In the photo (Wong/Getty) President Bush speaks at a meeting of the Associated General Contractors of America on May 2, 2007 in Washington, DC.
As a man is, so he sees.
---William Blake
There is only one great adventure and that is inwards toward the self.
---Henry Miller
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
---Henry David Thoreau
In America we believe in the marketplace, and we expect bang for our buck. The educated consumer is more highly valued than an educated voter. The wise shopper researches the available products before making a major purchase. Sometimes we complain we have too MANY product choices---like when you need to buy some cough syrup.
We detest socialism, and the mere mention of it can get you a punch in the nose. We think it's probably wasteful, and we can't stand being told what to do. Freedom means I choose the car I drive...and whether or not I throw trash out the window.
So how is it George Bush gets away with 7 years of no-bid contracts clearly to companies that support the Republican Party with lots of cash? What is a no-bid contract anyway and where did it come from? Does no one ask this? Is presidential war powers the answer to every inquiry?
I've spent the morning with 3 articles that have appeared online during the past week, and I feel the need to share them. The first is in the current issue of Rolling Stone (#1034) with How Bush's Cronies Swindled Billions blazing across the cover. May I repeat that word again, since so many seem to blank out at high numbers? BILLIONS. Its author is Matt Taibbi, to whom I referred you last April in a piece called Oil's Final Trickle http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000429.htm . If this journalist, still in his 30s, doesn't get a Pulitzer someday, I'll be surprised.
The next is Paul Krugman's commemorating the 2nd Anniversary last week of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans. TruthOut kindly put up the premium column yesterday. And finally there's an essay by Nat Hentoff on CIA torture. Well, this is Labor Day weekend reading to get you stirred up admittedly. It did me, and probably will give me more to talk about at the picnic than sale prices at the big boxes.
We'll start with Matt Taibbi's research. It's long and contains strong language. Rightly so!
Rollingstone.comThe Great Iraq Swindle How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury --From Issue 1034 Posted Aug 23, 2007 8:51 AM
URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle
Coincidentally, yesterday's New York Times contained a story entitled U.S. Says Company Bribed Officers for Work in Iraq. WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — An American-owned company operating from Kuwait paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to American contracting officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts, the government says in court documents...One of the officers, Maj. Gloria D. Davis, a contracting official in Kuwait, shot and killed herself in Baghdad in December 2006. Government officials say the suicide occurred a day after she admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from the company. The United States has begun proceedings to seize Major Davis’s assets, a move her heirs are contesting.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/washington/31contract.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1188525875-4I7PNTT6o4upGy1urp1ViwMakes you wonder just what it takes to bring something like this to light, eh?
Here's Paul Krugman on more of the economics involved in cleaning up New Orleans~~~
Katrina All the Time
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Friday 31 August 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/083107M.shtml
Katrina, Iraq, and finally Torture---the 3 pillars of the Bush legacy...and if We the People don't wise up, they could amount to the epitaph of this democratic republic. Nat Hentoff still writes about jazz and justice, bless him~~~
The Village VoiceNat HentoffHistory Will Not Absolve UsLeaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trialby Nat HentoffAugust 28th, 2007 6:30 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0735,hentoff,77643,6.html
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