What Is Happening in America? DO NOT READ IF THESE VIEWS ANNOY YOU.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From
> interesting perspective, not for everyones tastes, from an ally...
> published by "Vorwarts" in Germany on June 8. A very interesting
> perspective from outside the U.S.
> ====================================================
> What Is Happening in America?
> By Eliot Weinberger
> 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 organizations 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
> Guantánamo 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 100-- have 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 defense 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 categorized 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
> fetus 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
> neighbors.
> 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
> enrollments) 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 Center, 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 cliches 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

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/