I've read everything George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, writes. His website www.georgelakoff.com and his writings at www.rockridgeinstitute.org should be read by every thinking American. Of course, the fact he is a progressive who is against tort reform and dislikes the policies of George Bush only make him even more intelligent in my eyes.  His latest book The Political Mind is outstanding. His description of how people think, why people vote against their own self interests and why Karl Rove framing of issues works is enlightening.

I recently received an e-mail from a very conservative high school friend quoting a piece of propaganda that America is in the crisis we are in because of the election of Democrats to Congress.  With a straight face and without blushing it claims that Bush had the country on the right course, had us in great financial shape and we were in utopia, until those unscrupulous Democrats were elected who, it is insisted, unraveled in a few months all the good work Bush had done for 7.5 years. This, the e-mail insists, is what led us to the financial disaster we are experiencing. Now I don't what cave the person who created that message was living in during the George Bush administration, but they need to read this book.

Like Rip Van Winkle, the writer of that propaganda  would have to have slept through most of the past history of this administration. They would have missed the fact of the financial impact of our invasion of Iraq to protect our oil interests under a false claim of 9/11. They wouldn't know that Iraq is a major cause of the bank failures and corporate failures of today. The enormous and mounting debt owed by our continued occupation of this country has resulted in government printing more money just as Germany did during the great recession. The decision of Regan and George Bush to de-regulate everything has allowed this disaster. All of this underthe watch of Bush and Cheney. What Lakoff does is to explain how this all happened politically.

As to the Bush administration, Lakoff documents the rise of "disastrous capitalisim" under the Bush administration where private corporations get huge no bid contracts to do jobs government always did before. At the same time government agencies are made nonfunctional through budge cuts, appointment of agency leaders with an agenda to stop the agency from working and the appointment of judges with a political agenda. Deregulation of banks, airlines and many other industries along with these factors have caused a major shifting of wealth from tax payers to private corporations with a deliberate weakening of traditional government roles.

A good example is Blackwater. As Lakoff points out, the military is a branch of the federal government to protect the country and to provide services in time of disaster. The military is made up of citizens who volunteer to serve their country and they are bound by a strict military code as well as international rules. Blackwater is a private profit making corporation with a private army of paid mercenaries who are called "contractors" and "security guards" by the Bush administration. It has no rules except it's own rules. It has received over a billion dollars in contracts in Iraq alone during the Bush administration. It charges us $445,000 per years per security guard. Ninety percent of its revenue comes from government contracts. The U.S. Congress has no control over Blackwater nor any legal jurisdiction. They are a law unto themselves. They have also had an increasing role in our country's affairs which previously had been provided by our government.  When Katrina happened Homeland Security hired Blackwater who was also hired by FEMA. The reality is that we have a huge, well funded private army run by right wing believers who also give large financial support to Republican and conservative politicians. This situation has developed with the guidance and support of the Bush Administration. This is only one example of the long term impact of Bush policies on this country.

Lakoff also documents the assumption of unprecedented power by the Bush administration. As I've pointed out here before, Bush used "signing statements" more then 800 times to either refuse to enforce a bill passed by congress or to give his own interpretation of the law or to simply confuse it's application and has done so without challenge. He assumed the power to imprison citizens without filing charges and to suspend habeas corpus. He has authorized torture and assumed the power to wire tap citizens without their knowledge. He has refused to  honor subpoenas of Congress and has created his own laws under his claim of power through the guise of "executive orders" – hundreds of them. He has prevented regulatory branches of government from proceedings such as the EPA and by his appointments to the FDA as well as underfunding their operations. He deliberately lied about reasons for our unprecedented invasion of another country which, in truth, occurred solely to protect oil interests.  These are, of course only a small number of examples about the political reality of the damage by this administration.

While the Democrats elected to congress can be called spineless and unwilling to challenge the administration, they hardly merit being given for the considerable mess we are now in. No, that Oscar belongs solely to George Bush, Dick Cheney and their followers.