From the Feb. 8 MSNBC interview between Tim Russert and President George W. Bush:
Russert: "You were both [Bush and Kerry] in Skull and Bones, the secret society."
Bush: "It's so secret we can't talk about it."
Russert: "What does that mean for America? The conspiracy theorists are going to go wild."
Bush: "I'm sure they are. I don't know. I haven't seen the (unintel) yet. (Laughs)"
Big joke. But one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be alarmed over the fact that Bush AND Kerry, the alleged lesser evil alternative to the sociopathic sadist in the White House, both belong to the nation's most powerful and exclusive secret society of the privileged elite--one whose initiation rites include bizarre sexual rituals in which nude inductees, or "knights," share coffins.
Skull & Bones is not the irrational ravings of a loony conspiracy theorist. It is the oldest and most prestigious of Yale University's 7 secret fraternities that function as a recruiting center for ruling class men. The number "322" that Russert referred to just after the above excerpt is found under the skull and crossbones on the group's emblem. It is thought to stand for 1832--the year it was born, and that it is the second of three lodges within an international setup.
William Huntington Russell founded the Order of Skull & Bones at Yale in 1832. The Russells were one of the New England merchant families that grew rich from the opium trade and their trade with the British East India Company and were allied with Britain during the American Revolution.
These merchant families established the Bank of Boston and the United Fruit Company. William Russell and his fellow Skull and Bonesmen believed themselves to be among a special elite at Yale. They were also fanatical Puritans who believed they were "elected by God," and preordained to rule America.
(Fitting that George W. Bush would eventually be a Bonesman. He says God told him to invade Iraq; and his General Boykin believes that God installed George Bush in the White House as a miracle, since the people surely didn't elect him).
February 10, 2004--It is beyond the scope of this essay to explore the history and sordid details of this secret order of Yale's privileged--the bizarre rituals, the Tomb, the coffins, and the rest. A representative sampling of Skull and Bones members tells us what we need to know about this ruling class fraternity: Harold Stanley, founder of investment banking firm Morgan Stanley; John Thomas Daniels, founder of food giant Archer Daniels Midland; Averell Harriman, investment banker at Brown Brothers Harriman; Robert Lovett, partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, Assistant Secretary of War for Air, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Defense; Henry Lewis Stimson, partner in Wall Street law firm Root and Stimson, Secretary of War, Secretary of State; Prescott Bush, investment banker and partner in Brown Brothers Harriman; George Herbert Walker Bush, US Congressman, CIA director, vice president, president.
The fact that Kerry and Bush are blueblood brothers in an elite secret fraternity like Skull and Bones is relevant to working people because it graphically demonstrates that Kerry is no alternative to Bush. Like Clinton, Kerry would be smarter and slicker in overseeing capital's exploitation of wage labor, but he can never represent US because he is one of THEM, worth a cool $550 million.
Kerry voted FOR the war and supports the ongoing illegal occupation of Iraq. He voted FOR the Patriot Act. He voted FOR Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, a reactionary law that punishes working class children and will increase the class stratification of our educational system. He voted FOR the disastrous Telecommunications Act of 1996. One of the very few bills Kerry passed was Plan Colombia, the notorious defoliation of that country's rainforest caused by spraying 325,000 acres with toxins.
Kerry is the son of a former US diplomat and is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, heir to a $600 million ketchup estate. Ms. Kerry chairsthe Heinz Environmental Defense Fund, whose board has been graced by Enron's Kenneth Lay .This phony populist who demagogically claims he will show special interests the door on the way out has received more campaign contributions from corporations than any other senator.
Elizabeth Schulte of the Socialist Worker newspaper writes that Kerry was among the top 10 recipients of money from airline and automotive industries, snaring almost $90 thousand. Kerry is also a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Kerry also backed Clinton's welfare reform, a vicious assault on working people that threw millions of poor people off welfare or forced them into low paying jobs. He recently told a campaign audience that "I'm a capitalist, and I believe in creating wealth. You can't be a Democrat who loves jobs and hates the people who create them. What we have to do is recognize that there is an enlightened, good capitalism, and there's a robber baron capitalism. What George Bush has unleashed is a creed of greed that does a disservice to all people in business."
We'll take up Kerry's utopian description of capitalist society and the rest of his campaign in upcoming essays, as we do in the following essay, "Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?: On Bush's State of the Union, the Democrats, and the One-Sided Class War," below.
For now it's enough to say that Kerry represents the faction of the US capitalist class that is worried Bush's reckless policies might provoke social explosions that could threaten capitalism's stability and long-term interests. Kerry's job is to contain the growing anger among the populace and keep the discontent shackled by the straitjacket of the two party capitalist shell game.
Kerry has proven to Wall Street he would be a loyal servant in the White House. He is committed to "fiscal responsibility"--which means forcing workers to pay the price for capitalism's crisis. Kerry is riding the crest of the "electability" wave that has two sources: the intense hatred for Bush among the working class, and the growing wing of the capitalist class that believes Kerry would be the most reliable and effective guardian of their interests.
Fueling the rapid deterioration of Bush's presidency is a story the capitalist media did its best to ignore for many years--Bush's AWOL from the Alabama National Guard from 1972-73. In fact, the ascension of John Kerry and the media's sudden interest in Bush's military record are integrally linked and are signs that the US ruling class is starting to think Kerry would make a better war president than the AWOL blueblooded frat brat.
Let's turn to the Russert interview to launch a discussion of the issue that may bring down George W. Bush.
