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The Madmen In The White House

By David Truskoff

18 August, 2008
Countercurrents.org

The new Polish American missile deal coming at this time is a siren that should call all thinking people to action. The often quoted words of, George Santayana "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Must headline the work of all those in the peace movement the world over.

This is not a time to be shrill or panicky, but it is a time to be a realist. It is a time to see the repeat of the 1930s and forties and the possibility of a horrible worldwide conflict.

The Great Depression in the United States 1929 to 1940 saw foreclosures of middle class homes and a sudden, rise in unemployment. Businesses and banks closed. People lost their life savings. More than 15 million Americans were unemployed. In the preceding decade of the twenties. Americans spent more than they earned but at the end of the decade paper millionaires went from mansions to cold water flats. Today the credit card debt of Americans is off the charts.

June 1932. More than 20,000 World War I veterans marched on Washington, D.C., to ask for early payment of government bonuses they had been promised. But the government refused, and when some members of the so-called Bonus Army didn’t leave the capital, federal troops used tear gas and bayonets to evict the men and their families.


While I have no complaints about the treatment I have received at VA hospitals the truth is today’s vets are getting shafted. 12.7% of veterans younger than age 65 were uninsured in 2004, the most recent year for which data were available, compared with 9.9% in 2000 (Washington Post, 6/21). In addition, 26.5% of uninsured veterans failed to obtain necessary health care because of cost issues and that 31% delayed such care because of cost issues "Today in America one in every 464 U.S. households -- 272,171 U.S. properties -- received a foreclosure notice, or were foreclosed on during the month of July. That represents an 8% increase from the previous month, and a 55% increase over last year.


Falling prices are putting more homeowner’s equity underwater, and are accelerating the housing decline."

Bloomberg also reported that Bank seizures rose 184% -- the most since reporting began in January 2005. "

Predictions that in one more decade America will have a population exceeding 4 hundred million people does not bode well for the economy based on a capitalist system that continues to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. There will just be too many poor. The so-called middle class will be the poor and the poor will be the very poor. The neocons seem to be hoping that another world war will save the system as in did back in the forties.

There are so many similarities to that era. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the unemployed in Detroit were called back to the sinking Ford motor company to make jet fighters? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the laid of workers at General Motors were called back to make tanks? They stopped making cars in 1941 and all turned to war production employing thousands of men and women who were on bread lines and seeking some sort of welfare help. It saved the system and I do believe that the mad men in Jerusalem and Washington have thoughts along those lines. There is no where to go for the Israel or the American economy except to expand the military complex.
The timing of the polish military action coupled with the Israel involvement is not accidental. The right wing puppet Polish government has its own problems that a military buildup might help solve.


Monika Figaj in Sunday, 25 February 2007 Turkish Weekly wrote, "Poland doesn’t have too much to brag about…The unemployment rate is 17,7 %, the poverty rate is 21% -the worst in Europe. However, the one thing that the EU report doesn’t talk about is the gigantic housing problem in Poland. Over 6,5 mln Poles live in insufficient housing conditions (out of a nation of 38 mln, that’s a big number). One third of houses need immediate renovation. One of the major problems is overcrowding. In Poland we have one of the lowest numbers of dwellings per 1000 inhabitants ( 330 dwellings) whereas countries like Luxembourg have over 500."

The capitalist system in Israel, Poland and the United States is failing again and the Madmen in the White House are capable of blundering into World War Three simply by trying to save a system that does not work. Roosevelt thought that a capitalist system with regulation could work, but we are far beyond that today. All the regulatory agencies are mostly dormant and or under the control of corporations they are supposed to regulate.

No, the sky is not falling, but we damned well better increase our efforts to redirect the mad men.

David Truskoff
Author What The Hell Is a liberal
www.erols.com/suttonbear

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