Worse than that a many of the “war hawks” in the administration responsible for orchestrating the war, and others closely linked to the Bush junta stood to profit directly from the Iraq invasion and the associated and phony “war against terror”. As soon as Donald Rumsfeld was appointed he began recruiting a corporate executives to run the Pentagon. Then we have Vice President Dick Cheney’s history as the former CEO of the oil industry giant Halliburton, who won lucrative post-war contracts in Iraq and is subsequently being investigated for defrauding the government out of millions, and whose subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, also won lucrative contracts in post-Saddam Iraq. But we also have people like ex-Secretary of State, George Shultz, who was on the board of directors of the Bechtel Group, who landed numerous contracts in the rebuilding of Iraq and was also chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a staunchly pro-war group with close ties to the White House. We also shouldn't forget James Woolsey, former CIA director and influential adviser to the current President, was also a key member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and is a director of the Washington-based private equity firm Paladin Capital. The company was set up three months after 9/11 and sees the aftermath of 9/11 as a business opportunity which 'offer[s] substantial promise for homeland security investment'. Paladin calculates that in the next few years the US government will spend $60 billion on anti-terrorism that would not have been spent before September 11^th. Richard Perle, who was also a member of the Defense Policy Board was forced to resign his chairmanship of the board because of bad publicity and possible conflicts of interest (although he remains a board member), is managing partner of the venture capital company Trireme, which invests in companies dealing in products of value to homeland security. But neither Woolsey nor Perle is alone in their membership in the highly influential Defense Policy Board or their war profiteering. The American watchdog group, the Center for Public Integrity, showed that nine of the board's members had or have ties to defense contractors. Oh, and did I forget to mention, that the current president’s father, George Bush Sr. worked for the Carlyle Group which owned United Defense, a weapons manufacturer that is making billions from selling arms and fighting vehicles to the Defense Department? The list goes on, but I think you get the picture.

In addition to direct financial ties "war on terrorism" we have that other small issue of the billions, in fact trillions of dollars that simply disappear or go unaccounted for by federal defense agencies, while we are told there is no money available for all types of social services. In August 2001, the US publication Insight on the News, reported that Robert Lieberman, the Deputy Inspector General of the Department of Defense, admitted that $4.4 trillion (that is 4,400,000,000,000) in the Pentagon’s books had to be cooked to compile required financial statements. "In one year, $1.1 trillion was simply gone and no one can be sure when, where and to whom the money went." This same article went on to spells out that in the year 2000, the Pentagon "lost" more than the $855 billion in individual taxes that the IRS collected in 1999. And on September 10, 2001 - the day before attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - CBS News reported that the Pentagon had "lost" $2.3 trillion. A trillion dollars? Gone? That’s a 13 digit number! To put this in perspective, Dr. Helen Caldicott, anti-nuclear weapon activist and founder of Physicians For Social Responsibility Disarmament, calculated that one trillion dollars represents approximately $1,000 expended every minute since the life of Jesus! In January of this year, Pentagon auditors spent 1,139 hours altering their own files in order to pass an internal review, when the auditors in the New York City office learned well in advance which files a review team would check. The fabrication was discovered in 2001, but the report on it was not disclosed until this January and this is in addition to revelations reported in 2001 that the inspector general's office itself destroyed documents and replaced them with fakes to avoid embarrassment in a review of its work.

“You’ll never have dinner with the President.
You’ll never have dinner with the President.
You’ll never have dinner with the President.
And when you see his ass again, be hesitant.”
"No Vaseline" 

 

Despite the billions upon billions of dollars being misappropriated by the Military Industrial Complex the families of many soldiers in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, have been forced to come out of their own pockets to buy “body armor”, which cost hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars, for their relatives stationed in these countries since the military’s supply was inadequate. To anyone reading this, particularly any soldier reading this, if you don’t get it by now you will never get it. As the US General Smedly Butler so poignantly stated in 1933 - “War is a Racket” - and you are the muscle for a racketeering operation that makes the Mafia look like the girl scouts. The people running the country don’t love you, don’t care about you, and they will send you off to die and kill to protect their greed and narrow self-interest. They'll test chemical weapons on you, spray you with Agent Orange, expose you to Depleted Uranium, etc. And when you're sick or have outlived your usefulness, they'll deny any responsibility and maybe even your benefits. 

