LTWR - Letter to Wingnut Relatives

[Caution]

A cousin mentioned in an email a "stock market" game for the upcoming election. Another responded:

"we all know Bush will be reelected!"

After having spent a coupel of tortuous hours the previous week with the two in question I was shocked to find out how much they had bought into the Bush BS. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to respond to them.

Here is my response:

Not according to the latest Newsweek poll that shows:

52 Percent of Voters Don't Want to See Bush Re-Elected (44% Do),
37 Percent Strongly Want to See Him Re-Elected,
47 Percent Strongly Do Not

Looks like "getting saddam" didn't help him so much.

Bad things for Bush:

* Jobless rebound
* Immigration Policy which provides substandard jobs at substandard wages to illegal immigrants
* "faith-based" charity incentives which only give money to fundamentalists
* Colin Powell now saying their may never have been any WMD (David Kay, bush's top WMD hunter resigned and said flat out that there weren't any)
* Bush's own cabinet members saying he had an agenda of empire building from day one (Paul O'Neill)
* The total lack of any type of funding for his "No Child Left Behind Act"
* The MASSIVE government spending that has led to the largest deficits in history and a doubling of the debt over the next 5 years (same as Reagan, but last time they blamed the democratic congress...this time no such thing),
* The continuing trouble and mounting death toll in Iraq
* The gutting of veteran's benefits (health, death, pension)

That's just off the top of my head and just on issues that are bi-partisan

On the Armed Forces:
The US armed forces have a total strength of 440,000 troops deployed worldwide. 145,000 of these are in Iraq now and will be in the foreseeable future (Rumsfeld's estimates 7-10 years). Currently there is a massive enlistment problem (people are not re-rnlisting and new people are not joining.). We have military bases all over the world right now where troops are committed and can't be moved from (germany, Okinawa, Korea, US homeland security, the phillipines, etc) and if a new conflict were to open (say in Syria, Iran, or worse North Korea ) there would be only two choices, pull out of Iraq or re-instate the draft. People scoff at this but if this happens and anyone who spends even a day's worth of research on the current state of our ability to project force around the world will see quite a few articles which hve 3-star generals calling for a new draft because they have never seen our military stretched so thin. The draft age is 30. That means Whitney, Jonathan, Jason and anyone else you know under 30 would be eligible.

If you would like to see just how thin our forces are spread here's a quick snapshot from the DOD:

http://www.dior.whs.mil/mmid/M05/hst0309.pdf

On the economy:
Nearly 57% of the total US debt in the form of Treasury Notes is owned by an Asian banking consortium (primarily Japanese banks). The strength of these bonds is dependent upon the strength of the US dollar, which has been in a free-fall for nearly a year with most treaury traders investing heavily in the Euro and some actually shorting the dollar. The japanese banks conituannly propr the dollar up against the yen in order to prevent further degradation of the dollar and thus devaluing the t-notes they own. However at some point this can and will reach a breaking point as the debt continues to rise. At this point it will become more advantageous to invest in the Euro and move long term spending and government investiture into European bonds rather than t-notes. If this happens our government will no longer be able to sustain deficit spending at anywherre near the rate that they have been going at and will be forced to raise taxes to a much MUCH higher level than we've seen before, simply for the government to continue to function.

If you dont believe me about the total collapse the dollar is currently experiencing, just take a look at the 5 year charts for the dollar. The trend started in mid 2002 and is accelerating. Right now there are many countries which "peg" their currency to the US dollar. If the dollar value continues to drop (and there is nothing to indicate anything else) these coutries will shift and peg their currencies to the Euro (thi has already happened in a few smaller countries). If this happens then the US dollar will fall even more rapidly which will create an even larger trade deficit and make the price of foreign goods skyrocket.

On Foreign policy:

Well, let's just say that our allies have pretty much abandoned the US at this point thanks to Bush unilaterally dissolving treaties, declaring the UN "irrelevant". I loved how in Bush's state of the Union address where he spoke at great length about the us Allies in the war in Iraq.

Totally laughable. Her are some basic statistics about this great "coalition"
British - 45,000
Australian - 2,000
Polish - 200

Those are ALL of the foreign combat troops which served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

US troops - 245,000

Since the war "ended"
British - 11,000
Polish - 2,000
International stabilizing peace force (couldnt find a breakdown by country) - 7,000

US troops - 145,000

Thank god for that coalition huh? All those other countries Bush was talking about?