Russert: "The chairman of the Democratic National Committee,Terence McAuliffe, said this week: 'I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard. He didn't show up when he should have showed up.'"
Bush: "Yeah."
Russert: "How do you respond?"
Bush: "Political season is here. I was I served in the National Guard. I flew F 102 aircraft. I got an honorable discharge."
No one has accused Bush of not serving in the Guard. He's in trouble because he failed to report for duty in Alabama for the "missing year"--1972-73. No on denies he had trained as a pilot on the F 102 Delta Dagger. What Bush didn't say is that this plane was being phased out and never made it to Vietnam--which guaranteed that Bush wouldn't either. Which makes mincemeat of Sean Hannity's Feb. 12 drivel that Bush "may have been in line" for Vietnam.
The fact that Bush was honorably discharged also does not account for the missing year of service from the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Alabama. Leading Bush apologists like Bill O'Reilly and Hannity mouth that "honorably discharged" mantra as if it resolves Bush's dilemma. All it proves is that Bush's family connections covered up his dereliction of duty.
Eric Boehlert of Salon.com reports that Grant Lattin, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, had this to say about honorable discharges: "An honorable discharge does not indicate a flawless record. Somebody could have missed a year's worth of Guard drills and still end up with an honorable discharge, according to Lattin, because the Guard "is obviously very political. . . and is subject to political influence."
Further, the New Republic reports that convicted DC sniper John Allen Muhammad received an honorable discharge from the Louisiana National Guard in 1985 after facing two summary courts-martial for striking an officer, stealing tape and going AWOL. So much for honorable discharges.
Bush: "I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side to do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn't, is because there are a lot of really fine people who served in the National Guard and who are are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq. . . . What I don't like is when people say serving in the Guard is is may not be a true service."
Then Bush should check with his Secretary of State Colin Powell, who wrote in his memoirs: "I am so angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed. . . managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
The only person who denigrated the National Guard is George W. Bush by failing to show up for required National Guard duty in Alabama for almost a year, and for failing to take a required medical exam, which forced the Guard to punish Bush by grounding him.
The Vietnam war was extremely unpopular among draft-age youth, as it grew to be among broader layers of American society. It wasn't just the rich kids Powell referred to in his memoirs who joined the Guard to evade the draft, as Washington Post writer Richard Cohen writes: "The National Guard and the Reserves were something a joke. Everyone knew it. Books have been written about it. . . .I have no shame about my service, but I know it for what it was --hardly the charge of the Light Brigade. When Bush attempts to drape the flag of today's Guard over the one he was in so long ago, when he warns his critics to remember that 'there are a lot of really fine people who have served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq,' then he is doing what he was doing then: hiding behind the ones who were really doing the fighting."
Bush denigrated the Guard because he didn't even live up to his end of the bargain--he failed to attend the required drills at the Alabama base--the drills that everyone else had to attend. He took advantage of Poppy Bush's connections to game the military just as he's gamed everything else in his privileged life.
Russert: "The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of their records and said there's no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972."
Bush: "Yeah, they're they're just wrong. [Well, that's certainly convincing proof. Case closed.] "There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged." [Here Bush admits there is no evidence proving he served in Alabama, all he can do is declare he did report, or he wouldn't have been honorably discharged! It's Alice in Wonderland again.
"In other words, you don't just say , 'I did something' without there being verification. [Unless you're the son of a man on his way to becoming CIA director!] Military doesn't work that way. [It does when Poppy Bush's pulling the strings.] I got an honorable discharge, and I did show up in Alabama." [Means nothing, and showing up does not explain the extended absences.]
Russert: "You did, were allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there a reason?
Bush: "Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and WORKED IT OUT WITH THE MILITARY." [emphasis added]
He worked it out with the military. It is THIS aspect of Bush's National Guard record that is relevant to the US working class, not the fact that Kerry's war medals make him a more qualified commander in chief. More on Kerry's war record shortly.
The son of a powerful Texas congressman, on his way to becoming CIA director, vice president, and president, a member of one of the most powerful and well-connected American dynasties, is able to leave the Guard eight months early to enroll in Harvard Business School because he "worked it out with the military"?? Are any of the young men and women Bush is sending to Iraq able to cut short their duty by "working it out with the military?"
The existence of Bush's one-year gap in his National Guard duty first surfaced in a May 23, 2000, Boston Globe article by Walter V. Robinson. The capitalist media did its best to ignore Robinson's story, as they did with most of Bush's character indiscretions, preferring to push the lie that Gore claimed he invented the Internet. However, in 2004, with the Bush presidency unraveling under the weight of the growing fallout from what will go down as two of the most heinous crimes ever committed by a US president--September 11 and the Iraq war--the US capitalist class shows signs of losing faith in Bush and concluding that Kerry may be a more credible commander in chief to lead US forces in the wars to come against Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Colombia and beyond.
We owe much to Robinson for exposing how this son of privilege used his political connections to get into the Guard, cover up his dereliction of duty, and get out of the Guard eight months early with an honorable discharge.
While Bush denies receiving any preferential treatment to gain a coveted spot in the Texas National Guard in 1968, there are strong indications that the Bush name vaulted him over 500 waiting-list applicants. Robinson reported that in 1999, Ben Barnes, a speaker of the Texas House in 1968, swore in a civil lawsuit deposition that he lobbied Guard officials to grant Bush a slot after a friend of George H.W. Bush asked him to intervene on Dubya's behalf.