So you shouldn't be at all surprised when the Bush administration prevents the media from showing any images of soldiers coffins coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan or when neither the president nor the vice-president attends the funerals of a single soldier. Don't wonder what's going on when there are attempts to modify the 2004 Defense authorization bill to deny disability compensation and priority for health care to Americans who become disabled while "serving their country" if their disabilities are not “directly” related to performance of their official duties. And don't trip' when disabled soldiers who will never see combat again, are forced out of the army where they receive less than half of their already meager salaries in benefits.

Ask me if I'm tryna' kick knowledge
Nah, I'm tryna' kick the shit you need to learn though
That ether, that shit that make your soul burn slow
"Ether"

 

Now I hate to be pessimistic but I’m a realist, and quite frankly regardless of color or ethnicity “we the people”, particularly those of us who are not rich are financially well off have a very serious and dangerous situation on our hands. Gaps in income and power domestically continue to grow, and this same phenomena is witnessed on an international scale. The International Labor Organization reports that of three billion human beings who live on less than two dollars a day, one billion subsist on half that. In 1960 the income of the richest fifth of the world’s population was 30 times that of the poorest fifth, as of 1999 it was 74 to 1 and rising. Domestically the Agriculture Department has for 3 years in a row seen an increase in the number of households experiencing hunger and those worried about having enough money to pay for food. Also according to the Department of Agriculture, one out of every six households with children in America were “food insecure” in 2002 (meaning there was not always enough food for all household members to have active healthy lives because the household lacked money or other resources for food). In essence, “The Bridge is Over”, and so are the illusions of our common interest.

The Washington DC based Children’s Defense Fund reported in May of last year that the number of black children living in “extreme poverty (with after tax income including food and housing benefits below half the poverty line)” in the U.S. rose to close to 1 million in 2001, twice the number living in such conditions just 20 years ago when such numbers began being tabulated. This study also reported 13% and 2% increases from the year 2000, respectively, in the number of Hispanic and White children living in such conditions.

For 2002, one out of every six American children (16.7 percent) was poor. The numbers would in fact be much higher if we calculated a more realistic poverty line, instead of the official one which was about $14,000 a year for a family of three in 2001. But even using the official poverty line, broken down by race and ethnicity, 31.5 percent of Black children, 28.6 percent of Hispanic children, 11.0 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander children, and 9.4 percent of Non-Hispanic White children were poor. Also to dispel some myths, the CDF reports that poor families have only 2.2 children on average and 73% of children in poverty in 2002 lived in a family where someone worked full- or part-time for at least part of the year. Furthermore 35 percent of poor children lived with a full-time year-round worker. 

As usual the attacks begin with, and are most vicious against, the most vulnerable sections of society, which in this country is the poor and people of color. And since American society has never disavowed and refuses to deal with it’s continuing legacy of racism, such disturbing trends particularly among people of color, are ignored until they start showing up on everyone's doorstep.

The reach and power of the “free-market”, Capitalism that has driven us to this point continues to grow as the private profit, sweatshop economy spreads it’s cancer daily, and labor and environmental standards continue their race to the bottom. In the U.S., for the most part organized labor is extremely timid and consistently on the defensive, and many of the larger unions are politically bankrupt and corrupt. As an example, in the lead-up to the most recent Iraq War, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, orchestrated a rally attended by some 10,000 union construction workers at the site of the fallen World Trade Center towers, to demonstrate in support of the Bush administration’s illegal war. Who would have "thunk it" working class people who often end up in the military due to lack of alternative opportunities, demonstrating in support of a war - racism, nationalism, and ignorance at their worst. 

