Rather-Less

So the media is falling all over itself bidding Dan Rather a fond farewell and remembering all of his contributions to journalism. Pardon me if I don't join in this effusive praise-fest. I am old enough to remember how the media acted during the Viet Nam War. Maybe I am over sensitive to the one-sided reporting and the distortions that passed for news. This doesn't excuse the disgraceful conduct of the administration, but it is worth remembering that it was Jack Kennedy that got us into that mess, that it was Harry Truman who formulated the concept of a “limited war”, and that it was Lyndon Johnson who mismanaged the conflict. During this entire period Cronkite, Rather, Jennings, and the rest of the media spun the news as negatively as possible and eventually laying the blame at the doorstep of Nixon -- who was evil personified. After all they couldn't pin responsibility on a democrat or do anything to tarnish the image of the deified Jack Kennedy. The entire concept of a “limited war” is ludicrous just as establishing “world peace” is a goal that is equivalent to solving “world hunger”. The media – especially the liberal media (is that a redundancy?) devote a great deal of energy demonstrating how evil capitalism is, how wrong big business is, and that Americans simply don't understand our rightful place is to stand hat in hand while the international community picks our pockets. All of this spin started with Viet Nam when the media decided they got better ratings attacking the military and the country rather than defending it.

Once they got away with that, they came to realize that there was no one there to oppose them and that they could report the news in such a way they could influence events and public opinion. From that point the news became less and less reliable and the various pundits gradually turned the networks into propaganda machines. I stopped watching CBS following Dan Rather’s attack on George H W Bush who was Vice President of the United States. He was appallingly disrespectful and Bush made mincemeat out of him because Bush new what Rather had in mind and insisted on the interview being live. That prevented Rather from spinning the interview and Bush came off looking like a gentleman and Rather came off looking like a democratic attack dog – which as it turns out – he was! I never watched CBS again and eventually stopped watching all of the networks because of their very obvious liberal bias. So goodbye Dan Rather – and hopefully you will have the grace to shut up unlike your colleague Walter Cronkite.

And this brings me to the United Nations. Talk about a totally worthless organization – this is an organization that has not successfully accomplished anything. It is dominated by Thugocracies and staffed by incredibly corrupt politicians but since most of these “diplomats” are relatives of the Thugs why does it surprise anyone that they are corrupt? That is the way they operate in their countries so their place in the UN simply gives them access to more opportunities to steal and as it turns out – rape as well. Of course all of this is done using American money while spending most of their time attacking the United States. Kofi Annan is only the tip of the iceberg and the appointment of Bolton as the new Ambassador to the UN should send a message to the UN that they had better get their act together because Bush won’t tolerate business as usual and Bolton has already stated that the UN is useless.

Has anyone noticed that perhaps President Bush is right and that his speeches and actions are having an impact worldwide? Even the Europeans are reluctantly beginning to tone down their criticisms. They haven’t reached the point of actually acknowledging that his foreign policy is working but it is hard to ignore the facts. There are demonstrations in Kuwait demanding more freedom and suffrage for women, demonstrations for free elections in Lebanon, free elections scheduled in Egypt with actual opponents, elections – albeit small ones – in Saudi Arabia. He has forced North Korean into the background and off of the front pages and delivered a message that they are a problem in the far east and that the Asian countries must deal with them not the US. He has successfully conducted free elections in Iraq and it is clear that situation is slowly coming under control. So with what appears to be vindication on the international stage, the media is turning to domestic policy and attempting to roast Bush on that.

Well he is certainly more vulnerable on the domestic side, but then there are a lot of things that never seem to get reported. For example – why is social security in trouble? Millions of Americans have been paying into it for a lot of years. So what happened to the money that was placed in that trust fund? Well if you or I had handled a trust fund placed in our care like the Congress handled the trust fund put in their care, we would be in jail. The Congress simply spent the money. In effect they took the money and left IOU’s so now all of the money is gone and all that is left is – well zip – nothing is left but IOU’s and a lot of hand wringing. The time has come to pay the piper and the Congress is split – with the Democrats – who merrily spent most of the money saying there isn’t a problem. They are especially opposed to “privatization”, which has never actually been described so no one really knows what that means. However, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the result will be less money for Congress to spend. Worse, if the people are allowed to keep part of their money in private investments, no only does Congress not get the money upfront, they can't get their hands on it after death because those funds become part of the person’s estate. Currently, many people die before being able to file for benefits and ALL of their money stays in the trust fund and thus is money that Congress can spend elsewhere.

So where does Congress spend all of this money? There is constant whining and complaining about not enough money for education, for roads, for health, etc. Hmmm – it seems to me Congress just sent a billion to Asia for Tsunami aid. Let me see, exactly how much money did those countries send to the US when Florida got leveled by Hurricanes? What about the millions in aid that has gone to Palestine? Aren’t they the ones who are murdering innocent people in Israel? How about the millions that are going into aid to Africa to fight AIDS? In fact how about the millions going to fight AIDs in general. Isn’t AID’s the result of poor decision making? My point is that Congress has pillaged Social Security and the Treasury to send money overseas to support causes and governments that do nothing for the US, while denying money and support to situations in the US that desperately need attention. President Bush is being attacked for his spending policies but no one seems to care -- the media in particular -- that the President can't spend ten cents -- Congress controls the purse strings and all the President can do is recommend what he thinks needs to be funded, but it is Congress that has the final say so if the President's deficit spending plans are bad -- all Congress has to do is not fund them.

Where is the media on these issues? Has anyone ever heard any person in the media call for an end of support for foreign aid or support for the UN? There is a constant hue and cry about the budget but the congressional response is more taxes not less spending -- and they control both -- so why don't they just cut back and tell the President to stuff it? Has anyone heard any of the politicians call for an end to the rape of the “trust fund” called Social Security? I didn't think so. The new mantra is we need a “usage tax”, which is another name for a national sales tax. Of course it is being touted as a replacement for the federal income tax, but the income tax would be phased out while the sales tax would be immediate. Of course the track record of Congress is that once a tax is in place it never goes away so we can look forward to the income tax AND a sales tax. We need tax reform but we need Congressional reform more.