A Look Back to the Original "Beating the Bushes" . . . Feb. 4, 2005

Eighteen years ago yesterday (February 4,, 2005), I posted my first blog essay. This week I will be posting my 923rd. Add into this number the 57 essays posted on my “Tales From Hollywood & Vine Blog, and we’re getting ever closer to 1,000 . . . my original goal oh so many years ago.

As an anniversary remembrance, I am reposting that very first article . . . back in the days when the blog was called “Beating the Bushes.” I hope you will enjoy this look back in time . . . and perhaps discover that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

February 4, 2005

Dad used to say: "The gravest sin of all is treating me like a fool." Well, the Bushies commit that sin on a daily basis -- against all of us. Just how stupid and gullible do they think we are? Who in their right mind would attack a mountain of overdue bills by first going on a spending spree? Who but a fool would be concerned with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic? Well, the Bush Administration's proposal for privatizing Social Security is just that. Making all the recent tax-cuts permanent is more of the same.

Fudging facts (and here I'm being overly kind) and telling the American public that unless "fixed," the Social Security program is going to be totally bankrupt by (pick a year) is the height of arrogance. And for what? Giving your friends and political allies short-term financial gains? Making the world safe for . . . save for what? With each day's headlines, I am more and more reminded of the 1920s -- the era of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover -- three of the weakest, most politically inept men to ever occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Unless we, the loyal opposition, mount a serious unified campaign in both 2006 and 2008, America is going to become a second-rate nation. Its time to begin beating the Bushes . .

Copyyright©2005 Kurt F. Stone