No one doubts that Bush joined the Guard in 1968, put in eight weeks of basic training, fulfilled 55 weeks of flight training at Georgia's Moody Air Force Base, followed by five months of F-102 training at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas. But before reporting for basic training, Bush was approved for second lieutenant and assignment to flight school despite receiving a poor score on a pilot skills test and having no aviation or ROTC experience.
But in the spring of 1972, Bush's stint as a pilot came to an end when he requested to transfer to Alabama to work on the US Senate campaign of family friend Winton Blount. You get to do that when your father is a powerful congressman from the oil industry with close ties to the CIA.
Bush moved to Alabama before he had received official approval. Upon his arrival, Bush made a formal request to do equivalent training at the 9921 Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base. Maxwell's unit commander Reese Bricken okayed Bush on a temporary basis. Bush's Houston superiors also inexplicably approved the transfer to the paper-pushing Maxwell base. But the Air Reserve Personnel Center ultimately said no, saying Bricken's unit didn't have regular drills.
In July 1972 Bush failed to take a scheduled medical exam in Alabama, no doubt because it would have revealed his massive marijuana and cocaine consumption. On August 1, 1972, Bush was suspended from flight status for now taking the physical, never to fly again.
In September 1972, Bush asked for and received approval for duty at the 187th Air National Guard Tactical squadron at the Dannelly Field base in Montgomery, Alabama. Here is where Bush really gets into trouble. The 187th commander, Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, told the Boston Globe that he was "dead certain" Bush never showed up at the base. "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not. I had been in Texas, done my flight training t here. If we had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
Turnipseed's not the only one who can't recall seeing the first lieutenant from Texas on the Dannelly Field. When Robinson broke the story four years ago, the Bush campaign promised it would produce names of fellow soldiers who'd served with Bush in Alabama. But it never did. In 2000, a veterans group offered a $3500 reward for anyone who could verify Bush's Alabama Guard service. Of the 600-700 Guardsman who were in Bush's unit, not a soul stepped forward. in Alabama offered rewards for soldiers to come forward and confirm Bush's presence at Dannelly. None did.
The Memphis Flyer reports that two members of the Air National Guard unit at Dannelly who bush allegedly served with, Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop, swear that Bush was never there. Mintz, now living in M emphis, remembers that "I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for someone to prowl around with."
But Mintz never saw Bush. "And I was LOOKING for him." Mintz does not appreciate Bush's lack candor in this matter. "You don't do that as an officer, you don't do it as a pilot, you don't do it as a citizen. This guy's got some nerve."
Doesn't he though.
Paul Bishop agrees with Mintz and Turnipseed that Bush was a no-show at Dannelly. "I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush. In fact, I saw more of Al Sharpton at the base than George W. Bush."
February 15-16, 2004--The 2000 Globe article further reported that Bush returned to his Houston Guard unit in 1973, but in May of that year the supervisors of that unit, Lt. Col. William Harris Jr. and Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, could not complete Bush's annual officer effectiveness review because, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report."
The reason this story won't go away is because Bush has been lying about it and covering up the fact that he simply decided in May 1972 that his flying career and committment to the Guard were over. The day after Robinson's Globe story was printed on May 23, 2000, Bush suggested to reporters that when he returned to Houston in 1973, it was the Texas Air National Guard's decision to terminate his flying career. "There was a conscious decision not to retrain me in an airplane."
Not true. While the F-102 was phased out in the 1970s, it was still being used in 1973. And Bush neglected to tell reporters that he had been grounded for failing to take his physical exam.
In July 1999, Bush's campaign told the press that his transfer to Alabama was for the same flying assignment he'd had in Texas. That's a lie. Bush failed to report for duty in Alabama, and there was no flying at either Alabama unit. Also in 1999, then-spokeswoman Karen Hughes told the Associated Press that Bush was right when he'd said in an earlier campaign that he had served "in the U.S. Air Force." Wrong, Ms. Hughes. The Texas Air National Guard is not the U.S. Air Force.
When asked by reporters in 2000 why Bush was a no-show for his July 1972 physical exam, the Bush campaign offered two explanations. One was that Bush was in Alabama while his personal physician was in Texas--a meaningless answer since military law requires examination by an Air Force flight surgeon, not a personal doctor.
The second explanation was that since Bush's flying days were over, he didn't need to take a physical. Four years later, in the midst of frantic damage control, Bush is still sticking to this line. White House communications director Dan Bartlett, according to a Feb. 14 NY Times article, "said Mr. Bush missed the exam BECAUSE HE FELT THERE WAS NO REASON TO TAKE IT." [emphasis added]
This guy works for Bush? All Bartlett did was confirm Bush's ruling class arrogance.
This pattern of lies and clumsy coverups has continued in 2004. Let's return to the Russert interview to hear what Bush had to say about releasing records.
Russert: "When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark about their military rec ords, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to that?"
Bush: "Yeah. Listen, these files I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me [??], and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor. And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were. And absolutely. I mean, I . . ."
Russert: "But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?"
Bush: "Yeah. If we still have them, but I you know, the records are kept in Colorado [??what??], as I understand [??], and they scoured the records. ["they" meaning the Boston Globe? That's why you're in trouble, Bush. And they only looked at SOME of the records, because YOU have never released ALL of them, unlike every other US presidential candidate in history.]
"And I'm telling you, I did my duty, and it's politics, you know to kind of ascribe all kinds of motives to me. But I have been through it before. [Because you've never owned up!] I'm used to it. What I don't like is when people say serving in the Guard is is may not be a true service."[It's not true service when you don't show up when you're supposed to!]
Russert accomplished one thing in his interview--forcing Bush to promise to release all of his military records. But in trying to come clean, Bush has only raised more questions about his spotty Alabama Guard duty.
