“He denounced labor unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security, you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism. To him, socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged to explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either ideologically, polemically or academically." – Dr. Yoshi Tsurumi, commenting on former student, George W. Bush

Anyone who has contemplated filing for bankruptcy had better stop procrastinating. The Republican controlled Congress will soon pass legislation making it more difficult to get a second financial chance. The industry that bombards us with unsolicited offers of credit and puts college students without income in huge amounts of debt apparently needs to be protected from itself. Bush and the Republicans want to make the rich richer, and the rest of us subservient to them.

A recent Harvard study indicated that medical expenses are the cause of half of the bankruptcies filed in this country and that most of those who ended up bankrupt due to health problems actually had health insurance coverage on their jobs. Too bad they lost their jobs due to ill health.

While we’re on the subject of timeliness, it is already too late to participate in a class action lawsuit. Congress has deemed only federal courts worthy of considering these cases that overwhelmingly involve discrimination and personal injury complaints against large corporations. You see, federal courts are more likely to side with powerful interests. State courts are more favorable to plaintiffs, hence the need to prevent them from hearing any.

Bush and his henchmen and women are getting busy. They are taking care of an agenda the right wing has fantasized about since the days of FDR. Roosevelt was reviled in his time as a “traitor to his class.” Apparently the surviving members of that class never got over their feelings of betrayal toward him. They have been lurking for decades, waiting for their chance to put the rest of us back in our place. They have found their champion in George W. Bush.

Bush can do anything he wants. He has a Congressional majority, a weak opposition, and a compliant media. So compliant that they shrug their shoulders and whimper that they don’t know how to cover the story of a phony reporter from a phony news service who managed to get White House press credentials.

The phony reporter with the phony news service used an alias. Despite not having bona fide press credentials the phony reporter with an alias managed to be called on during press conferences to ask the softest of softball questions. He was also very likely a prostitute who posed nude on gay sex websites. The sites are still accessible and the person in the photos looks a lot like the wannabe journalist. (See Americablog – adult photos warning.) If you haven’t heard the tale of Jeff Gannon, whose real name is Jeff Guckert, you are not alone. The corporate media refuse to blow the whistle on him and his patrons.

The Bushmen can never relax, not even when their twisted dreams come true, so they take action where none is needed. They already had plenty of media whores at their disposal. They didn’t need to get a real whore and try to pass him off as a reporter.

Representative John Conyers and his colleague Louise Slaughter have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Homeland Security on Gannon/Guckert. There are too few like Conyers, literally and figuratively. Democratic party ineptitude has continued the Republicans' Congressional majority and many of the Democrats who remain are too quick to surrender.

It is titillating to speculate on who greased the wheels for Gannon, but there is a larger issue at work. Bush and his team can get away with anything because there is no one to stop them. The damage done by this administration will last for many years after Bush is gone. Even if the Democrats managed to win back Congress or the presidency, very big ifs indeed, they would have to have the guts to undo the wrongs that have been committed. Those are too many ifs for my liking.

All of the Bushmen are moving fast to wreak havoc on the rest of the world by fulfilling their ugly fantasies. John Negroponte, nominated to head the newly created chief of intelligence post, is responsible for allowing death squads to operate in Honduras in the 1980s when he was the United States ambassador there. We already have an advocate of torture, Alberto Gonzales, serving as Attorney General.

Yoshi Tsurumi says that many of his students in Harvard’s MBA program came from well connected and well to do families, but most were too polite to say so. Unlike his counterparts, Dubya bragged routinely that he got into the Texas Air National Guard and Harvard because of family connections.

He now gets to live out his fantasy of government of the privileged, for the privileged, and by the privileged. Unlike his student days he doesn’t have to put up with any pesky, smarty pants Ivy Leaguers demanding that he explain himself. As he put it, the best part of being president is “not having to answer to anyone.”

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in   Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City.  She can be reached via e-Mail at [email protected]. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/

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