This is fifth piece Tracy has sent me for inclusion in "GuestRants." If this doesn't stir you up . . .
Tracy Baker has spent nearly 25 years helping people converse with one another; whether a salesperson of any ilk to a potential client, a customer service representative to a customer, or a manager to an employee. A student of human nature and a curmudgeon-in-training, he has been writing essays under the moniker "The Milkman's Son" for the last 5 years.
You can reach Tracy directly at TCBFAST@aol.com
January 28, 2003
The Milkman's Son
By Tracy Baker
Milked Dry #85
Or "When you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit."
Tonight, Smirky and company brought us the State of the Union and I have just one question…in which Union does he reside? It most certainly is not mine.
Let us take some of these points he made and you will see a master obfuscator in action.
1) He said that last year he brought us "tax relief to deliver our economy from recession." Huh? Now I'm no economist, but I do believe the economy is actually in worst shape today than it was a year ago, which is saying a lot because it wasn't so good a year ago. Of course, I'm not of sufficient income or asset level to have benefited from any of those cuts. Now he wants to take this same "tax relief" and make it permanent, adding 3 trillion dollars to the deficit. Yeah, that will fix the economy.
2) He then went on to say "We reformed corporate practices and held the corporate criminals to account." And just when did that happen? I saw a couple perp walks, and watched Arthur Anderson, as well as Smirky's hand chosen SEC Chief, Treasury Secretary, and Economic Advisor self-destruct, but I have seen not one thing that has changed or charged the Enrons of the corporate world.
3) He then added that same old tirade about privatizing Social Security. I have heard that a thousand dollars invested in a private Social Security account two years ago would be worth about $500 today. Now that's security!
4) On the healthcare front, he said we should all have affordable healthcare, then blasted a nationwide health plan as "the Government telling you which doctor you could see and what medicine you should take." Sounds just like the current private insurance system to me, except the insurance companies take it a step further and deny your claims, making you fight to get the coverage you paid for. And did any of you hear anything about how, what, and how much? Me neither.
5) On the environmental front, he told us how he is going to put forth his Forest Management plan to prevent forest fires. That is Smirky code for allowing more logging in pristine national forests. He also said he had a 15 year reduction in pollution plan. What he didn't tell you is that a) it was voluntary on the part of the major polluters (which is code for do it or don't, we won't watch), and b) it came after he gutted a major plan worked out by the Clinton Administration that would have taken only 5 years. He then threw a bone to the hydrogen fuel researchers, but won't tell us that it will take much more money and government support to convert the nation's current gas stations to hydrogen fuel stations, which is what will make hydrogen cars viable.
6) Finally, he beat the war drum loud and clear, but still refuses to give us the evidence on Iraq, nor tell us how long we will have to stay there after a war, or how much it will really cost us!
So, that's it. That is the State of the Union…obfuscated to the point of the ridiculous.
By next year's speech, there are three things we can be sure of.
1) We shall be a theocratic autocracy by the end of this man's term.
2) We shall be so deep in debt it will take a decade of a booming economy even better than the late 1990s just to pull even.
3) Our military shall be deeply mired in Afghanistan and Iraq while Osama and his buddies have free reign over the rest of the world…and North Korea happily builds its nuclear weapons for sale to the highest bidder.
Happy 2004!
Fini
Tracy
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