Bushwhacked_ Life in George W. Bush's America Large Print - Molly Ivins [0]
Life in
GEORGE W. BUSH’S
AMERICA
Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose
RANDOM HOUSE • NEW YORK
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
1. Aloha, Harken
2. Julia Jeffcoat’s Jobless Recovery
3. Class War
4. The Blues In Belzoni
5. Leave No Child Behind
6. Green Rabbits and Yellow Streams
7. Kill the Messenger
8. Ready to Eat?
9. Dick, Dubya, and Wyoming Methane
10. Warm in the White House
11. The United States of Enron
12. Army Surplus: Two Veterans at Enron
13. God in the White House
14. Dubya Bush’s Bench
15. Shrub II: The Empire Strikes Back
16. State of the Union
17. What Is to Be Done?
Endnotes
Sources
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Other Books by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose
Copyright
This book is dedicated to the memory of
six great and wonderfully nonconformist Texans.
They all persisted in the good fight to
make our state and our country a better place.
They were not well behaved.
To John Henry Faulk, freedom fighter, died 1990
To Bob Eckhardt, congressman, scholar, and cartoonist, died 2001
To Billie Carr, political organizer, died 2002
To Warren Burnett, trial lawyer, died 2002
To Maury Maverick, lawyer, writer, and curmudgeon, died 2003
To Malcolm McGregor, legislator, bibliophile, and pilot, died 2003
We loved them all. It was the grandest privilege to know them.
Introduction
This book is about the connections between what happens in people’s lives and the decisions made by often obscure parts of the federal government. Some concept, eh? Policy matters; stop the presses. There was a time when explaining how what the government does affects “ordinary people” was considered political reporting. But reporters somehow became more fixated on the polls, the consultants, the horse race, and the partisan bickering; ordinary people pretty much fell off the screen. We’re still here. The difference between one underassistant secretary and another assistant undersecretary is still turning people’s lives upside down; indeed, it can be the difference between life and death.
While the Washington press corps, ever more courtierlike, focuses on the White House, we found that starting at the other end, with “average citizens,” provides a much clearer view of what is happening in America.
The good news is that nothing will cheer you up more about this country than getting out and talking to the people in it. We were prepared to a play a dirge on our literary violin for the hapless victims of various misbegotten and mean-spirited policies. Unfortunately for our purposes, we kept finding Americans who are tough, funny, sassy, brave, smart, and full of fight. They get pissed-off, they endure, they fight like hell, they start all over—whatever it takes. They don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves. Still, it’s remarkable how easy it is for some casual, not necessarily malicious, but not-very-well-thought-through change in a policy, made by some clueless citizen in Washington, can simply wreck people’s lives.
We found heroes all over hell and gone. Most of them are “ordinary people,” some of them are government bureaucrats, and a few of them are even politicians.
More or less in the “duh” category, we found that government no longer works for most of the people of this country. It works for big corporations, it works for big campaign donors, but it works less and less for “average” Americans. While talk of Christian compassion wafts through Washington, people are not only getting screwed—losing their life savings, their pensions, their health insurance, their jobs, and unemployment comp—they’re also getting sick, getting hurt, and even dying because the people’s interest now takes second place to that of big-money contributors. A government of big corporations, by big corporations, and for big corporations has thousands of ramifications for the people, few of them good. As the acolytes of large corporations increasingly take over the various regulatory agencies that are supposed to keep corporate power in check—a process now so far advanced