Anna FieldsBushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America

With this book, authors Molly Ivans and Lou Debose employ both considerable wit and a biting sarcasm to advantage in bringing to ground the terrible truth of how the cumulative actions of the Bush administration massively dislocates the hopes, fortunes, and welfare of ordinary Americans. What the Bush White House and its political appointees across the spectrum of executive departments are about can only be described as a kind of radical right reformation of the federal government and a revolutionary redefinition of the government's role as the defender and protector of the average citizen against the power and prerogatives of massive corporate entities like Enron and the auto industry. In so doing, they are transforming government policies into pro-business and anti-consumers cheerleaders and co-conspirators with the corporate interests, in a retrogressive movement back toward the days of plant lockouts and union busting, when workers were forced by robber barons like the Rockefellers and Duponts to dance to the tune of the capitalistic enterprises without benefit of government regulation or assistance. In so doing, Ivans and Dubose provide us with yeoman services in displaying, for public view, the truly hideous dimensions of the social, economic, and political changes the Bush White House is quietly foisting on average Americans.The authors begin by laying out the horrific consequences of the Bush tax cut package, which have the net effect of ignoring fiscal responsibility during a time of egregious national crises (the war on terror, rotting national utility infrastructure, health care, etc) in favor of a gratuitous financial bonus for the richest one percent of the population. The tax cuts have the effect of transferring net responsibility for repayment of the mountain of national debt to the less privileged socioeconomic classes, and employ fiscal arguments much like those of supply-sider David Stockman's "voodoo economics" to justify the actions taken. The long term effect of the tax cuts will be to send a massive tidal wave of crushing debt rolling down the years to wash over future generations of working class Americans, such that noted economics author Pet Petersen recently characterized it as a an act so reckless and shameful that he didn't know how to explain it to either his children or grandchildren. Likewise, the we are left to puzzle as to why, after literally dictating the terms and conditions of the package of environmental agreements collectively referred to as the Kyoto Accords, the United States would suddenly repudiate the agreement, which amounts to its own businessmen's regimen for how to reasonably alleviate the industrial impact on global warming and other environmental degradations.Meanwhile, that richest one percent of the electorate is benefiting mightily from the changed tax codes and relaxed and rolled-back federal regulations in everything from assistance for cost of winter fuel for heating for the elderly to safety requirements for red meat inspection. As a consequence, average Americans suffered and in some cases died, as Ivans and Dubose document. Theses sweeping retrogressions in public policy can only be described as prima fascia evidence of a return to an age of egregious crony capitalism, where profit trumps public safety and popular concern. It is a blatant transgression of the social compact between the federal government with the citizenry through a betrayal of the public trust, and a vitiation of the vital role that the government plays in ensuring the well being of its populace through socially enlightened policies such as those laid out in FDR's New Deal. In the vision of the Bush era, it turns out to be a case of "every creep for himself". Thus, in taking no aggressive action to ignore the crisis associated with the under-funding the Social Security trust Fund, Mr. Bush et al perpetuate and aggravate a problem that owes much to a history of forty years of annual misappropriation of the surplus monies collected for the fund, which were used by Congress with the blessing of successive presidents to fund other programs in order to mislead the American people of the true dimensions of the federal deficit. We are in a potential crisis state because of near-criminal mismanagement of the Trust Fund by the federal government, and Mr. Bush chooses to conveniently ignore the problem, since his constituency has profound philosophical reservations about what they regard to be social welfare programs.Moreover, even as the Bush team surreptitiously dissembles and prevaricates to the public regarding its systematic acts to deconstruct the intrinsic elements of so-called new deal legislation, they are taking simultaneous action to enormously assault the constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties of its citizens through the invocation of the provision of the so-called Patriot Act, which the Ashcroft team at the Department of Justice has used to enthusiastically pursue a wide spectrum of non-terrorism related criminal and civil offenses by ordinary citizens. Meanwhile Bush whistles in seeming disregard even the economy sputters, all the while his corporate cronies continue to cut costs in pursuit of short term profit by transferring millions of both blue and white collar jobs to places like India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. Finally, the White House chooses to ignore the criminal excesses of its Enron buddies like Ken Lay by choosing to pursue media opportunities for `show trials" with high-profile offenders like Martha Stewart. This is a fascinating book, and one crammed with thought-provoking facts and a lot of food for thought. Enjoy!

