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>EdGreene
>POOF! You are the President now. What is your course of
>action? What is your stand on terrorism? Does the economy
>come first and foremost? Will you stand down the troops?
Ed says: "It the economy-stupid." I pointed out how Clinton fought a series of "dirty little wars" but the economy never even hiccupped. Junior, unlike my self, seems keenly unaware of the bust in tech stocks, and the precarious condition of the gabler's,eer. stack market, which lead to a serious reduction in spending by the previously ultra rich. At the same time, "middle class" America was losing jobs: My own best-computer engineering genius friend, employed at $160,000 plus bonuses just last July, is now substitute teaching in Columbus Ohio for about $32 an hour just to keep from going under.
1. "Terrorism" at least that as it has been defined by Junior, is affecting America far out of proportion to its actual threat. The government, instead of passing out the largess as usual, is squandering monies on anti-terrorism paraphernalia (Homeland Defense) to a degree it once spent on the military alone. As Junior spread his "war on terrorism" talk, local, county, state governments followed, focusing so much on terrorism that no one was minding the economic front.
Nearly every state is going bankrupt paying attention to terrorism, meanwhile, trying as best they can to stem the economic flow from the hole in their state's treasury-dike. State reserves are being drained and what the 90s built up, Junior, by paying too much attention to both of his phony wars, has let the economy go to hell.
(Junior is making huge cuts in education. What kind of madman cuts education, when children are our future?)
We face two brands of "terrorists". One, made up in large part by Arabs from the so-called "Middle East", egged on by the AlQueada faction, is specifically targeting America. The other "terrorists", content with bombing Israel, are NOT a threat to us and should be largely ignored.
(But Junior, unable to make the fine distinction, bunches them all together. Thus a bomb in downtown Haifa, Israel is treated as if it went off in downtown Detroit).
I would "turn out the dogs of war,” special ops groups, giving them the commission of bringing back the head of Osama Bin Laden.
One seminal question: what to do when the "war" with Saddam is over and 350,000 troops come back to a country reeling under the impending economic collapse? Send them back out to fight North Korea?
(Unlike the regular armed forces branches, tens of thousands of our National Guards personnel and Reservists have been laid off while they are serving their country overseas).
2.Remove the threats where possible. That means those who fit the profile must go. Don't go there, don't start on "due process" and our other hallowed traditions. I'd treat interior threats the same damn way Israel does. No trials, just deportation, quick, fast and in a hurry. Gone, skidoo, out a here.
3. Throw those hundreds of millions of "Gulf War ll" dollars at Immigration and the Border Patrol.
4. Give tax breaks to GENUINE small businesses, not multi-million dollar corporations formed to meet the "small business" qualifications.
(Any, ANY Corporation with under 150 employees qualifies as "small business").
What happened then was huge, multinational corporations spun off small divisions of the "mother" corporation just to take advantage of "Small business" rules.
5. Target, then let the North Koreans and anyone else who wants or needs to know we have and will send their bridges, power plants, potential nuclear facilities down into rubble. Get out of Korea.
6. Get the hell out of Europe since it has been thoroughly domesticated. If Europeans can’t defend themselves (from what or whom I'd like to know) by now, then flack-em.
7. Stop sending billions of dollars to Israel. They can damn well take care of themselves.
8. Americans and America own or control (through licensing) nearly 92% of the chemicals needed to process Cocaine. When Jimmie Carter put an embargo on shipping those chemicals to drug producing countires like Peru, the shortage of chemicals drove the price of Cocaine up to $85,000 a kilo. Reagan came on, and in the name business, lifted the enbargoes. Within 18 months, (one and a half growing seasons), the street price of a kilo of Cocaine had dropped to $75,000. By 1985, the stret price had dropped to under $50,00 a kilo. by 1987, the price was under $25,000, soon to fall to $22,000. Crack can be made with $22,000 Cocaine and the Crack epidemic began, jails began to fill up, the price of a kilo of Heroin had dropped to within easy reach of street criminals and the rest is history.
Ed would put the embagoes back in place, driving the price of a kilo fo Cocaine above $50,000, the price break when it is no longer economically feasible to make Cocaine into crack.
The number of persons arrested for Crack or Cocaine/Heroin possesion or use would drop precipitosuly and the cost of criminal justice, the murder and crime rates would fall to below 1965 levels.
9. Do alternative energy, even if it does scare the oil people to death. 9a. Rebuild the infrastructure.
Ed doesn’t care what happens to others outside this country if means that by taking care of them, spending money on them ior their defense nstead of our own sick, elderly, the education of our children, the national infrastructure (have you seen the state of our highways, bridges, power grid and our health care system?), our own country goes or gets drug down to the sorry depths of Europe and Japan?
Whatever one thinks of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s politics, he put America and Americans to work building and rebuilding this country. Ed would do the same, starting with insuring that the education of our children is complete, thorough and comprehensive. Ed would put people to work rebuilding what has or is falling down. There is bridge in Ohio that if it fell down, east-west transportation would virtually come to a halt. Terrorists dropping bridges scare me a lot more than them spreading anthrax. There is a viaduct in Kansas City that if it fell, by terrorism or age, would disrupt traffic for months, including east-west travel. Terrorists would not have to drop either one of the bridges I mentioned to put this country into economic shock we would take years to recover from. Just them falling from further neglect would do that.
Lastly, but not facetiously, ban SUVs and other gas-guzzlers from our highways. It is this damn commitment to Americans to let them do na d bulidd and drive whatever they damn well pleased that got us into the oil dependency mess and it will take stern measures to dig us out, starting with those obscene SUVs.
(Banning SUVs would drop the price of a barrel of oil to under $12 dollars-US) which means gas at the (self-serve) pump would cost a lot under one dollar.
Ed
I get it done with YAHOO-DSL!
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