What Is This Recurring Charge On My Statement?

Skeptical Eye has joined the Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus. Check out the blogroll on the sidebar. I visited some great sites just by randomly selecting blogs from the list. The Iraq mess is the most important issue this year. I believe it overrides every other issue, even the economy (though there is a relationship, as the Iraq occupation is costing us billions).

I was listening to Glenn Beck on the radio (not a regular habit of mine) the other day, and he was talking about the election and whether or not he would be voting for John McCain in November. He said he thought that Obama was dangerous because he was the return of FDR and his spending would bankrupt us (or something to that effect, I'm paraphrasing). The truth is, even if you are an economic conservative the Republicans are not the answer, certainly not this year. Bush has increased domestic spending and expanded entitlements (the prescription drug benefit) and his neoconned foreign policy has lead us into a quagmire of epic diminsions. On the home front, the bill of rights has been ripped to shreds (with the acquiescence, of course, of congress, including the majority of Democrats) and McCain will only continue these failed and even more dangerous policies. What's more of a threat to the America we know and want to pass on to our children, a few more domestic programs or the continuation of the present destruction of the civil liberties enshrined in our constitution; a Democrat in the White House or a worse than Bush clone who will likely fulfill his demented fantasies of putting the boots of US troops on the ground in more countries around the world? War is the health of the state and always has been, but today's "conservatives" have apparently forgotten that.

The video below shows the monetary cost of the war for each American family. To fully be aware of the deeper meaning of the video (whether it was the intent or not of whoever produced it) you have to realize that unlike other products or services we choose to purchase in the free market, the state takes our money even if we didn't ask for the "service" it says it is providing. Voting usually doesn't change much, so the idea that "the people" want what government is giving us is a lie. The American people turned against the Bush administration's foreign policy in 2006 and voted in a do nothing Democratic congress to change that. Did we get what we voted for? No, because both parties are part of the ruling establishment and the people's will ultimately matters little to them. That is why I don't have much hope for anything but a possible reduction in the influence of the neocons if a Democrat is elected President (the neocons have been careful to keep their feet in both major parties). We certainly won't be seeing a change in the basic premise of current US foreign policy, i.e., of the interventionist assumptions of our elitist rulers.



Via Pissed On Politics