In the days following the Russert interview, the White House released payroll records showing Bush was paid for 25 days of Guard training between May 27, 1972, and May 26, 1973. But most of those 25 days were in 1973--after he received special orders to do so. He was not paid for any days from April to October 1972. He was paid for 2 days in late October, 4 days in mid-November and no days in December. The pay stubs said nothing about what Bush did for the money or where he did it. And the crucial "missing year"--May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973--was still unaccounted for.
Now there's even doubt that the pay records are even pay records. One of the documents that the White House calls a pay stub is instead a Statement of Points Earned, which tracks when guardsmen have served as counting toward their retirement. This one contains references to "29 and "14," which may refer to Oct 29 and Nov. 14, 1972, but the document is badly torn, undated, unsigned, lacking Bush's name, and contains a redacted Social Security number.
The White House apparently thought that the release of a copy of a dental exam Bush received at the Alabama base on January 6, 1973, would end the controversy, but that only shows how deluded they are. When this initial release of pay stubs and dental records did not quell the firestorm, the White House, apparently believing that size matters, released hundreds of pages of documents on the evening of Friday, February 13. Already known as the "Friday Night Dump," this latest mass of data, while shedding no light on either Bush's missing year or his failure to take his physical exam, did tell us things we really didn't need to know, like the existence of hemorrhoids and a cyst on his chest. The documents also revealed previously known arrests for stealing a wreath at Yale and rowdiness at a Yale-Princeton football game, two speeding tickets and two citations for "negligent collisions."
The highlight of this Friday Night Dump offensive was the news that after all these years and offers of rewards from veterans groups, the White House finally found someone out of the 600-700 Guardsman at Dannelly Field to say that Bush was there in 1972. The fellow Guardsman, retired officer John B. Calhoun, told the AP on Feb. 13 that he remembers seeing Bush throughout the summer and fall of 1972 at Dannelly Field. "We didn't have the planes that he could fly. But he studied his manuals, he read flying safety regulations, accident reports -- things pilots do quite often when they are not getting ready to fly or if they don't have other duties."
That's great, except for one little problem. The Friday Night Dump revealed that Bush's transfer to Alabama was not approved until September 1972. As CBS/AP put it, "Calhoun's account appears to be at odds with records released by the White House. They show that President Bush logged no Guard duty -- anywhere -- from April 17th until October 28th."
These liars can't even get their stories straight. Of course, Calhoun, who also is a staunch Republican businessman, may be having trouble with the truth these days with his accounting sheets staring him in the face.
The White House says the documents showing Bush attended about 25 days of training between May 1972 and May 1973 were sufficient for Bush to receive retirement credit. But he still was 2 weeks shy of the minimum number of training drills expected of guardsman. In September 1973 bush asked toend his requirements to end monthly drills. Incredibly, the request was approved, he was given an honorable discharge, and he was on his way to Harvard Business School, insider trading at Harken Oil where he looted employees out of their pensions, getting bailed out by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, milking Texas taxpayers to build a stadium for the Rangers, looting the state's treasury, and now doing the same to the entire country.
In case anyone needs further convincing that Bush is a ruling class slimeball with something to hide regarding his National Guard "duty," consider this:
According to the NY Times and USA Today, Bill Barkett, a former top adviser to Texas Guard commander Maj. Gen. Daniel James III, says that in 1999 he overheard senior Texas Guard commanders and Bush advisers discuss "cleansing" potentially embarrassing details about Bush's military record as then Gov. Bush was preparing his campaign for president.
Burkett says he was just outside James' open door as the latter discussed Bush's records on a speakerphone with Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh. Allbaugh told James that Bush's press secretary, Karen Hughes, was preparing a biography and wanted information on Bush's record in the military.
"We certainly don't want anything embarrassing in there," Burkett remembers hearing Allbaugh tell James. According to Burkett, a series of meetings between senior Texas Air Guard officers ensued, followed by the removal of Bush's files from the base archives to the headquarters building.
While James, Allbaugh and the White House all deny Burkett's account, James was named by Bush to be director of the Air National Guard for the US.
The Democrats are exploiting Bush's less-than-inspiring military service to bolster war hero John Kerry's quest for the White House. As is typical of late, the Democrats are reduced to attacking the Republicans from the right, arguing that a distinguished war veteran like Kerry would make a far more effective and legitimate commander in chief to lead the US in future imperialist wars than the incumbent who couldn't even honor his National Guard obligations.
"Kerry's been there," the reasoning goes, "he knows a lot more about war and combat than Bush, so no one could mock Kerry for landing on an aircraft carrier
like they did Bush. Kerry would be a better war president," the Democrats are arguing, more so to the capitalist rulers than the American public.
Working people should reject this entire framework. It's time for a socialist perspective on Bush's military service.
John Kerry's best days were as a Vietnam soldier, when his valor saved the lives of comrades in arms; and his days as a leader of Vietnam Vets Against the War, when he exercised his democratic right as a soldier to condemn Washington's unjust war, joining tens of thousands of other soldiers who became a key component of the antiwar movement. Kerry and 1,000 other Vietnam Vets tossed their Silver, Bronze and Purple medals over the fence at the Capitol to renounce Washington's criminal aggression against the people of Vietnam, although we later learned Kerry threw another vet's medals over the fence because he'd left his at home.
