be enough money in the pipeline to safely withdraw the troops. Keeping young Americans in harm’s way when their lives and limbs will be lost for no gains is not by any stretch supporting the troops. You support the troops by getting them out of harm’s way, just as Ronald Reagan did after we lost the Marines in Lebanon.

Iraq may or may not have a bloody war after we leave. That’s up to the Iraqis. It’s no skin off our nose whether they reconcile or draw their knives. It’s their country. Let them fight over it if that’s what they want to do. The Bush administration has not done one single thing right in the Middle East, and the situation in the whole area is worse and more dangerous because of these blunders.

America’s withdrawal would be a blessing to everyone concerned.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Bush Quacks On As Democrats Turn Tail

George Bush is no lame duck. You aren’t lame when you’re
getting your way on everything. At a press conference this week, instead of
quacking like a duck, he was strutting like a peacock, and warning the world
of how relevant he still is. The Decider Guy is dancing with the stars. A 24%
approval rating, a (still mostly) lapdog press and Orwellian delusions
continue to assure him that he can do as he damn well pleases. In other
words, he has another18 months to take this country farther down a rat hole.
And the one thing he knows for sure is the gutless opposition has no serious
plans to stop him.

Yesterday, the president and his party succeeded in
denying millions of poor American children healthcare by vetoing a bill to
expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Never mind that the
money spent on forty days in Iraq would have paid for at least ten million
poor kids to be insured for an entire year. We have the money for funding
perpetual wars, but not for our nation’s poor, sick children. This
administration, with the help of Congress, killed the bill.

Even more appalling, Bush and the Republicans fought to
get legal immunity for the telecommunications companies who helped this
government engage in spying and criminal phone tapping of innocent, private
citizens. Never mind that protecting the criminals who colluded with the
right-wingers will destroy the individual privacy and hitherto protected
freedoms of all Americans. So where did Congress line up on this despicable
piece of legislation? Right behind the Republicans, of course.

Most alarming, however, was another bizarre “Bring-It-On”
display when Bush seemed jacked up when alluding to a possible third world war
involving Iran. (Excuse me, “nukyuler armed Eye-ran.”) Jocularly chuckling at
questions regarding a potential engagement of war with another country in the
Middle East, he sounded more and more like a petulant, dangerous child.

While Bush was flipping off sick children, ripping up the
Constitution and rattling war sabers, where was the opposing party– the
majority party that was sent to Washington last year explicitly to stop Bush
from doing further damage? Pissing up the proverbial rope, as usual. Since
the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, declared impeachment of this president
to be off the table, it is the Democrats who are quickly making themselves
irrelevant. Bush and the Republicans control the agenda, determine the course
of action, and dictate the outcome. The Democrats continue to believe that
simply keeping their heads down will somehow propel them into an electoral
landslide in 2008! While Bush continues to gain relevancy by finding new and
novel ways to continue his campaign to expunge the planet of any life form
that disagrees with him, the congress merrily assumes the
earthworm-on-dry-pavement position.

In all this mess, it is the American people who seem to be
the least relevant to the politicians. Predictably, the president will continue
to carry on the Iraq war, but the one thing voters were counting on last year
when they elected a Democratic majority was having that majority use the
Constitutional powers available to them to stop the funding of the war.

And while Bush continues to destroy our Constitutional
freedoms, the Democrats astoundingly still cower in fear of being called
unpatriotic. This administration has flagrantly flouted the will of the people,
but the people figured out a long time ago not to expect anything different from
Bush. Congress, however, in its failure to confront the president, is also
ignoring the will of the people; so it is no surprise that they, not Bush, have
the lower approval rating.

-Make no mistake, Americans are sick and tired of Bush and
the Republicans, but they are more exasperated with and sickened by
Congressional Democrats who claim to be Bush’s adversaries, yet act like never
ending enablers. Like parents offering nothing more than repeated empty threats
to a destructive, out-of- control adolescent, the Democrats are the ones who are
becoming increasingly irrelevant and dare I say –lame? Perhaps they should heed
the words of the last Democratic President who said the American people would
rather support someone who is strong and wrong than someone who is right and
weak.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Pork Product?

One side says “pork barrel legislation”; the other says “community enhancement grant.” Calling the whole thing off, however, is no option.

Democratic state senator Jim Kyle commenced a whistle-stop tour of a dozen libraries and community centers in the 28th District last week to inform his constituents about the $20 million budget surplus the state will disperse through community enhancement grants.

The program puts the onus on organizations to apply for the funds, rather than on politicians to choose among favorites. “We’ve never done it like this before,” explains Kyle. “This is the middle ground for [politicians] who don’t want to choose.”

In May, Republican representative Brian Kelsey of Memphis waved an envelope full of bacon at the legislature in Nashville in protest of the bill and charged that the program looks like pork and smells like pork, regardless of the new guidelines.

“This is a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans,” says Kyle. “They think there’s something wrong with it. We think this is what we’re supposed to do.”

Other Republicans, though, view the program as a compromise. Mark Norris, Republican senator from Germantown, says, “We opposed other measures that weren’t, shall we say, arm’s length fund disbursements. This lets the [neutral] secretary of state review applications and decide.”

The money is left over from franchise and excise taxes, which are imposed quarterly on for-profit businesses statewide.

“The issue came down to this, or making specific budget appropriations,” Kyle says. “We thought that the better course of action was to create a pool of funds.”

Applications are available on the Web site of the Tennessee Secretary of State. The grant program is open to community organizations, nonprofits, and those who can find a sponsoring organization. As of August 3rd, a variety of Shelby County organizations had applied.

LaSimba Gray, pastor of the New Sardis Baptist Church, applied for $1 million for the currently nonexistent African-American Museum. The application’s stated purpose explains simply that the “funds will be used.”

Other local organizations make slightly more modest requests with more specific justifications. Families of Incarcerated Individuals, a nonprofit founded in 1989 to “deter incarceration through family support,” requested $4,000, with the stated purpose to “expand the program to serve more youth affected by incarceration.”

Applicants have a 4 p.m. August 15th deadline. The money must be spent by next June 30th, or it will revert back to the state.

Here in the land of barbecue and weekend cookouts, “pork” and “community enhancement” now intersect in more ways than one.