Heading into the last days of this election season, George Bush and his Neo-Con Republicans have been strumming a familiar tune to promote their candidates. Republicans, they say, will

1) Preserve traditional values,
2) Lower taxes and
3) Protect our "homeland" from "terrorists"

For Republican "traditional values" we see the strangest news. An Evangelical leader admitting to drug abuse and sexual behavior he routinely decries. A prominent congressman resigning in disgrace after revelations that he was inclined toward homosexual pedophilia with juvenile congressional staffers. What's more, the Republican leadership knew about it for years and did nothing - except attempt to cover it up!

Not even those weirdo, liberal Democrats can top that for perversity.

On the score of lower taxes, our top "executive", George Bush was very clear at a rally in Springfield, Missouri yesterday,

"We have a clear philosophy. We believe you can spend your money better than the federal government can."

That's interesting! According to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-Prize-winning economist, and Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the "true cost" of the Iraq war is more than $2 trillion (New York Times OpEd, March 23).

Remember the good ol' days of "tax and spend" Democratic control? Now, according to our erstwhile Commander in Chief, we can tax less and spend more - at record levels. Republicans have turned a federal budget surplus into a record deficit and fettered our economy with the obligation to finance an already failed policy of war without end.

Those amused by occult symbology may appreciate that the two trillion dollar cost of the Iraq war, divided by three hundred million Americans, yields a cost per American of $6,666.66. That's a doubly beastly sum even if you are only concerned about who's going to pay for it!

Finally, there's that plank about good old homeland security. The refrain borders on the absurd. Terrorists, supposedly, hate our freedoms. Therefore, Americans will never be safe while we still enjoy them. Again from Springfield, George asserts that we are at war against a brutal enemy that wants to impose an ideology of hate on the world and doesn't believe in basic freedoms, including the freedom to worship, the freedom of dissent and freedom of speech. Funny, those are precisely the freedoms George's policies are eroding here at home. It's starting to sound a little like the pot calling the kettle black. I mean, if imposing ideology is wrong, then what are we doing in Iraq?

Remember the saying, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me?" I was raised to believe that our government was founded on the principle that ideologies could compete in open dialogue without the need for recourse to sticks and stones or broken bones. What are we doing in Iraq?

Besides, take a look around. Who's been doing all the domestic terrorism since 9-11? It has notably not been turban-toting Al Qaeda operatives blowing up refineries or government buildings. It's been disturbed white guys, with guns, at schools, often with sexually aberrant aims. These guys, as if trying to act out the basic tenets of global economic success, covertly arrive to suddenly seize power, dominate and exploit. Sound familiar? What are we doing in Iraq?

Oh, I know, it's all about keeping the world safe, and maybe a little about oil, too. It certainly seems geared to keeping the world safe for corporate capitalism. I'm not so sure about keeping citizens safe. George says the best way to keep Americans safe is to "stay on the offensive" and to "defeat (terrorists) overseas so we do not have to face them here at home". War without end. Amen.

Only time will tell whether this will work. Meanwhile, voters will decide if it will be continued.