OK, WHY does Bush and his ilk want the US to become a 3rd world...

[FormerRepublican]

...country?

Everything Bush and his pals have done since they got in office has worked to gut the US economy and turn average joe American into an impoverished serf. Considering the fact that the US is the largest economy in the world, and has (had?) the highest standard of living, it's also the most profitable country in the world. Gutting the US economy limits profitability in the largest economy. So can merely enriching his corporate cronies be what's behind the economic rape?

I've thought of a thousand different things that could be motivating Bush and his pals. 1. Bush has sold out to the Saudis and Al Qaeda and is advancing their agenda to ruin the US economy. 2. Bush is too stupid to see what he's doing. 3. Bush is too shortsighted to understand the long term effects of his policies. 4. Bush only cares about what happens in his administration and paying off his campaign contributors, so doesn't give a crap about the ultimate fate of the US.

My mind has turned this issue over this way and that, but I just haven't been able to come up with a good, solid reason that motivates Bush and his pals enough to act AGAINST the interests of the United States. Could they just plain hate the US? Could it be that simple? And what is their long term goal here?

Are we going to fall from our first world status to sub-third world? Isn't that the inevitable result of Repubilican economic policies? How would that feed the military industrial complex?

I've tried to figure out what that nest of vipers is up to, but it just doesn't make much sense to me. Could they just be wandering around in the dark without a clue?

[SomewhereOutThere424]

1. "Things would be easier in a dictatorship"

Maybe he wasn't kidding?

[jeff30997]

4. And it's easier to be a dictator in a 3rd world country.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Maybe he misunderestimated the phrase to mean, "the weak shall

inherit the earth".

[deutsey]

3. Power...it's easier to control us if we're desperate and fearful

Reduce us to consumers, not citizens. More profitable that way for them.

[PetraPooh]

5. Simple answer? Read it here.

Upper class and corporations have been going round the world exploiting third world countries who are starting to revolt/rebel against our advances. . .if the US becomes one (a third world country), they don't have to go so far or deal with so much; as well when they go abroad the receivers of their cruelty and abuse won't be able to say that they (corporations et al) treat those countries with less respect than they treat our own country and peoples.

[sui generis]

6. easy answer. The less money the middle class has the more

money the upper class has.

[mitchum]

7. A middle class threatens the political hegemony of the ruling elite

[silverweb]

8. Global corporatism...

The planet ruled by a privileged oligarchy of corporate executives who hold their circle jerks amid piled-up treasure plundered from Nature by the labor of disposable masses of humanity.

Lust for raw power and unlimited wealth is their only quest. They will stop at nothing.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. I think 2, 3, and 4 about cover it.

[acmejack]

10. The world is flat...

The American worker has to be able to compete with the workers of the world! You didn't really buy into that bullshit of lifting all the workers in the world up to our standards did you? Well surprise, surprise, surprise! It is a much better business model to bring us down to the third world economies level, the share holders save big!

[TexasLawyer]

11. They are bankrupting America

in order to make corporations more powerful than the federal government. This is the true definition of "fascism" by the way. Corporatism.

America's bankruptcy will also have the "happy" effect of ending New Deal and other major social programs.

The US federal government is being drowned in the bathtub.

[Squeech]

12. Yes and no

Re fascism, you're probably thinking of that Mussolini quote, which is actually a fabrication.

Fascism really involves a kind of personality cult where the people see the leader as the embodiment of all their hopes and aspirations. And you do see that in Wingnuttia, all those Powerline types and talk radio bots who really seem to believe that Bush's cokehead ramblings have the spark of genius.

But yeah, they do want all the rest of us reduced to the status of peasantry-- literal wage slavery.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. Because they've got theirs and could give a rat's ass if you ever

get yours. As long as they can remain in the top 5% wealth category, they really don't care about the rest of us.

[linazelle]

14. I've pondered the question as well and chalk it up to greed.

It was unfathomable to me at first--the things he was doing. But as I have watched over the years, it has become clearer and clearer that the thieves want to enrich themselves at our expense.

