Posted by Esarhaddon from accel12.nyc.untd.com (64.136.27.22) on Saturday, July 05, 2003 at 4:56PM :
Fear, Lies and Inequities - Bush Administration Hallmarks
by Stan Moore
No matter whether it is in domestic policy or international affairs, the Federal administration of George Walker Bush focuses on certain recurrent themes to promote its own agenda and attempt to give legitimacy to its own efforts to govern the American people and rule the world. Amazingly, the American people are so myopic and so diverted in their attention that Americans seem far more oblivious to both the facts and the ramifications of these matters than practically the entire world of humanity outside the U.S. borders. A brief look at three issues shows how the mentality of the Bush administration sets an agenda that history will likely assess as the most counterproductive of any American presidency in the history of the republic.
Fear - Americans are manipulated into fearing other nations, and other nations, seeing the actions and bluster of the Bush administration, are learning to fear America. This is the most unhealthy foreign affairs policy set in the history of America. Even America's long-time allies and friends among nations now are taught to fear that a lack of total cooperation with any and every Bush policy initiative will lead to negative repercussions. And the American people are faced with a constant barrage of quasi-"intelligence" revelations about the fearful state of the world and why America must not only be armed and potent, but actually launch pre-emptive wars against threats and threatening regimes. No matter that some of these regimes were set into power by America policies and funding of the past -- if a case can be concocted that a sovereign regime of any nation poses a threat to American interests, whether security interests or economic ones, that nation become literally targeted by the war-making machinery of the most potent military organization in world history. Fear drives domestic and foreign policy in a way that is, in and of itself, frightful to decent, peace-loving humanity all around the world.
Lies - If George Orwell was alive today, he would see fulfillment of his own predictions of societal rule by the Bush administration. Joseph Goebbels would be proud of Bush and his regime. Lies are told, repeated, and spoken again and again so matter of factly and with such conviction that it is apparent that Bush himself no longer can tell the difference between truth and fiction. If a declaration suits the primitive worldview of the Bush administration, it is considered "true". Information is sorted out according to usefulness within the Bush agenda. If it suits the agenda to claim Iran, Iraq, Syria, or other nations have weapons of mass destruction -- then evidence is concocted, fabricated, distorted, or manipulated to further the agenda, no matter how untrue. Interestingly, often Bush feels no need to provide an explanation for his administration's behavior, on the grounds that America is always right and America is so powerful that no one can question American policy regardless. But if Bush decides he wants to provide some sort of explanation for its behaviors, he is more likely than not to be lying or deceiving the listener, and the media is likely to repeat the lies without questioning. The corporate media has now become the unabashed purveyor of propaganda, now matter how blatantly false, of the Bush administration.
Inequities - The Bush administration stands for accumulation of wealth and power into the hands of the wealthy few. Corporations are prioritized over citizens. Rich receive large tax breaks, and poor to middle class receive tiny to miniscule tax breaks. Israel, the brutal occupier of Palestinian lands, is subsidized with billions of dollars of aid, while Palestinians are accused of "terrorism" and allowed to suffer endlessly. Iraqi citizens swelter without electricity and water under US. occupation, while the Iraqi oil industry is revived for the benefit of American corporate interests. L. Paul Bremer and Tommy Franks occupy palatial estates in Baghdad, under heavy security and opulence in Iraq, while Iraqi children die of cholera and chronic diarrhea. US defense contractors receive billions of new funding to prepare for future preemptive wars, while American schools do without infrastructure repairs and American children have to do without pencils and books and toilet tissue. American soldiers risk their lives in the U.S. Imperial Army, while their own medical benefits are slashed at home, and when American soldiers come down with diseases caused by exposure to toxic by-products of modern warfare, they are sent to psychiatric treatment instead of acknowledging government culpability for their grievous injuries. General Officers make millions writing books on how they run their wars, and the grunts watch their children born with birth defects.
And with all the fear, lies and inequities, the Bush approval ratings place him in the lead for the 2004 Federal election. Is the American public sado-masochistic now? Is America going to "burn out" instead of to "fade away"? Maybe George W. Bush is a Neil Young fan and wants his administration to be the pinnacle of American historical power -- from here it may be all downhill; down, down, down to oblivion. Not too many world citizens would mourn America if Bush leads America to failure comparable to his business ventures....
The writer is a member of several falconry and ornithological clubs and organizations. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from California, USA.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2003 Stan Moore
by the same author:
Hypocrisy and Pseudo-democracy
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