Workers in the United States up until now, have NOT for the most part directed their anger at corporations for shipping decent-paying jobs overseas, but instead at other working class and poor people in other countries, as well as immigrants. The working and middle class, and the poor in contemporary American society seems almost completely devoid of even the most basic class consciousness, and we generally lack organizations with a political vision willing to challenge the current political and social direction. Meanwhile, a single political party with a Democratic and Republican wing, advances different levels of a singular vision based on the private profit of a tiny percentage of the population, at any and all cost. Simultaneously, this single party and the related media establishment effectively exclude any competing parties from the political process. In fact the Democratic wing of this party often functions as a buffer or failsafe mechanism, always seeking to co-opt popular discontent and disillusionment with the political and social order into support for their party where it can be controlled. In the absence of any real positive achievements to show the average person, the Republicans led by the Bush administration have turned to another old scheme using the “culture war”, but this time with a new twist - by attacking homosexuals and promoting their own vision of “Christianity” in government. Predictably these ploys have had their strongest appeal in the most politically backward and reactionary sectors of society, namely the ultra “conservative” and/or Christian fundamentalist right wing. Regardless of how one feels about abortion or gay marriage, by themselves neither issue should be important enough to cast a vote for Bush based on his record on just about every other issue, but since when have working people in America been known to do what’s in their best interest?

I know you working stiffs think that I forgot
Hell no I ain't forgot I just remember what you told me
You said don't go to war unless I got my money right
Aight, I got my money right, now I want WAR
"Against All Odds"

To date the incumbent Republican president George Bush has raised a record amount of more than 130 million dollars for his “re-election” (I thought you had to be elected to get re-elected) campaign, and it is expected that this amount will rise as high as 200 million before the election. During one six month period he raised more money than he did during the entire 2000 campaign. This has been done through a powerful network of donors and fund raisers classified into ranks called: Bush's "Sharpshooters", "Pioneers" and "Rangers" (those who raise $200,000 or more). I can only imagine who the donors were responsible for such a large war chest, but trust I did not receive a phone call. On the other side his Democratic rival, John Kerry, has raised more than $30 million, a substantial but relatively small amount. I doubt this will ultimately be a problem however, since if financial times gets tough Kerry could easily dip into his wife’s inherited (and consequently his) half a billion dollar Heinz family/Corporation fortune. Both political parties and the entire political process is bought and paid for, and controlled by corporations and the economic elite who act as a de-facto government and control most of the public’s access to information. Assuming there is an election in November 2004, both representatives of the 2 wings of “the party” will be person’s of similar financial and social pedigree. They even attended the same college and belong to the same secret society. On issues, that they have both voted on, Kerry has voted the same as Bush approximately 70% of the time. Both candidates support the occupation of Iraq, unilateralist "preemptive" war (first strike), and accept the false construct, that is the "war on terror". In fact, in a recent speech in Los Angeles, Kerry attacked Bush for not doing enough in the "war on terror", arguing that he would be an even stronger war president. Yet and still, given an opportunity most of us will have little choice but to vote for this election’s “lesser of two evils“, John Kerry, as another 4 years of Bush and his neo-conservative cabal running the country may leave the planet uninhabitable. HOWEVER, it’s important to realize that in voting for Kerry one is not ushering in a new era in American politics or significantly changing the status quo. You are at best buying yourself a little time; time that would be best spent organizing a new party, political, and/or social movement independent of the Democrats and Republicans and willing to oppose the existing financial and social based on the private accumulation of wealth by the few created through exploitation of the many. We definitely Got Beef. The question now is, will we fight back?

Against all odds Hopin’ my true mother*&%^s know
This be the realest shit I ever wrote
Against all odds, up on the hataboard, getting provoked
To the truest shit I ever spoke
"Against All Odds"