July 23, 2001 Home Back Issues       Banking on the End of the World? Our men in the White House By Stephanie Hiller Subscribe to our free e-newsletter!   In my mind, I have an image of George W. Bush on a balcony somewhere, like something in a movie about pre-WWII Europe, with that sickening grin -- throwing money into the raised hands of the cheering crowd. With the so-called tax cut, the Bush boys apparently hope to keep the crowd calm while the Men's Club sweeps every body's rights under the table, and under their big black boot. Here's a little fun money, kids; now go play, while Daddy smokes his Big Cigar. It's pissing away the exchequer, that's what it is -- And what can be the point of it? Are they hoping to topple the federal government in ten years so corporations can buy it? Heck that seems unnecessary. Don't they already own it? The tax cut, my daughter reminded me the other day, will take more and more out of the federal budget, but not really kicking in and hitting us hard until ten years from now, and crippling, guess what, our social programs. That's insanity -- the insanity we've come to expect from the White House. What on earth are they thinking? Cutting down forests faster than possible; digging up oil under the tundra and &endash; get this &endash; twice as much coal in Appalachia? Letting toxins from coal slurry and uranium mining wash into the water supply! Water will one day be worth more than gold. So here comes the carnival barker: Hurry, hurry, hurry! Get your shares in the water company! What are they thinking? Are they thinking? Or are their brains already completely fried by the nuclear radiation their greed has generated? You know the Atomic Energy Commission said, decades ago, that gamma radiation is damaging to the finer tissues of the brain. Helen Caldecott, the Australian physician who has been fighting for nuclear disarmament, writes in her autobiography that government officials thanked God for the gift of this bomb, which they saw as a mechanism to bring on His Second Coming. Jane Caputi's brilliant book on the nucler age, Gossips, Gorgons and Crones, also provides evidence that our devout leaders have worshiped this creation of theirs. So I guess they are banking on the End of the World. Well, whoa, I am here to warn them. Do they think Jesus will come back to save them? No sir. He'll be coming to take care of the poor, the sick, and the so-called sinners. Prostitutes even! Just like he did before. If Jesus can be persuaded to ever set foot on this earth again, he'll throw those moneylenders out of the temple one more time. Though they enter His churches, they do not know Him. Perhaps they have getaway plans. I remember sitting in the dentist's office one day, waiting to have a tooth pulled, when I opened a story in Life Magazine detailing the government's plans to colonize Mars. I could not believe my eyes. It was pure science fiction -- complete with the fabulous photography Life is famous for. But I've heard of these shenanigans since. Don't know how they plan to survive the dust storms out there, but that's not my problem. I sure have no objection to seeing all those good old boys hop a rocket to the stars. These guys (there's a better name for them, and you hear it all the time in the movies) are hell bent on speeding up the destruction of the planet so they can fill their own coffers before the Judgement Day. And if the people of this earth don't speak out against this destruction of their Mother in the name of the Father, then we bastard children deserve what we get. Last week, 150,000 people, mostly young, from Europe and all over the world protested the economic policies of the G8, the richest eight countries in the world &endash; America, Italy, France, England, Germany, Japan, Russia and Canada. They were treated with unprecedented brutality by police (see story) and some are dead. These kids and their elders are risking their lives to alert us to the danger that is coming closer and closer to our doorsteps with every passing day. Now we at home must speak out in support, or these brave activists will be ploughed under before our eyes. When they're gone, it will be too late to halt the spread of Neoliberal Fascism throughout the world. Remember the Nazis, the Mafia? They're all in cohoots with the leaders of the Christian Right and their friends, the Bush Boys. Mark my words well, sayeth Cassandra.