Books reviews, current events, and other musings

 

In Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose investigate the impact of the Bush Presidency. A few of the chapters cover material that’s familiar to any news junkie: corporate contributions to Bush, the Bush tax cuts, and the war in Iraq. The rest of the book proves more worthwhile, though equally depressing, by discussing administration decisions that didn’t make the front pages but still had a significant influence on the well-being of the nation’s population.

Bush refused to extend unemployment benefits, despite increased unemployment during the recession. The Labor Department scrapped ergonomic regulations, years in the making, which would have done a great deal to help the nation’s labor force. In response to the “No Child Left Behind” initiative, schools pressure poor students to drop out and classes drill against the standardized exams, all in an effort to improve the all-important test scores. Congressional Republicans and Bush abolished the Superfund tax, so no money is available to clean up environmental disaster areas. Bush weakened USDA food inspections, leading to deaths from Listeria bacteria and other nasty contaminants. Unregulated groundwater pollution from coal-bed methane extraction in Wyoming is destroying the local environment and the ranches. Bush refused to release funds for warming houses in the winter. Bushwhacked explains how Enron, with support from Bush, screwed investors, employees, and utility customers. Bush has appointed some scary right-wing nut cases to the federal judiciary.

His foreign policies have been disastrous – opposing the Kyoto protocol on global warning, scrapping the ABM treaty so National Missile Defense could proceed, backing out of the Biological Weapons Convention, and weakening the Small Arms Control Treaty. He abandoned a Clinton plan to challenge international money laundering, often used by terrorists and drug dealers. The US rejected the International Criminal Court. He dismantled Clinton’s agreements with North Korea, and as a result North Korea is accelerating their nuclear weapons production. All of this, of course, is in addition to the mess in Iraq.

Bushwhacked made me even angrier about how much damage the Bush White House has done, to the nation and to the world. Every policy of theirs goes against the public interest, since the corporate right-wing fundamentalist agenda is all that matters to them. Ivins doesn’t provide the humorous zingers the way she used to, but her message is on target and important.