Afghanistan (Big shock, we run the place...they contributed no troops)
Albania - overflight rights (meaning we could fly over their country)
Azerbaijan - overflight rights
Colombia - No known contribution other than to say "hey we're in"
Czech Republic - Chemical Weapons specialists (non combat)
Denmark - overflight rights
El Salvador - No known contribution
Eritrea - overflight rights
Estonia - overflight rights
Ethiopia - overflight rights
Georgia - No known contribution
Hungary - overflight rights
Iceland - overflight rights
Italy - overflight rights (wow an actual developed country! of course they wouldnt send troops or anything...)
Japan - Post conflict only (I believe they just dispatched a military medical team...a move their population was heavily against)
Korea - No known contribution
Latvia - overflight rights
Lithuania - overflight rights
Macedonia - overflight rights
Netherlands - Medical support
Nicaragua - No known contribution
Philippines - No known contribution
Romania - overflight rights
Slovakia - overflight rights
Spain - overflight rights, medical support (another developed country! population overwhelmingly against govt support)
Turkey - Initially they were going to allow troop deployment through their country (US troops...they were never going to actually supply troops). They decided not to in the end.
Uzbekistan - overflight rights

In return these countries have been allowed to bid on reconstruction projects within Iraq worth over $20 billion dollars. (Of course Cheney's company Halliburton won about $8 billion worth and another company with strong Bush Administration ties, Bechtel, got another $6 billion or so. Apparently our "allies" aren't very happy about losing out on the lion's share of post ware profiteering).

With these countries on our side, man we could win any war huh?

Countries against the war? All of South America except 3 countries, almost all of europe, russia, china, india, pakistan...there are about 6 billion people in the world living within about 200 countries. Our "Coalition of the Willing" contained less than 325 million people, against this war? 5 billion, 6 hundred and 75 million. or roughly 95% of the world's population. Thank god for allies! (of course only 4 countries actually supplied combat troops and I'm being generous considering poland supplied 200 total).

I could go on but I'd be surprised if you read this far. Do a little reading, a little research, stop watching Fox News and the Wall Street Journal Op Ed section and educate yourselves to what this idiot is doing to our country.

[cavebat2000]

1. Heck yeah

Can I get a cheer for this good person??

[non sociopath skin]

2. Excellent post!!!

Thanks for this great material.

The Skin

[Lefta Dissenter]

3. Perfect timing for this post

I just had a short conversation with a brother-in-law - the only Republican I know who I can actually talk to about politics (the rest are rabid maniacs). I started by asking him why he is a Republican, and we went from there. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to talk for long, but he did agree to look at what I send him - so I'll be picking ideas out of your post! Thanks!

When I thanked him for taking the time to talk, and for actually thinking about this, he replied (joking, of course), "Well, that's the good thing about being a Republican, you don't have to think - the government does all the thinking for you!" Ok, so i know he was saying it tongue-in-cheek, but if I were a mean person, I would have pointed out how true his words were.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

4. Excellent letter and points

Can I steal it?

BTW, where did you find all the info on the "allied countries"?

[salin]

5. Why not throw in this article re: costs/debt

re the cost per person and household of the economic/budgetary policies of the administration.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=31487

From the article:

Bush has got to change course and bring spending under control. Federal spending has grown by an average of 10.5 percent a year since he took office. And Bush persuaded Congress to hand out record-setting tax cuts. The result is the largest national budget deficit in history ---- $500 billion this year.

"We can cut the deficit in half over the next five years," Bush said in his State of the Union address. That sounds good, but it's actually frightening. If he does manage to reduce the deficit to $250 billion by fiscal year 2009, in equal annual increments, it would add another $1.725 trillion to our national debt in five years, on top of $500 billion this year.


That $2.25 trillion in red ink will saddle every American man, woman and child with $8,000 in new debt ---- $32,000 in new debt for the average family, for principal alone.

salin's note: Ask them if their household tax cuts (at current the most recent cut) will equal $38,000? If they are like most Americans whose cuts were under $1,500 a year - even figured at 7 years (all but bush's first years - and this is a generous calculation from many) this would equal cummulative savings (cuts) of $10,000 - but accrued debt of $32,000 (net debt = $22,000) That is some interest rate on those cuts...

[mgc1961]

6. Wow!

Great job!

Did you see the LATimes article about the Bush proposal to increase "defense" spending by 7% for fiscal year 2005 and to increase it to $484 billion by 2009?

No jobs. No social security. No health care. No hope. But hey, we've got one hell of an arsenal!

I need an aspirin.

:yourock:

[ScrewyRabbit]

7. This is so well-written, I'm bookmarking it!

[SheilaT]

8. The following sums up what I feel:

[Caution]

9. Thanks for teh encouraging words

Hopefully my cousins will actually read it. No response yet.

[JoblessRecovery]

10. All very good points. Good work!

[otohara]

11. What Is Wrong With Republicans????

are they oblivious to the facts, the truth? WTF is wrong with these people?
Great response

[MASSAFRA]

12. ITALY

Italy had 19 members killed in Iraq from a car bomb. They have a limited presence there. (To much for my taste.)
Thiland was going to send some non-combat troops in also, I beleive it wsa 300.

As a percentage the United States has over 90 % of the weight to carry.