Communists have long held that the main objective of class conscious soldiers in imperialist wars is to keep your fellow soldiers and yourselves alive so you can agitate against the war and fraternize with workers in opposing uniforms. Kerry's heroism in saving his fellow soldier's lives is to be commended, as is his political opposition to the war that evolved out of his own experiences there. Unlike Senator Robert Kerrey, John Kerry did not apparently commit war crimes by slaughtering women, children and other innocent civilians in cold blood. Robert Kerrey has been awarded for his service to his country by being appointed president of Manhattan's New School and now being appointed by Bush to serve on the phony Sept. 11 commission.
The problem with John Kerry is what he did AFTER Vietnam. He became part of the same political establishment that sent millions of young men like him to fight and die in a brutal war of imperialist aggression. And now Kerry is ready to step in and be commander in chief of the US imperialist war machine and use US working class youth as cannon fodder for Wall Street's profits. He voted for the war in Iraq, and supports the occupation. He supported the war in Afghanistan. He voted for Bush's tax cuts. He voted for the Patriot Act. He's in the pockets of the corporations. He is no alternative for working people.
The solution to the deepening social and economic crisis facing working people in the US is deeper than the vacuous phrase, "anybody but Bush."
The problem is the insoluble and structural crisis of capitalism. The answer will never be found in voting for this or that capitalist politician. Right now there's a one-sided class war taking place. The capitalists have their two political parties to do their bidding and make workers bear the brunt of the profit system's crisis. Working people have no political party to represent us. We have no voice in this corrupt political setup. The US working class is disenfranchised, and has been long before the 2000 Florida vote count.
Kerry voted for the war, tax cuts and Patriot Act because there is a consensus within the capitalist class to take this course. In this sense, the Republicans are correct--Kerry has no alternative to Bush's policies. The US capitalists are driven to wage colonial wars to control the natural resources that fuel the capitalist economy. They are driven to invade oil-rich strategic nations and impose protectorates because they must beat out their imperialist European and Asian rivals. With Kerry or Edwards in the White House, US troops will remain in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war drive will continue worldwide, there will still be an almost one trillion dollar deficit, there will still be a huge balance of payments deficit, there will still be a stagnant job market, there will still be over 40 million Americans with no health care, and there will still be a growing police state tyranny.
There may be one difference with a Democrat in the White House--all of the above will be accomplished a little slicker by someone with more intelligence.
Kerry's trying to weasel out of accountability for his support of the Iraq war by whining that he was misled by Bush and his faulty intelligence. But after his experience in Vietnam, John Kerry more than anyone should have known that Bush was lying about Iraq, just as Washington has lied about every single war it has waged since the 1898 Spanish-American War. It's hard for capitalists to tell its workers that the true reason they're being sent off to kill workers from other countries is for capitalist profits.
Kerry is emerging as the capitalist establishment's choice to succeed the slumping Bush, who is unraveling before our eyes and faces the distinct possibility of impeachment. If Bush becomes more of liability than an asset to the US ruling class, than he will be shown the door just as Richard Nixon was 30 years ago.
War hero Kerry could be just the ticket for the US capitalists to accelerate their militarism and war drive for global domination. Kerry's backers will argue that we need a guy who truly knows war to lead our nation into battle, not some spoiled brat who skipped out on his weekend Guard drills because he was too busy partying. The whole thrust of the Kerry attack on Bush will be from the RIGHT: Bush is not a credible warrior. He's a poser. In one of the great ironies in modern political history, Kerry will turn Bush into Dukakis in 1988 looking foolish in the Army tank.
This is not something workers should buy into. We can stake out our own working class stance on the question of Bush's AWOL history. We can be repulsed by Bush's elitism, cowardice, deceit and arrogance without automatically ending up in John Kerry's camp. We can conclude that the National Guard controversy speaks volumes about the weak, unprincipled character of Bush. We can see the hypocrisy of Bush sending other kids off to wars to line his pockets, while he himself used his connections to avoid war by joining the Guard, and then didn't even respect the Guard enough to put his time in there.
It will be impossible for working people to defend our jobs, living standards and democratic rights and fight against imperialist wars until we break from the two-party shell game and forge and form a working class party that fights for OUR class interests--jobs, peace, education, healthcare, a clean environment. Until we do that, the Bushes and Kerrys will keep sending us off to wars to fight for THEIR class interests--war, power, privilege, repression, social reaction, and above all, PROFITS.
Let's wrap up by returning to the Russert/Bush interview, which, along with the disastrous State of the Union speech analyzed in the essay below, has been the one-two punch that has sent Bush reeling to the canvas in recent weeks. When a Republican stalwart like Peggy Noonan blasts the president's performance as stumbling and incoherent, you know Bush is in trouble.
But don't count him out, yet. Not by a longshot. Because right now George Bush resembles a wounded animal--meaning he's more dangerous now than he's ever been. Bush and the gangsters around him are determined to hold on to power. If they have to stage another terrorist attack to suspend elections, they'll do it. Anyone who doesn't believe this is a naive fool. We have to organize an independent working class political party for our own survival. It's the lesser-evil trap that is utopian.
In talking about the Bush-picked commission that will in vestigate the WMD controversy, it became clear that the purpose of this phony panel is not just to cover up Bush's lies and manipulation of intelligence to wage an illegal war in Iraq, it will also be used to execute the coming wars against North Korea and Iran. Bush's "faulty intelligence" ruse will kill two birds with one stone: exonerate Bush on the WMD nonexistence; and pave the way for future wars by "improving the intelligence" that failed us in Iraq.
In other words, the commission's goal is not to investigate how Bush was able to launch a war based on lies, but how to prepare new wars the same way!
