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Opinions/Editorials Title: George W. Bush: A Symptom of Disease Sometimes you look around and wonder how things could have gone so wrong so quickly. America has become the antithesis of everything she purports to be. We are the greatest purveyors of violence the world has ever known; the largest weapons dealers on earth; and death and misery are our principal exports. Everything is for sale here, even men's tormented souls -- at least, those who still possess them. Our imperial leader, an impish little man with clear sociopathic symptoms, is incapable of empathy for the struggles of the common people, as those born into wealth and privilege often are. The man with his finger on the nuclear detonator is mentally ill, incapable of remorse -- a fact that should terrify every world citizen. I do not say this out of malice or to demean the president; it is simply a statement of fact based upon quantifiable evidence that any student of psychology would easily recognize. The fact that such a misfit could ascend to the presidency is testimony to the effectiveness of the capital system. Under capitalism, political power is not derived from the people, as would be the case in a democracy; nor does it not flow from the bottom up -- it matriculates from the top down. It is really quite simple: The men and women who are in office were put there by people with immense wealth to represent the interests of the wealthy, to make money for them. And that is exactly what they are doing. In many ways, George W. Bush is the perfect man for the job, if one understands what his real work entails as an emissary of the ruling class. He possesses all of the qualifications the vocation requires: callousness and indifference to the needs of others, the absence of conscience, truncated mental capacity; the inability to reason and to analyze; the incapacity to admit wrong doing; a penchant for cruelty that includes the enjoyment of inflicting pain and torture on others, as well as a powerful sense of nobility and entitlement that stems from being born into wealth and privilege. He is also a pathological liar. From the president's sickly perspective, the admission of failure is equivalent to a declaration of weakness and indecision, which explains his inability to change course, even if it means the destruction of America. Thus he has no guilt about sending thousands more men and women to kill and die in Iraq. You see, the president's mind is defective. It does not work like the minds of normal human beings. Corporate America placed George W. Bush in the White House to wage endless war; to bankrupt the federal treasury to the extent that few social programs will survive, and virtually all of our tax dollars will go into supporting the military industrial complex. The people who put him in office intend to end public ownership of the commons, as well as all government programs that do not directly benefit the wealthy. Let me clarify what this entails. If Bush and his handlers prevail in the class struggle, all social programs of value to the middle class and the poor, including Social Security, will be privatized and run for profit. The National Parks, National Forests, and all public lands will be privatized, and divvied up to private vendors such as the Disney Corporation. The public school system, like the public airwaves, will become for profit entities to serve corporate interests. Educating our children will be of secondary importance to the profitability of the corporations managing the schools. Every public service will be transferred to the private sector in order provide more wealth to corporate America at public expense. We see the foundations of privatization being laid in Iraq by the war profiteers. Billions of dollars in stolen wealth are being hauled out of Iraq by the very same corporations that lobbied for war. War is money and in America money is power to control the political process. It is a vicious cycle that will not end until the people recognize it for what it is and rise up against it. Certainly no man of conscience or integrity could so easily betray the people of America he is sworn to serve. That is why George W. Bush is the right man for the job and he is abetted by a compliant Congress acting under the influence of corporate lobbyists. But the president and his accomplices in Congress are only symptoms of a more pervasive disease that deeply afflicts our political system: capitalism. Class war is being waged simultaneously on many fronts and the dough keeps rolling in. Charles Sullivan is a photographer, freelance writer and social justice activist residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at: csullivan@phreego.com.
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