A Decade of Self-Delusion

Right winger and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan unleashed a screed against Bush administration policies and the disastrous decade of the 2000s. A Decade of Self-Delusion posted on the Human Events.com website slams the fall from grace (and leadership and other important stuff) experienced by the United States of America during the first decade of the Twenty-First Century.

Some sample quotes:

"According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world's gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade."

Youch!

"The United States began the century with a budget surplus. We ended with a deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, which will be repeated in 2010."

OMG!

"Between one-fourth and one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared in 10 years, the fruits of a free-trade ideology that has proven anything but free for this country. Our future is being outsourced -- to China."

Funny, they really shove free trade down our throats in biz school - as a panacea for almost everything!

"We sold ourselves a lot of snake oil about the Global Economy, interdependence, free trade and 'it doesn't make any difference where goods are produced.' The George W. Bush Republicans ran up the deficit with tax cuts, two wars and a splurge in social spending to rival the guns-and-butter of the Great Society."

Apparently, the Republican "borrow-and-spend" modus operandi is somewhat flawed. Perhaps, the more honest "tax-and-spend" wasn't such a bad thing after all .....

There are a lot more goodies in Buchanan's diatribe. Don't wait! Go read this article now! If you're an American citizen, I suggest that you read it twice and email it to everyone. Good luck and Godspeed!