Bush League -- When Republicans Rule

Many of my thoughts end with the pronouncement WHY DEMOCRATS MUST, IN 2014, TURN THE HOUSE BLUE, KEEP THE SENATE AND, IN 2016, WIN THE PRESIDENCY.  I place that thought at the beginning of my opinion because of its importance with an explanation below.  I include with it a letter written by Ralph Nader to George W. Bush which shows what happens when Republicans rule. 

History is, indeed, written by the winners but what did we win?  A letter penned by Ralph Nader, a man with whom I am still angry for the Al Gore loss in 2000, explains it well.  I paste his letter below.  Why did the progressive Nader run when he knew that would take enough votes away from Democrats to allow Bush the presidential win?  Perhaps, simply, ego's rationale.  If Nader had not run Gore would have won Florida and the presidency in 2000.  Instead, we suffered the foreign and economic policy disasters of George W. Bush. Discerning eyes see clearly the dangerous trajectory in which his henchmen and Republicans before him, placed the nation and what happens when Republicans rule.

A different national history would have been written had there been an Al Gore presidency.  Global climate change would have been addressed, Iraq never would have occurred and I aver even 9/11 warnings, Bush ignored, would have been heeded by a President Gore.  Moreover, Wall Street fraud would have been diminished and, perhaps, the nation never would have been catapulted into the greatest recession since the Great Depression.  At the least there probably would have been "a much smaller 2008 recession, probably no foreclosure crisis and probably budget surpluses instead of deficits" (footnote 1)  would have been on the ledger.

In addition, one of Al Gore's signature legislation would  have been to address the devastating effects of global climate change.  Yes, climate change and global warming are facts, EVEN in winter's frigid cold with massive storms.  It exists in the extremes of summer's heat too with out-of-control fires, a multitude of tornadoes, hurricanes, severe droughts and the melting of polar ice caps.  99% of climate scientists say it is so and like evolution I, without a scintilla of hesitation, believe it.  The other 1% of scientists who disclaim it work for the oil companies who simply want to gorge on earth polluting dollars and try (like tobacco companies of old) to deny it killing hundreds of thousands as it even threatens, ultimately, the existence of life on earth as we know it.

George W. Bush and his entire administration are war criminals but because might often makes right and history is written by the winners no one of consequence will be indicted for the greatest war crimes in the history of this nation bar none. The lies perpetrated by Bush and his neocon henchman created the Iraq debacle. 

Destabilization through US invasion of Iraq based on Bush administration lies made the powder keg of Middle East nations fall like dominoes into sectarian violent chaos killing hundreds of thousands including thousands of Americans. Still, after over a decade, the fire of war rages, fruits of its chaos grow and thousands still die while millions are displaced.  God only knows what the huge totals really are and how these wars will end. 

Adherents to the moral principles of Nuremberg weep especially when Republicans rule!  

Scroll down and read a 100% correct opinion of George W. Bush written by the progressive Ralph Nader.

Footnote 1 -- Jerry Kronenberg, freelance writer, economic editorialist and cable TV commentator.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Nader <info@nader.org>
To: Natalierosen@aol.com
Sent: Thu, Jan 2, 2014 4:00 pm
Subject: In the Public Interest: Letter to George W. Bush

In the Public Interest by Ralph Nader Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Letter to George W. Bush Ralph Nader January 2, 2014   George W. Bush George W. Bush Presidential Center PO Box 560887 Dallas, Texas, 57356 Dear Mr. Bush: A few days ago I received a personalized letter from your Presidential Center which included a solicitation card for donations that actually provided words for my reply. They included “I’m honored to help tell the story of the Bush Presidency” and “I’m thrilled that the Bush Institute is advancing timeless principles and practical solutions to the challenges facing our world.” (Below were categories of “tax-deductible contributions” starting with $25 and going upward.) Did you mean the “timeless principles” that drove you and Mr. Cheney to invade the country of Iraq which, contrary to your fabrications, deceptions and cover-ups, never threatened the United States? Nor could Iraq [under its dictator and his dilapidated military] threaten its far more powerful neighbors, even if the Iraqi regime wanted to do so. Today, Iraq remains a country (roughly the size and population of Texas) you destroyed, a country where over a million Iraqis, including many children and infants (remember Fallujah?) lost their lives, millions more were sickened or injured, and millions more were forced to become refugees, including most of the Iraqi Christians. Iraq is a country rife with sectarian strife that your prolonged invasion provoked into what is now open warfare. Iraq is a country where al-Qaeda is spreading with explosions taking 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 lives per day. Just this week, it was reported that the U.S. has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq’s air force to be used against encampments of “the country’s branch of al-Qaeda.” There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before your invasion. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were mortal enemies. The Bush/Cheney sociocide of Iraq, together with the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers’ lives, countless injuries and illnesses, registers, with the passage of time, no recognition by you that you did anything wrong nor have you accepted responsibility for the illegality of your military actions without a Congressional declaration of war. You even turned your back on Iraqis who worked with U.S. military occupation forces as drivers, translators etc. at great risk to themselves and their families and were desperately requesting visas to the U.S., often with the backing of U.S. military personnel. Your administration allowed fewer Iraqis into the U.S. than did Sweden in that same period and far, far fewer than Vietnamese refugees coming to the U.S. during the nineteen seventies. When you were a candidate, I called you a corporation running for the Presidency masquerading as a human being. In time you turned a metaphor into a reality. As a corporation, you express no remorse, no shame, no compassion and a resistance to admit anything other than that you have done nothing wrong. Day after day Iraqis, including children, continue to die or suffer terribly. When the paraplegic, U.S. army veteran, Tomas Young, wrote you last yearseeking some kind of recognition that many things went horribly criminal for many American soldiers and Iraqis, you did not deign to reply, as you did not deign to reply to Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son, Casey, in Iraq. As you said, “the interesting thing about being the president” is that you “don’t feel like [you] owe anybody an explanation.” As a former President, nothing has changed as you make very lucrative speeches before business groups and, remarkably, ask Americans for money to support your “continued work in public service.” Pollsters have said that they believe a majority of Iraqis would say that life today is worse for them than under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. They would also say George W. Bush left Iraq worse off than when he entered it, despite the U.S. led sanctions prior to 2003 that took so many lives of Iraqi children and damaged the health of so many civilian families. Your national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said publically in 2012 that while “the arc of history” may well turn out better for post-invasion Iraq than the present day violent chaos, she did “take personal responsibility” for the casualties and the wreckage. Do you? Can you, at the very least, publically urge the federal government to admit more civilian Iraqis, who served in the U.S. military occupation, to this country to escape the retaliation that has been visited on their similarly-situated colleagues? Isn’t that the minimum you can do to very slightly lessen the multiple, massive blowbacks that your reckless military policies have caused? It was your own anti-terrorism White House adviser, Richard Clarke, who wrote in his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, soon after leaving his post, that the U.S. played right into Osama bin Laden’s hands by invading Iraq. Are you privately pondering what your invasion of Iraq did to the Iraqis and American military families, the economy and to the spread of al-Qaeda attacks in numerous countries? Sincerely yours, Ralph Nader P.S. I am enclosing as a contribution in kind to your presidential center library the book Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions by Clyde Prestowitz (2003) whom I’m sure you know. Note the positive remark on the back cover by General Wesley Clark.  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Copyright © 2014 Nader.Org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website. Our mailing address is: Nader.Org P.O. 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