Bush: "The commission that I set up, Tim, is one that will help future presidents understand how best to fight the war on terror, and it's an important part of the kind of lessons learned in Iraq and lessons learned in Afghanistan prior to us going in, lessons learned that we can apply to both Iran and North Korea because we still have a dangerous world. And that's very important for, I think, the people to understand where I'm coming from to know that this is a dangerous world. I wish it wasn't." [No you don't, you sick pathological liar and sociopathic sadist. The first night Baghdad was bombed you pumped your fists and said gleefully, "It feels good!"]
There was one particularly chilling moment in the interview.
Russert: "Are you prepared to lose?"
Bush: "No, I'm not going to lose."
Russert: "If you did, what would you do?"
Bush: "Well, I don't plan on losing. I have got a vision for what I want to do for the country. See, I know exactly where I want to lead. I want to lead us I want to lead this world toward more peace and freedom. I want to lead this great country to work with others to change the world in positive ways, particularly as we fight the war on terror, and we got changing times here in America, too."
It was the way he said, "I'm not going to lose," with a cockiness that suggests he either knows that the fix is in with Republican friends like Dell owning corporations like Diebold which count the votes, or Bush knows that the November elections will not be held because the second terrorist attack that his despotic regime lets happen on US soil will enable him to suspend elections and declare martial law, a scenario that his former general in Iraq, Tommy Franks, recently predicted.
February 18, 2004--Then there was this pathetic attempt by the bumbling and incoherent Bush to give Americans a history lesson when Russert reminded him he hadn't volunteered or enlisted to go to Vietnam.
Bush: "No, I didn't. You're right. I served. I flew fighters and enjoyed it, and we provided a service to our country. In those days we had what was called 'Air Defense Command,' and it was part of the air defense command system. [Awe-inspiring, isn't he?]
"The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War."
"The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war." [EVERY war is a political war, genius, and the war you're waging against Iraq is no exception.]
"We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War." [The lesson imperialism learned in Vietnam is that sometimes a big power bully picks on the wrong target--a revolutionary people armed and willing to fight and die for their country. US imperialism was defeated militarily by the Vietnamese people because it had lost politically. Washington's social base was corrupt landowners. Vietnam's peasants went with the Communists because the Communists gave them land reform.
All of this is too complex for the simpleton named Bush, who, as Cuban leader Fidel Castro accurately pointed out yesterday, "couldn't debate a Cuban ninth-grader."
Which brings us to the disgraceful performance by bourgeois media pundit Tim Russert, who personifies the moral, political, and intellectual bankruptcy of the corporate media, the same media that covered up Bush's theft of the 2000 election, his criminal negligence and/or complicity in Sept. 11, and his obstruction of justice in its aftermath; the same corporate media which facilitated Bush's lies about WMD and the Iraq war.
It wasn't enough that Russert lobbed softballs at Bush and let him off the hook on WMD, Iraq, National Guard duty, and Sept. 11. But Russert really earned his millions as a media stooge for the capitalist class when the subject turned to madmen threatening the world:
Bush: "In other words, you can't rely upon a madman, and he [Hussein] was a madman. You can't rely upon him making rational decisions when it comes to war and peace, and it's too late, in my judgment, when a madman who has got terrorist connections is able to act."
Russert: "But there are lots of madmen in the world, Fidel Castro. . ."
Bush: "True."
This exchange represented one of the most grotesque perversions of history ever recorded. On what basis does Russert slander Castro as a madman? What is his evidence? What capacities of psychological analysis does Russert possess with which to make such a serious charge?
Right there Russert proved he is a propagandist masquerading as a journalist. No serious journalist in HIS right mind would ever call Fidel a madman. Only a propagandist, a media pimp for the financial oligarchy that runs the US, would stoop so low as to slander one of the most outstanding revolutionary working class leaders in history as a madman. One may disagree vehemently with Fidel's communist politics, but he is no madman, and I challenge Russert or anyone else to back up that baseless accusation with facts.
The irony staring Russert in his the face was that the true madman, the one whom the majority of the world correctly believes is the greatest threat to peace, was sitting directly across from the clueless Russert, who gave the demented Caesar the chance to nod in somber agreement, "True."
Has Fidel invaded two sovereign and defenseless nations with an overwhelming superior military force and slaughtered up to 50,000 civilians? Has Fidel threatened to drop nuclear bombs on countries that don't even have them? Is Fidel building smaller tactical nuclear weapons? Has Fidel littered Iraq with depleted uranium and naplam? Does Fidel have Cuban troops stationed in 130 countries? Does Fidel overthrow legally elected governments? Was Fidel responsible for hundreds of thousands of Indonesian deaths, hundreds of thousands of East Timorese deaths, millions in Korea and Vietnam? Is Cuba arming and financing a racist apartheid state like Israel that is committing barbaric atrocities against defenseless Palestinians every day? Did Cuba try to invade the US? Has Cuba waged biological warfare against the US? Did Fidel try to assassinate US presidents? Did Cuba organize a secret terrorist plot to shoot down remote controlled civilian airliners, sink US ships, and kill Cubans, and blame it all on the US as an excuse to invade the US?
Fidel sent Cuban volunteers to Angola in the 1980s at the request of that sovereign government to repulse a US-backed invasion by the apartheid South African regime. The smashing victory by the Cuban/Angolan forces paved the way for the downfall of the apartheid regime and the liberation of South Africa.
