This is your Country, but only if you have the courage and strength to take it back.
You have received this “factoid” either because I sent it to you or because someone you know thought it important that you see this fact. My hope is that this message and others than follow will reach as many people as possible, giving voters’ real facts about the status of the two parties in the 2008 contest for the “soul” of America.
This message is my contribution to the debate over the two parties, neither of which totally matches my political profile. The fact that I am very angry at what the Bush and the Republicans have done to America will be obvious in the message, but I deeply believe that an enlightened electorate is the best answer to what can be done. I will not insult your intelligence with irrelevant arguments, character assassinations, and the like.
However, if you understand this argument, the Internet provides you with a tool of great power – the power to forward these facts to as many Americans as we can reach. The real power is in your hands directly -- the power to cast an intelligent ballot for the future and the power to send this message as far and wide as you can over the next few months. You can join me in this effort!
The Devaluing of the United States
The 2008 Presidential Election should be a referendum on the performance of George Bush and the Republicans, including John McCain, in Congress over the past eight years. It was Ronald Reagan that reminded us in 1980 that we should ask ourselves whether we are better off today than we were four years ago. This is how it should be. It is a simple question, one that people can easily answer for themselves. One very valid answer to the question arises from the relative value of the American Dollar compared with the Euro, the other great international currency. If the American Dollar increases in value, the United States as a whole – every asset – increases in value. If the American Dollar declines in value, the United States as a whole – every asset – decreases in value.
When George Bush and Dick Cheney entered office in January, 2001, the Euro was worth .98 cents. In February 2008, the Euro costs an average of $1.47 per Euro, but on March 7, 2008, the Dollar fell again to a new low, costing $1.53 per Euro. This is fact, not opinion and not campaign propaganda! In other words, the Dollar is less than 60 percent of what it was when Bush and Cheney took office, and this decline is the direct product of their policies.
Bush and the Republicans inherited budget surpluses and a strengthening dollar caused by a decision in the Clinton administration to balance the budget for the first prolonged period since World War II. Under the control of the Republicans in Congress and the Bush Administration, established in January 2001, the Republicans have managed through their fiscal policies to devalue the American Dollar – today referred to by many abroad as the “Bush” Dollar – by more than 40 percent and headed downward. In fact, John McCain has promised to continue the two main policies that caused this decline – continuing indefinitely the War in Iraq, using deficit financing to support it, and making permanent the Bush tax cuts, which mostly went to the rich.
Please take a moment to think about this. Bush and his Republicans in Congress, most of whom proudly proclaim themselves to be “fiscal conservatives,” have managed to reduce in just seven years the relative value of every asset in America by nearly 40 percent – an amount in dollars that is in the tens of trillions of dollars of losses—that’s $10,000,000,000.000.00. This, of course, includes your house, your savings accounts and retirement accounts, your investment portfolio, your land – every asset you own. The effect is also profound on nearly everything you buy that is imported – the oil to heat your home, the gasoline for your car, all of the toys for your children and grandchildren, the clothes you wear, and a thousand other goods and services. The effect is equally profound on the ability of foreign corporations to buy into American corporations and businesses, and many American “assets” are being purchased with the strong Euro by foreign corporations and individuals, i.e., the selling of America, wholesale, to interests internationally allied with and friendly to Bush and Cheney!
But the devaluation of the Dollar means more than that. The value accorded the Dollar is a reflection of the confidence in America that people have all over the World, and the decline of the Dollar matches the growth in the contempt with which the Bush/Cheney administration is held by those who buy and sell currency. Bush and Cheney, with their unnecessary War in Iraq, have squandered much of the good will America has earned in the world over the last hundred years.
George Bush did not do this alone. He had great help from the Republicans in the House and the Senate, including John McCain, many of whom are going to now tell you that they were against all of this. They tell the “Big Lie!” They broadcast this particular lie during every election, with advertising and media purchased with tens of millions of dollars contributed by the lobbies in Washington, D.C. These lobbies trade campaign contributions for their ability feed off of actions by the government, and they provide their support primarily to the incumbents in Congress. The incumbents go home then and run “against” Congress and national policy and think that you, their seemingly ignorant, constituents, will just let them get away with it. The question is: Will you really allow them to get away with it?
What Can You Do About This?
The religious right in America, most of whom prefer very socially conservative Republicans, believes in Biblical injunctions. Personally, I like the one that says, in effect, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” The Republican Party and the Bush administration have, through the policies they followed, sowed the relative devaluation of everything we own in America by more than 40 percent. Now, they need to reap the catastrophic electoral defeat that they have so generously earned; a defeat felt at every level of government, in the House and in the Senate, and in the race for the White House. So what can you do personally to see to it that they reap what they have sowed? It is pretty simple again, but it does take your participation.
1. You can, of course, vote against Republicans for every office they seek, especially the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency. You have the power to punish them!
2. You can support Barak Obama for President, because he is by far the strongest candidate to defeat the Republicans and John McCain in the fall, and defeating them matters to all of us, our children and our grandchildren.
3. You can make contributions, on line, to most of the Democratic candidates who are running either for reelection or to unseat entrenched Republicans. In particular, you need to fund the Democratic candidates in your area who will run against entrenched Republicans. The Republicans almost uniformly will be funded by entrenched special interests.
4. You can circulate this information to as many people as you can, asking them to send it on to their family members and friends, and so on. This democratic idea is also simple. If you just pass these messages on, and your friends and family follow suit, the longer term effect will be to reach millions of Americans with real facts, and not political propaganda.
Email, blogging, and the Internet have made you a powerful voice in the election. You have the ability to influence others, by giving them real facts – not political propaganda – on which to base their own decision. The information on the devaluation of the dollar is indisputable, and it is the cumulative reflection of the phony economics followed by the Republicans. As the say in the movie, “Pass it on,” to everyone that you can. You can send this to anyone, post it on Web sites, or send it to the media!
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