RETROSPECTIVE:

A look back:

I wrote this about one month after 9/11...
for Democracy Chronicle


Changing Priorities
By Les Aaron


Will investors be buoyed up by gas mask and anti-biotic sales? Will the sale of new weapons of destruction help the market crawl out of the depths it has sunken to since Boy George took over?

Of course, up til about a month ago, Clinton was the scapegoat for everything that went wrong. Everyone seemed to lapse into amnesia the moment anyone referred to eight years of turn-around and prosperity after Junior’s dad exacerbated the mess started by Reagan in his quest for smaller government and his obsession with trickle down economics. Of course, Jr. should have learned the lesson when the trickle didn’t even drip down and small government became its antithesis and debt reached new highs. It seems that in the final analysis, Republicans are good about talking about reducing government and giving away budget monies but in fact they usually grow government until it becomes top-heavy and laden with debt. Then it takes a give-away Democrat to come in and restore order.
That’s what we saw under Reagan and Bush Sr. Then Clinton came in and restored fiscal
probity and balanced the budget; something the Republicans never seem able to get close to beyond lip service.

Nevertheless, if something goes wrong, the media machine fed by Republican hype that believes a strong offense is a good defense go out and blast Clinton who is the last standing target. In the meantime, they hope that their aggressive anti-Clintonism will wipe away memory and convince people that Clinton is the Devil incarnate. That was the mantra of Congress, then controlled by the likes of Newt and later Armey and his henchman in pre-bin Laden’s climatic cycle of terror ending with the World Trade Center. Now, with his ratings soaring, there is no need for Boy George to further eviscerate Bill. He has a new enemy, an unshaven, unwashed bad guy who looks the part and drawn George’s ire. This new enemy has become the best thing that’s ever happened to George’s career. And with his new
“Wanted. Dead or Alive” mentality, George is right in his domain, snakeskin boots and all.

Meanwhile, no one is addressing the costs of making all of this right. No one is talking about
The lock boxes. No one is talking about balancing the budget. In fact, no one is tackling the flop that that the budget giveaway was in every respect.

With everyone seeking to live their lives in harmony, government issues are probably the furthest things from their minds right now. But with the cost of New York’s plight projected at more than 100 billion according to Alan Hevesi, the Comptroller, and a projected
Democratic Mayor in office and an economy teetering on recession if not downstream Depression, one wonders whether the support for New York will be sustained when
Congress has to appropriate money to New York and a lot of other states are hurting..
Of course, in the midst of present target practice against one of the hairiest of targets, pun intended, we cannot see beyond the next crop duster, powdery envelope or other
threats to our way of life. For now, economics seems to be on hold in the interest of meting out justice in all of its explosive forms.
Les aaron.