Cuba exports doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists, and construction workers to semi-colonial nations, while Washington exports death and destruction, to quote the true madman in the Western Hemisphere. Fidel has consistently opposed US imperialist wars and is the only leader n state power speaking for the international working class.That's why whenever Fidel visits other countries, he is greeted with enthusiastic crowds of workers and youth appreciative of his efforts --and those of the Cuban workers and peasants he represents and personifies -- on behalf of the earth's oppressed and exploited.
As opposed to Bush, who when he travels is greeted with massive, angry mobilizations that force him to scurry for cover like the murderous rat he is.
Fidel's got more intelligence in his fingernails than Bush and his father have in their brains. Fidel's got more humanity, integrity, and guts than the entire Bush family can even dream about. Fidel didn't run from battle like a physical and moral coward. He led the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra and won the unequivocal respect of his soldiers and the moral authority of his nation that still continues until this day.
Fidel recently accused the Bush administration of trying to asssassinate him, something the CIA (and the Mafia) have attempted unsuccessfully 600 times.
Who is the madman?
At a recent speech to an international conference of economists in Havana, Castro blasted US capitalism and the present administration's deficit-ridden stewardship of the economy. "The US economy is hanging by a thread," Fidel accurately observed, and looking more and more like a "banana republic," referring to Bush's looting of the US Treasury which has turned a near trillion dollar surplus into a near trillion dollar deficit.
"You can't rely upon him [Hussein] making rational decisions to go to war and peace, and it's too late, in my judgment, when a madman who has got terrorist connections is able to act."
Rational decisions? Bush publicly stated he heard God tell him to wage war on Iraq. Has Fidel invaded sovereign countries because God commanded him to?
Who is the madman with terrorist connections with the world's worst weapons of mass destruction?
Bush's father organized and financed the Nicaraguan contras whose terrorism slaughtered 100,000 Nicaraguans.The Bushes are long-time business partners with the bin Ladens. George W.'s struggling Harken Oil company was bailed out by bin Laden's brother-in-law, a large Al Qaeda benefactor.
Who is the madman?
When five Cuban agents tried to tell Bush that terrorist acts against Cuba were being planned on US soil, Bush arrested and prosecuted them. They're doing 15 to life.
Who is the madman?
In a 2000 campaign debate, Bush publicly mocked the final plea for mercy by Texas Death Row inmate Karla Faye Tucker, "Please don't kill me!"
Who is the madman?
During his speech to the economists, Castro defended Cuba's socialist revolution by pointing out that despite more than four decades of Washington's economic blockade, Cuba continues to provide its people with free health care and an infant mortality rate lower than the US, which is on the rise.
Castro also correctly stated that the blockade had not prevented Cuba from surpassing the much richer US in other areas, including eradicating illiteracy, achieving lower student-teacher ratios, and greater educational progress, a truth easily discernible by comparing the intelligence of the two nation's leaders.
After amusing his audience with a sampling of Bush's gaffes that included "I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy," "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family," "More and more of our imports come from overseas," and "The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case," Fidel caustically told the crowd, "Bush could not debate a Cuban ninth grader, who knows more than he does."
There are at least 150 million Americans who agree with that statement. And they're not madmen, either.
--February 21, 2004
February 22, 2004--What could be dismissed as a hysterical overreaction to the Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime show from a sickeningly hypocritical and puritanical bourgeois culture was in fact another weapon in the rulers' culture war against the democratic rights of the working class.
It didn't take FCC chairman Michael Powell long to convene a congressional hearing into the risque conclusion of Jackson and Justin Timberlake's performance and try to exploit the incident to further restrict democratic rights and freedom of expression. The government was so responsive to the threat represented by Ms Jackson's nipple that already we have in place a seven second delay mechanism to protect our children from the split second image of a woman's breast--and any undesirable political message that may be uttered.
Contrast the rapidity in which Washington responded to the Super Bowl halftime show to its more deliberate approach to investigating September 11 and Iraq.
As with the hysteria over CBS's "The Reagans," most of the squawking came from Christian fundamentalists and the ultraright who felt betrayed that this MTV-like act was performed on a venue of family entertainment like the Super Bowl. Most Americans, however, were not that upset by the brief glimpse of Jackson's pastie after being subjected to a bombardment of busty, scantily clad models selling beer and other products for years.
This particular Super Bowl broadcast featured a commercial for Cialis, an erectile dysfunction drug, which must have caused a great deal more embarrassment for America's parents than the run of the mill MTV moment provided by Jackson and Timberlake.
The claim that the Super Bowl represents wholesome, family entertainment that was defiled by immoral behavior is absurd. Pro football is a vicious and violent game that has increasingly become a slaughterhouse for athletes. The parallels between football terminology and war are striking: the "blitz," the "bomb," the "field general," the "trenches," "offense," "defense," "ground assault," "air war," etc.
February 23, 2004--The Super Bowl itself has morphed into a showcase for crass commercialism and consumerism laced with sado-masochism and exploitation of the female anatomy, excess, privilege, jingoism and propaganda for US militarism. In short, the Super Bowl has been perverted into the defining cultural manifestation of US imperialism.That the halftime show was offensive should thus come as no surprise to anyone. In fact, it fit right in.
Watching the violence inflicted on the stadium's field by helmeted and uniformed combatants, one cannot help but think of the Roman Empire's Super Bowl--the great gladiator matches in the Coliseum in which Christians were fed to the lions as good sport.
The Super Bowl has evolved into such a monstrous spectacle that it overshadows and cheapens the game itself--even when the matchup is as intense and dramatic as this year's clash between the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers.
