By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – June 13, 2007
This is the fourth in my occasional series of re-runs, in
the order that they originally appeared, of earlier TPJ columns that focused
specifically on George Bush. This one was originally published on
10-21-04 as TPJ 34. Given the continuing progression that is becoming
evermore clear towards the achievement of the man’s primary goals, creation of
Permanent War in the Middle East and the dismantling of Constitutional
Democracy at home, once again re-publishing this particular column at this
particular time seems to be particularly appropriate. As previously, the
column is edited, but not updated.
A lot is made of George Bush’s “misstatements,” internally
contradictory pronouncements, distortions, and outright lies. Based on
what he says, it is very difficult sometimes to tell just what George
Bush stands for. For when he talks about the famous “compassionate
conservatism,” “spreading freedom and democracy,” “securing the homeland,”
“creating a fair tax system,” “fighting a war on terrorism,” “protecting
traditional values,” one is often reduced to the “huh?” response: what exactly
does he mean, how does he intend to get there, and where are the
resources? When one looks at what he actually does, however,
then Bush policies and their meanings become much clearer. A good friend
of mine coined the following phrase in reference to George I; it applies with a
vengeance to George II: “Read their lips; but watch their hips.”
And so this column is not about Bush lies. The
Georgites always say, “no they’re not,” regardless of the facts on the
ground. The spin around the Duelfer Report on Iraqi WMD, as “reposted” as
“news” by Fox “News” Channel for example, made it sound like the contents of
the Report supported the reasons the Georgites gave for going to
war. They just hope to get into an endless and distracting “are, are not,
are, are not” argument. This column is not about Bush mis-use of
the language, which the Georgites always pass off as “well, that’s just the
country boy in him” (the Andover, Yale, Harvard country boy!). It is not
about any of the outrageous Bush statements like the “war on terror is
unwinnable,” which he and/or the Georgites always manage to “correct” by the
next day or so and then deny that he ever made, or at least never meant, the
original.
This column is about policies and programs that
George Bush has either implemented or clearly proposed for
implementation. Some are prominent; some are obscure. All of them
present a very clear picture of what George Bush wants our great nation to be,
to become. George Bush will propose to the next Congress, if he is
re-elected, “the further reduction, if not the elimination, of taxes on savings
and investments, including taxes on dividends and on capital gains on stocks,
bonds, and real estate” (New York Times, Taxes for an Ownership
Society, Editorial page, Sept. 15, 2004). If Bush is
re-elected, he will have clear majorities in both Houses of Congress, and
legislation to implement this proposal will pass, meaning that all that will
remain of the income tax will be a wage tax.
The Patriot Act, that piece of civil liberties-busting
legislation that the Georgites must have written before 9/11 because its
340-plus densely written pages were introduced to the Congress within about two
weeks of the tragedy, will be made permanent. Presently, it is due to
expire in 2005. George Bush wants it in place forever. (In a future
column, I am going to deal with the question no one seems to ask: why?)
Yes, George Bush does permanently want the power, on his own authority, to
bypass the Constitutional guarantees for protection against
non-judicially-warranted search and seizure (the Fourth Amendment), the right
to due process of law (the Fifth Amendment), and the right to a speedy trial by
jury in criminal cases (the Sixth Amendment), for any person, US citizen or
not, whom he deems to be a “terrorist threat” of one sort or another.
In the United States, marriage is both a religious and civil
procedure. It is defined in and regulated by the law in each of the 50
states, as well as by the numerous codes of the numerous religious entities
that exist in our country. George Bush supports the passage of the
“prohibition of gay marriage” amendment, which would deny the benefits and obligations
of civil marriage to same-sex couples. That would vitiate the provision
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that prevents any state from
denying “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.” It would restore the status quo ante bellum (the Civil War,
that is) that one or more classes of persons, defined by who they are, not
anything they have done, can be placed outside of one or more provisions of the
law, this time at the Federal as well as at the state level. If the
homosexual community is hit first (as it was in Nazi Germany), which one would
be next? (Just guess.)