That's why they allow Halliburton sell troops rotten food; fail to provide body armor that would cost more but save lives; are against health care; send our citizens to die in unjust wars; cover up their wrongdoing with media cronyism...it all fits neatly under the greed column for me.

[sam sarrha]

15. Ahh, the NeoCons want to totally destroy everything because a Utopia will

rise out of the ashes... they dont want a 3rd world country they want NO COUNTRY.

[KAT119]

16. Dictatorship for life w/ next BFEE attack on USA=Martial Law =New Money-

Boom-if you want a job( i.e. food & water) -sign up w/ armed services & go door- to- door for the guns & gold. Congress is fired-elections no more- * is Dictator for life. We are slaves/part of military machine for globalization/American Empire-or dead if we resist.....

[ljm2002]

17. Because the real goal...

...is world domination by the wealthy elites, of which the BFEE is pre-eminent at the moment.

They don't give a rat's ass about you, me, of the good ol' USofA.

Take it to the bank. They sure as hell do.

[killbotfactory]

18. Because it makes the rich REALLY rich

And makes labor cheap.

[Raine]

19. Reactionaries

everything the Democrats like Roosevelt and Clinton had done they reacted against and did the opposite...we now see the result. :-(

[Marie26]

20. Redistribution of America's wealth.

To themselves, of course.

[CJCRANE]

21. The BFEE is jealous

of (or in collusion with) their buddies in ME monarchical dictatorships and want the same power and control over America.

The arab street is kept in a constant state of anger against jews and Americans, gullible Americans (i.e. freepers) are kept in a constant state of Islamophobia whilst the elites of both regions divide and conquer and make mega-business deals.

Whether they are co-equal partners or one is master and one servant isn't clear at this stage.

At the same time the State Dept (Condi) builds up the Israelis to serve as a punching bag for everyone else (and bag the fundamentalist Christian vote).

Associated billionaires invest in oil and no-bid military contracts and laugh all the way to the bank.

NB: I have no particular love for Israel so I'm not trying to get them off the hook, just stating it as I see it.

On edit: Iraq serves as a punching bag for RW Islamophobia even though it had nothing to do with 9/11.

[sweetheart]

22. they've bought the economic theory

of neoliberalism, so lock stock and barrel,
it says that money and markets rule over government,
race to the cheapest wages, flock darwinian a wolf feral,
until some of our children run, in urban slum sewage effluent.
oh they will not stop until their vision of wealth,
travels so slick, worldwide, innocuously so impudent,
that poverty must hit the newest of lows, to keep up global social health,
with our daughters in prostition and our sons video gaming indolent.

The cheaper and more efficiently you carry your gun,
when you kill the japs'll be in their heathen holes,
the better you'll feel when we fire and stun,
a hundred thousand families half a century ago, a new nuclear poverty low.
And now we reap the benefit of all that good fire,
Corrupting power of empire, prison dominion aspire.

[degreesofgray]

23. Hey, it's class warfare

to point out the class warfare of the rich screwing the poor. Remember, we're all equal, unless we're not.

[KAT119]

24. Just 1 more BFEE attack on USA * declares Martial Law-then closes banks-

prints a new currency-dissolves Congress-no more elections-nation is fully militarized.

If you wish food & water, you work for * FEE and go door-to-door in your community collecting all the guns & gold.

You are now a soldier (read slave) totally dependant on Commander-in Chief - and Project for a New American Century (PNAC)= Global American Military Empire. The rest of the world complies or is summarily NUKED!

If you resist, you are termed "an eater" i.e useless and dead....This is a classic Dictator's scenario for the addiction of Power & Greed that has no known limits- except REVOLUTION NOW!

[WinkyDink]

25. Here's what I cannot fathom: I believe Bush is ripping off the entire

U.S., and enriching himself and his cronies. Given.

But if wealth like Croesus gets you scrubland in Crawford, Texas, WHAT THE HELL IS THE LOOTING FOR?