You Can Stop Worrying About Global Warming!

by Geezer Power @ 6:55 PM PDT


Don't worry, be happy

The Good News About War on Iran
By STEPHEN FLEISCHMAN

The government is outsourcing just about everything, reports The New York Times (2/3/07). Four hundred billion dollars was paid last year to independent contractors to do jobs that, traditionally and rightly, should have been done by government employees.

The Times' analysis showed that the "most secret and politically delicate government jobs, like intelligence collection and budget preparation, are increasingly contracted out, despite regulations forbidding the outsourcing of 'inherently governmental' work"

It's been an old canard by the right that government is incompetent. Government bureaucrats can't do anything right. They've worked real hard to make this the conventional wisdom. Big Government is bad. Small Government is good. "Tax and Spend" Democrats want big government, so the cliché goes. They support entitlements like Social Security and Medicare and other social programs that benefit the people.

But, the right and far right favor small government. Privatize as much as you can and get the profits into the hands of private enterprise, has been the battle-cry of the Republicans. Fight entitlements and support discretionary spending-only that which has been voted by Congress. Up military budgets and spending for national security. That's always popular. It's an old ploy. This new outsourcing mania certainly fuels the belief that capitalism has nowhere to go. The spectre of socialism hangs over "the system". In all probability its origin stems back to the fear of the Bolsheviks in the days of Palmer raids after World War I or to the Red Scare pitched by Senator Joseph McCarthy after World War II, or maybe back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

The Bush Administration has made it abundantly clear it's at a stalemate. They can't even win a good, old-fashioned imperialist war against a third-rate nation. The only reasons for the war that can be discerned is to benefit the large corporations that service it; the Halliburtons, the Bechtels, and a myriad of other companies, large and small, that reap their rewards from participating in our national security. These corporations have some clout, too. We know of Vice President Dick Chaney's connection to Halliburton. As for Bechtel, in 1980, Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign was run by George Shultz, president of Bechtel. Casper Weinberger was vice president and general council of Bechtel. Shultz was appointed Secretary of State and Weinberger, Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration. It's a good example of how corporate power and government have been intertwined. One learned gentleman, who should know, Benito Mussolini, pre-World War II Italian dictator, who coined the word "fascism" said it should be called "corporatism"-the combined power of corporations and government.