Posted on 7-7-2003
What
Is Happening in America?
By Eliot Weinberger This article that analyses the Bush administration's
policies, was published by "Vorwarts," Germany. First
Published 8 June 2003
In the Western democracies in the last fifty years, we have
grown accustomed to governments whose policies on specific issues
may be good or bad, but which essentially institute incremental
changes to the status quo. The major exceptions have been Thatcher
and Reagan, but even their programs of dismantling systems of
social welfare seem, in retrospect, mild compared to what is
happening in the United States under George Bush-- or more exactly,
the ruling junta that tells Bush what to do and say.
It is unquestionably the most radical government in modern American
history, one whose ideology and actions have become so pervasive,
and are so unquestionably mirrored by the mass media here, that
the population seems to have forgotten what 'normal' is
George Bush is the first unelected President of the United States,
installed by a right-wing Supreme Court in a kind of judicial
coup d'etat. He is the first to actively subvert one of the
pillars of American democracy: the separation of church and
state. There are now daily prayer meetings and Bible study groups
in every branch of the government, and religious organisations
are being given funds to take over educational and welfare programs
that have always been the domain of the state.
Bush is the first president to invoke the specific "Jesus
Christ" rather than an ecumenical "God," and
he has surrounded himself with evangelical Christians, including
his Attorney General, who attends a church where he talks in
tongues.
It is the first administration to openly declare a policy of
unilateral aggression, a "Pax Americana" where the
presence of allies (whether England or Bulgaria) is agreeable
but unimportant; where international treaties no longer apply
to the United States; and where-- for the first time in history--
this country reserves the right to non-defensive, "pre-emptive"
strikes against any nation on earth, for whatever reason it
declares.
It is the first-- since the internment of Japanese-Americans
in World War II-- to enact special laws for a specific ethnic
group. Non-citizen young Muslim men are now required to register
and subject themselves to interrogation. Many hundreds have
been arrested and held without trial or access to legal assistance--
a violation of another pillar of American democracy: habeas
corpus. Many have been taken from their families and deported
on minor technical immigration violations; the whereabouts of
many others are still unknown. And, in Guantanamo Bay, where
it is said that they are now preparing execution chambers, hundreds
of foreign nationals -- including a 13-year-old and a man who
claims to be 100have been kept for almost two years in a limbo
that clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention.
Similar to the Reagan era, it is an administration openly devoted
to helping the rich and ignoring the poor, one that has turned
the surplus of the Clinton years into a massive deficit through
its combination of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly
those who earn more than a million dollars a year) and increases
in defence spending. (And, although Republicans always campaign
on "less government," it has created the largest new
government bureaucracy in history: the Department of Homeland
Security.) The Financial Times of England, hardly a hotbed of
leftists, has categorised this economic policy as "the
lunatics taking over the asylum."
But more than Reagan-- whose policies tended to benefit the
rich in general-- most of Bush's legislation specifically enriches
those in his lifelong inner circle from the oil, mining, logging,
construction, and pharmaceutical industries. At the middle level
of the bureaucracy, where laws may be issued without Congressional
approval, hundreds of regulations have been changed to lower
standards of pollution or safety in the workplace, to open up
wilderness areas for exploitation, or to eliminate the testing
of drugs.
Billions in government contracts have been awarded, without
competition, to corporations formerly run by administration
officials. In a country where the most significant social changes
are enacted by court rulings, rather than by legislation, the
Bush administration has been filling every level of the complex
judicial system with ultra-right ideologues, especially those
who have protected corporations from lawsuits by individuals
or environmental groups, and those who are opposed to women's
reproductive rights. It remains to be seen how far they can
push their antipathy to contraception and abortion. They have
already banned a rare form of late-term abortion that is only
given when the health of the mother is endangered or the foetus
is terribly deformed, and a large portion of Bush's heralded
billions to Africa to fight AIDS will be devoted to so-called
"abstinence" education.
Most of all, America doesn't feel like America any more. The
climate of militarism and fear, similar to any totalitarian
state, permeates everything. Bush is the first American president
in memory to swagger around in a military uniform, though he
himself-- like all of his most militant advisers-- evaded the
Vietnam War. (Even Eisenhower, a general and a war hero, never
wore his uniform while he was president).
In the airports of provincial cities, there are frequent announcements
in that assuring, disembodied voice of science-fiction films:
"The Department of Homeland Security advises that the Terror
Alert is now . . . Code Orange." Every few weeks there
is an announcement that another terrorist attack is imminent,
and citizens are urged to take ludicrous measures, like sealing
their windows, against biological and chemical attacks, and
to report the suspicious activities of their neighbours.
The Pentagon institutes the "Total Information Awareness"
program to collect data on the ordinary activities of ordinary
citizens (credit card charges, library book withdrawals, university
course enrolments) and when this is perceived as going too far,
they change the name to "Terrorist Information Awareness"
and continue to do the same things. Millions are listed in airport
security computers as potential terrorists, including antiwar
demonstrators and pacifists. Critics are warned to "watch
what they say" and lists of "traitors" are posted
on the internet.
The war in Iraq has been the most extreme manifestation of this
new America, and almost a casebook study in totalitarian techniques.
First, an Enemy is created by blatant lies that are endlessly
repeated until the population believes it: in this case, that
Iraq was linked to the attack on the World Trade Centre, and
that it possesses vast "weapons of mass destruction"
that threaten the world. Then, a War of Liberation, entirely
portrayed by the mass media in terms of our Heroic Troops, with
little or no imagery of casualties and devastation, and with
morale-inspiring, scripted "news" scenes-- such as
the toppling of the Saddam statue and the heroic "rescue"
of Private Lynch-- worthy of Soviet cinema. Finally, as has
happened with Afghanistan, very little news of the chaos that
has followed the Great Victory. Instead, the propaganda machine
moves on to a new Enemy-- this time, Iran.
It is very difficult to speak of what is happening in America
without resorting to the hyperbolic clichés of anti-Americanism
that have lost their meaning after so many decades, but that
have now finally come true. Perhaps one can only recite the
facts, and I have mentioned only some of them here. This is,
quite simply, the most frightening American administration in
modern times, one that is appalling both to the left and to
traditional conservatives. This junta is unabashed in its imperialist
ambitions; it is enacting an Orwellian state of Perpetual War;
it is dismantling, or attempting to dismantle, some of the most
fundamental tenets of American democracy; it is acting without
opposition within the government, and is operating so quickly
on so many fronts that it has overwhelmed and exhausted any
popular opposition.
Perhaps it cannot be stopped, but the first step toward slowing
it down is the recognition that this is an American government
unlike any other in this country's history, and one for whom
democracy is an obstacle.
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