The carefully crafted package of commercialism, consumerism, sexism, corporatism and militarism now plays a central role in the rulers' campaign to divert the masses attention away from the growing crisis of capitalism and what to do about it.
You let capitalism hang around long enough, and its bottom line profit motive will pollute every manifestation of culture--especially sports and entertainment.
Throw in sex, a Black woman, and a white man, and you've got grist for the fascist mill and an explosive weapon in the ruler's culture war against the working class.
If you blinked, you may have missed Janet's grand finale, but you probably wouldn't have missed Kid Rock wrapping himself in the American flag inbetween two busty ladies dancing provocatively in halter-tops. The right-wing, family values crowd was conspicuously silent about Rock's tasteless act, no doubt because he's another brain-dead, flag-waving bigot who mindlessly supports Bush and the Iraq war.
Of course, if you did miss Janet and Justin's antics, the right-wing purveyors of smut made sure you watched and read all about it over and over again. As David Walsh put it in his Feb. 5 World Socialist Web Site article, "The Wall Street Journal's editorial . . . is so sex-obsessed that it raises questions all on its own. In a handful of paragraphs, the Journal editors refer with apparent considerable relish to 'simulated masturbation,' ' simulated sex,' 'breast-baring incident,' scantily clad nymphettes,' 'casual sexual hookups,' 'triple-X stars' and 'the daily sex diet [on MTV]].'"
While reading the Journal's titillating prose, I couldn't help but think of the stready stream of smut peddled by another cultural warrior on the right--Bill O'Reilly (see "The Twisted Mind of Bill O'Reilly" at www.cosmosleft.com/pages/9/index.htm and "Bill O'Reilly: Homophobe, Smut Peddler, and Losing the Culture War" at www.cosmosleft.com/pages/3/index.htm).
The hypocrisy surrounding sex in this society gives the right-wing culture warriors no shortage of prurient ammunition. Privately, Americans are a nation of kinky perverts. Publicly, we maintain this facade of puritanism. Inbetween, matters can get messy--as we're seeing in the sex scandals enveloping the University of Colorado football team and St. John's University basketball squad. The common denominators that keep intersecting are sex, violence against women, and big business profits dominating sports.
The sexual hypocrisy that surrounded the Super Bowl halftime controversy is another example of the "pornographication of politics" a term coined by the Socialist Workers Party in 1994 ("Imperialism, fascism, and war") that describes the scandalmongering dynamic which characterizes capitalist politics during its period of historic decline.
"The scandalmongering is an effort--organized from within bourgeois politics, largely by its ultraright wing--to exacerbate and profit from middle class panic and to drag workers along with the declining class itself down into the pit of resentment and salacious envy."
*****************
FEBRUARY 29, 2004--This is exactly what the self righteous and sanctimonious moral hypocrites like William Bennett are Bill O'Reilly trying to do to working people with Jackson's performance--drag us down with them into their pit of resentment and salacious envy.
Bennett--the multimillionaire with enough money to keep his gambling addiction within socially acceptable boundaries, and who no doubt visit a dominant mistress who dresses very much like Janet Jackson. And Bill O'Reilly, the old-school Catholic who parades a steady visual stream of sado-masochistic images on his show to go with constant lurid stories on child molestation, gay men cavorting, Paris Hilton frolicking, and a soon-to-be published book called "Thou Shalt Not Trespass," a less than wholesome sex novel that will be produced with the help of that other paragon of film morality--Mel Gibson.
The pornographication of politics now includes the pornographication of culture. While it's true that as a society we are becoming less prudish and juvenile toward the human body and more mature, which is another sign that secular humanism is triumphing over religious superstition, it is also true that the moral fabric of society is unraveling as capitalism's death agony is prolonged. The decadence of US imperialist culture IS analogous to the the decadence and internal decay of Roman imperialism in ITS historical decline. Both reflect the political, social, economic and MORAL bankruptcy of their historically obsolete ruling classes.
Home-grown 21st century American fascists like O'Reilly and Bennett are doing exactly what 1930s' German fascists did--rail against the declining morals permitted by the degenerate ruling elites. "You see what the liberal elites are permitting?" the fascists explain to the declassed and demoralized middle classes and backward layers of workers. "They're incapable of stopping the growing cesspool in our culture--the gangster rappers and lewd women and homosexual men. These filth are polluting and warping our youth. You've got to let us get tough and root out this scum with authoritarian solutions. Don't let these liberals and secularists get in the way with their constitutional niceties and bleeding hearts."
And so these fascists appeal to the "folk" to take back the country from the secularists and activist judges, and in O'Reilly's case even excoriating capitalists for letting the bottom line take precedence over protecting our children from moral degeneracy. Think of O'Reilly showing sexually lurid images on his show while harping about child molestation as you consider these words from a 1993 speech by Socialist Workers Party national secretary Jack Barnes, "There will be no limit to the pornographic overtones of their demagogy, as they claim to offer a road to bring a 'decadent' society out of its crisis."
But the solution of the fascists is from the right and doesn't serve working people's interests. They want an authoritarian solution to the breakdown of capitalism that smashes the democratic rights of the working class and further chains us to the repressive rule of the bosses. The answer is not to let the capitalists and their hired parasitic scribes like Bill O'Reilly take away our rights under the banner of rescuing our degenerate society from the secularists who would abolish all moral judgments.
The answer is that we need a new class in power, a new ruling class, the working class, who will toss the debris and decay and refuse from bourgeois society into the dustbin of history and inaugurate a whole new set of nonexploitative human relations--a proletarian morality.
It is then men and women and children will be truly free--and fully earn the name humanity.
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