(Editors note: Read part two and three and four) Consistency is the bugbear of small minds, and the Bush administration’s policies in many areas, the “War on Terror”, the environment, energy, entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, taxation, deregulation and a host of others are all perfectly consistent and fall within a narrowly defined ideology. Everyone of its proposals and actions can be understood as a move to further enhance the wealth and consolidate the power of the large corporations and the super-rich.

At times, the program is effected by the wholesale direct transfer of government revenues to these corporate giants, such as the non-competitive war contracts, and Medicare Part D – both practically outright gifts to the defense industry and the big pharma, respectively; and, then, the scandalous reduction of taxation on those with very large incomes, and efforts to eliminate taxes on estates of over two million dollars (the first $2 million has been tax free for years) ought to give ordinary citizens pause.

Continue reading American Exceptionalism And Global Warming (Part 1) →