I read Molly Ivins for years before George Bush was elected President. I couldn't believe it! After she told us of his many shenanigans and misdeeds in Texas, as a reporter and journalist there and she became syndicated and she remained in Austin, but before that I remember when she wrote a column for the Fort Worth paper where I had a brother living and later I read her columns in the Salt Lake Tribune after which she appeared in nearly 400 newspapers nationwide. I remember her mostly for her attacks on George W. Bush before he ran and was by that time well aware of his nature and deceit. If you didn't, well you should have been reading Molly. Gifted and worthy to be in the lead on this type of reporting, the worms were exposed and the smell was well aired before the election. This collection of bits and pieces of Bush's deeds and speaking of the untruth is just a continuation of that writing and the other book she wrote, "Shrub" which I read first, so long ago. I like this book as a rereading of history I knew and lived through and wish others had this knowledge before they praised him as a contender. They did, in some cases, those in power and they put him there for just that reason..

BUSHWHACKED gives the kind of indepth analysis of the Bush Administration which so many journalists today are fearful of doing. This book provides the details of the cronyism, deception and greed which pervades the Bush administration. It shows their disregard for the law and the most basic principles of this democracy. As bad as this administration is, not all the blame for the condition of this nation can be laid at their feet. If we have a president who is not only incompetent, but downright corrupt, it is because a majority of those who voted felt a communion with this man. Any student of history must be agonizing over what is occurring in America. It is horrifyingly similar to the German Weimar Republic and to the Roman Republic before their collapse into dictatorship.

I can only read about 10 minutes of this book per sitting. Too much, too much. And yet we need to know this stuff. Ivins and Dubose lay it out all too clearly. The policies of our Neglector-in Cheif are followed from their scandalous beginings to their inevitable consequences--which range from horrifying to merely sad. Government actons and inactions actually have an impact on the people of the country...whoda' thunk it?Before I read this book I thought maybe G.W. Bush was still only the second worst U.S. President after Warren G. Harding. But the incompetence and corruption of the Harding administration, as glaring as it was, hurt far fewer people than the Bush Cabal is hurting.Chris Matthews and other political comentaters need to start talking about the actual policies and what they actually do to actual people. I mean the horserace is fun, but this is real. This is about people's lives. This is about what kind of country we are going to have for the next century.Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, the facts in this book are all unimpeachable. Everyone should read this book before going into the voting booth.If you make over a million dollars per year and don't particularly care what happens to anyone else, Ivins and Dubose make it pretty clear that Bush is your guy. If you make less than that or do care, you may have been hoodwinked. At least read the book and see what you think.There's no reason to be a lemming.

Molly Ivins at her absolute best. She and Lou Dubose have put together an indictment of the Bush administration that every American - regardless of political affiliation - should read. This book had the power to infuriate me, delight me and upon occasion bring me to tears. Ivins and Dubose interviewed people (many of them life-long Republicans) who have been negatively impacted by the Bush administration through scorched earth land use legislation favoring large corporations instead of landowners, health care legislation favoring large health care conglomerates instead of patients, education legislation written to favor textbook manufacturers and test suppliers instead of students, food processing legislation favoring large scale operations at the expense of their workers. Many of those interviewed live lives shattered beyond repair by Bush and his cronies. They present very real and personalized accounts of the damage the Bush administration has done to this country and its people, much of which will likely take decades to undo - some which will never be undone. With her "no BS" attitude, Ivins, along with Dubose, has skewered the makers of this disaster deftly, accurately, and completely. Thank God for Molly Ivins.