War Hysteria and Lost Issues

The perturbing thing about the war hysteria that has gripped the country for the past year or so is that other, significant stories about what's going on in the country (and world) tend to get lost in the process. Michael Moore contends that this scenario is perfect for Bush. He writes that the "planned invasion of Iraq is a ruse meant to distract the public from the real issues," which he finds to be:

1. The number of people unemployed since he "took" office has risen by 35%.
2. We had a federal SURPLUS of $281 billion when he was inaugurated; today we have a DEFICIT of $157 billion.
3. TWO MILLION jobs have been eliminated since Bush began his occupation ofthe Oval Office.
4. The stock market is down 34% since January of 2001.
5. Another 1.4 million people now have NO health insurance, making it a total of over 41 million Americans who can't afford to get sick.
6. Only 13 corporate crooks out of HUNDREDS have been indicted, and none of them have been the close personal friends of Mr. Bush."

So here are just a couple of the more disturbing stories, specifically about domestic economic policy, that you should probably know (and worry) about:

"The number of Americans without health insurance climbed by 1.4 million last year to 41.2 million as fewer people received medical coverage from employers, according to U.S. government estimates released Monday."

"Millions of people, particularly men, have dropped out of the labor force over the last decade, apparently unable to find work that pays near what they once earned in the blue-collar jobs that have since moved to lower-wage countries. Unwilling to take new jobs that pay far less, neither employed nor looking for work, they are not counted in the jobless rate, and a surprising and growing number of them instead depend on a government check to get by."

"The number of poor people in the United States rose last year to 32.9 million, an increase of 1.3 million that pushed up the proportion of Americans living in poverty for the first time in eight years, to 11.7 percent, the Census Bureau reported today. "

I've stated that I don't see this blog as a warblog; I think, though, that I have to work harder to validate that assertion. Considering that the balance of my posts, especially recently, deal almost exclusively with the war, I need to make an effort to keep my eye focused on these equally significant issues.