As detailed in the September 18, 2004 Report from the office
of Congressman Henry Waxman of California, the Bush Administration would
continue its process of creating the most highly secretive Administration in
United States history. For example, Bush has already issued an Executive
Order severely restricting access to the papers of former Presidents, denied
access to any records of the famous Cheney task force on energy, adopted a
policy to refuse initially any requests for Executive Branch information under
the Freedom of Information Act, and doubled the number of government documents
put under the seal of “classification,” including ones issuing from such
Departments as Agriculture and Health and Human Services.
The Bush Administration is in the process of giving border
patrol agents “sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens from the frontiers
with Mexico and Canada without providing them the opportunity to make their
case before an immigration judge” (R.L. Swarns, US to Give Border Patrol
Agents, New York Times, August 11, 2004). Who will be
the next group of persons for whom a police agency will be able make a
determination of law violation and go right on to determine and then impose
punishment? This, by the way, is the exact same power that the Nazi
German Schutz Staffel (known colloquially as the “SS”) had. Who, here,
might be the first victims? Protestors against such policies, perhaps?
If Bush has his way in a Second Administration, his choice
for CIA Director, politico Porter Goss, would have the power to engage in
domestic intelligence gathering and surveillance, whether or not any criminal
activity is suspected. Presently, the FBI does need some semblance of
suspicion of criminal activity in order to do the same thing. It is
already clear that Bush follows the dictum of Hermann Goering, pronounced by
him shortly before his death at this own hand in an Allied prison at Nuremberg:
to enhance the power of government over the individual. Goering said:
“whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship . . . all you have
to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack
of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in
any country.”
George Bush appoints people like Prof. Diana Schaub to the
Federal Bioethics Commission. Speaking on stem cell research, she said:
“Every embryo for research is someone’s blood relative. . . . I would not
be prepared to restore the intellectual functioning of a 93-year-old man by
sacrificing embryonic life” (Stem Cells and Slavery, Science,
June 18, 2004, p. 1742). Talk about the imposition on all of us of one
particular personal belief on the matter of when life begins! The Georgite
approach is to apply the “life-begins-at-the-moment-of-conception” doctrine to
both the beliefs and actions of every member of our society, regardless of
whether or not they agree with it.
“The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate is the highest in the
industrialized world -- 10 times more than in the Netherlands or
Switzerland. Of the 900,000 U.S. teenagers who become pregnant every
year, 8 in 10 say their pregnancy was un-intended” (Playing Politics with
Women’s Lives, Science, July 2, 2004, p. 17). The Bush policy
for dealing with this situation is a combination of abstinence preaching,
sorry, “teaching,” and the criminalization of abortion.
On a wide variety of environmental, health, labor, and
personal safety matters, the Bush Administration has re-written existing
regulations to suit the wishes of industry, often with former industry
employees and/or lobbyists writing the self-same regulations (J. Brinkley, “Out of the Spotlight, Bush Overhauls
U.S. Regulations,” New York Times, August 14, 2004).
The article’s headline says it all about the public relations approach of the
Administration on this policy.
The Bush Administration’s ideology is clear: it is an
approach to government and governing that puts as much power as possible in the
hands of the Executive Branch, with as little legislative, judicial, or public
accountability as possible,. It takes the country back to the Coolidgean
view that “the business of government is business.” Moreover, since
George Bush is capable of distracting huge numbers of people who are in fact
negatively affected by his governmental philosophy and actions, and actually
get them to support him, from the Georgite perspective he is the perfect leader
for their movement. After all, look at just how much the twin forces of
the Radical Reactionary Right (mis-named the “neoconservatives”) and the
Republican Religious Right have achieved in such a short time under George
Bush’s leadership, and at how much more of their agendas they will be able to
achieve, should their chosen leader be re-selected. George Bush is hardly
the incompetent that some of his critics still paint him as. For the
implementation of his chosen policies, and for his voters, George Bush is a
fine, almost a perfect, leader.