The Bush Betrayal: Chapter 6

We continue coverage of this awesome book with another small sample:

        Chapter Title: AmeriCorps and Moral Reformation
Section Heading: <none>

This is the first paragraph of the introduction of the chapter:

President Bush portrays good deeds as practically a curative for terrorist attacks. "Since this is a war of good versus evil, those of -- who want to participate in the war against terror can do acts of kindness to overwhelm the evil done to the country," Bush declared in a speech to Republican congressmen.²

Is this guy a f****in wacko, or what? I mean, if I go out and do a good deed by raking my neighbor's leafy yard then I'll be helping us win the so-called War on Terror? Do right-wing fundamentalists even believe in a line like this? Help a little old lady cross the street and you'll be helping to fight Osama & company?

Bovard rips Americorps as just one of many government financial sinkholes that are good for politicians and, well, good for politicians. As the big tax-and-spend liberal that I am (every liberal is a tax and spend liberal, right?), I love to see this stuff. If we had Bovard running as Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. he'd have us all paying about 50% the taxes we pay right now. How cool would that be?! Dude would slash all these whack 'social' programs that have no benefits, kill all the over-hyped wasteful military spending that the Pentagon loves to throw away, knock off a couple of departments like the Department of Education - that stuff would be great! (Well, the DOE thing sounds risky, but federal government-controlled education can't get much worse, can it? Why not try something new?)

But Bovard backs up all of his recommendations with strong research - much of it government funded, much of it done by that single beacon of credibility in the U.S. government (how is Bush going to try to fuck it up?) - the GAO. Bovard's research is the difference between his assertions and those made by right-wing-funded think tanks.

Link to original article (and Chapter 1 - Introduction) here.

Link to previous chapter.

Chapter 7.