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An Open Letter to My Friends Abroad
Ernest Partridge
October, 2001
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The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their
democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism – the ownership
of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private
power.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
On behalf of myself and millions of my fellow citizens of
the United States, I wish to assure you: Our "accidental President" does not
speak for us, or represent our values and aspirations.
In fact, we
did not even select him as our leader. A majority of US voters did not cast
their ballots for George W. Bush. In an honest election, Al Gore would have won
the deciding state, Florida, and thus the Presidency. In fact, Gore would have
probably won Florida in that flawed election, if Bush's allies on the Supreme
Court had not halted the recount of the ballots.
Not only does Bush hold
his office illegitimately, it is clear that among the US Presidents of the past
century, he is personally the least qualified to hold that office. Bush was a
mediocre student in college, a failure as a businessman, and an unexceptional
governor of the state of Texas – a weak office that he gained only through his
unearned good fortune of being the son of a former President. Bush appears to be
completely bereft of intellectual curiosity, and has displayed no evidence
whatever of a capacity for critical or original thought. And after fifty-five
years of life in the United States, he has failed to gain command of his native
English language.
This is the man who represents the American people to
the leaders and peoples of the world. Leaders, press and the populace abroad are
appalled at what they see. Here at home, we are acutely
embarrassed.
Bush's policies, both foreign and domestic, are a disaster,
issuing not from thoughtful reflection or scientific evidence, but from
political dogma and from the narrow interests of his corporate
sponsors.
While proudly proclaiming that Ronald Reagan "won the
Cold War," Bush surrounds himself with old cold-warriors such as Richard Cheney
and Donald Rumsfeld, who seem unaware that the Cold War is over, or else appear
determined to renew it. Thus, not content to expand NATO up to the borders of
the former Soviet Union, now they want to humiliate their former adversaries by
including the former Baltic republics of the Soviet Union. And if the Bush team
has its way the hard-won Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty will be scrapped to make
way for a provocative missile defense system, which independent scientists
assure us will never work. The arguments in favor of this "defense system" are
specious to say the best of it. (See
"Strategic Defense, – It's
BAAACK"). US scientific and public opinion are unconvinced. But never
mind. Bush has a debt to pay to the aerospace industry.
Then there is
"global warming" and the Kyoto Treaty. Bush tells us that the case for the
"greenhouse effect" is based on "unsound science." This despite the fact that
the scientific evidence of the threat of global warming was expressed with
unequivocal force and clarity in January by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. Unconvinced, Bush then asked the National Academy of Sciences to
review the IPCC report, whereupon the Academy essentially confirmed IPCC. Even
so, Bush still refuses to support the Kyoto accords, and his energy plan calls
for increased consumption of fossil fuels and reduced funds for research in
alternative energy sources. This policy is not supported by the scientific
community or the American public, which prefer conservation and alternative
energy. But no matter. Bush has a debt to pay to his friends and supporters in
the coal and petroleum industries.
Thanks to the unprecedented prosperity
during the Clinton Administration, the US Federal budget has an outstanding
opportunity to retire the enormous national debt, most of which was incurred
under Ronald Reagan and Bush's father. Also there could be funds available for
investment in educational reform and the transition to the post-fossil fuel
economy. Instead, Bush has pushed through a huge tax cut, most of which will be
returned to the wealthiest 2% of the US population. Thus he continues to
transfer national wealth from the population at large to the very wealthy. (A
quarter century ago, the wealthiest one percent of the US population owned
twenty percent of the national wealth. Now that figure is forty percent.
See "The
Deserving Rich?").
Because of these policies, and more, the
United States has been branded a "rogue state" by critics both internally and
abroad.
How did this happen? How could such an unqualified individual
achieve the highest office in the US government, and how can he advocate
policies so out of touch with domestic and world scientific and public
opinion?
There is a long history to this corrosion of American politics.
The most recent acceleration of corruption can be traced back to the presidency
of Ronald Reagan. This smooth-talking front for right-wing corporate interests
convinced the public and the Congress that "government is not the solution,
government is the problem." And so, government regulations were dismantled along
with restrictions on media market conglomeration. And so, where there were once
thousands of independent press voices in the United States, today half of the US
daily newspapers are owned by just six conglomerates, most of which are also
involved in the broadcast media – the average American citizen's primary source
of political "news" and opinion. Furthermore, five corporations now control
eighty percent of the book publishing industry. These media mega-corporations
(such as Rupert Murdoch's enterprises and AOL-Time-Warner) control broadcast and
print media, publishing, the movie industry, and more. All are dedicated to the
continuing corporate domination of politics (through campaign financing) and
public opinion. (For more about this, see my
"Post Modern
Politics").
This is not to say that dissenting and progressive
opinions are suppressed in the United States. The American public with its
tradition of free expression would not tolerate the active suppression of
political opinion. Thus I write this piece and many other denunciations of Bush
and his collaborators without fear of retaliation. But suppression is hardly
necessary, for dissenting views, while not suppressed, are overwhelmed by the
flood of sycophant "reporting" and political commentary in the corporate mass
media – still worse, by endless reports on such distracting trivia as the sex
lives of politicians and entertainers.
And so, in the 2000
election, the massive corporate media machine went into action in behalf of
George W. Bush. Al Gore was slandered with outright demonstrable lies and
caricatured as a stiff, unfeeling prevaricator. Bush, on the other hand, was
portrayed as an amiable "compassionate conservative," as his manifest weaknesses
were papered over. In the three Presidential debates, when Gore demolished Bush
on matters of substance, public attention was redirected by partisan "spin
doctors" and media pundits to "atmospherics" and to concocted and unsubstantial
trivia. (See my "The
Hijacked Election").
Even so, despite this avalanche of Pro-Bush
and Anti-Gore propaganda, Gore received more votes than Bush. Only a determined
post-election effort in Florida by the Republican legal and media machine, aided
by the Bush's brother the Florida governor, and finally sealed by five conniving
Supreme Court justices, gave the office to Bush.
I repeat: George W. Bush
holds his office illegitimately, and he does not represent the will or the
consensus of the American public. Clearly, the United States, for all its
military power and economic prosperity, has come upon very difficult political
times. Now it must now fall upon the American people to reclaim their government
and to renew their democracy. And they must do so with an allegiance to their
political ideals and Constitutional structures that is conspicuously absent
among those who gave the Presidency to Bush and who maintain him in his
office.
Let me be perfectly clear about this: I am not a revolutionary. I
am an American patriot who swears full allegiance to the founding principles of
this Republic, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution – documents which I devoutly believe to contain the highest
expression of political enlightenment . It is the betrayal of those principles
that constitute the tragedy of contemporary American politics. The best remedy,
both ideally and practically, to the manifest abuses of the Bush regime is
through the Constitution and the legal institutions founded therein. That remedy
begins with the ballot and with free expression of protest – however much these
have been diminished by mega-media control.
The restoration and
renewal of American democracy will be a difficult endeavor – but not impossible.
Here are some reasons for optimism:
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Despite their immersion in the establishment media, a large
portion of the American public can sense when they are being lied to. Most
immediately, assurances from Bush's spokesmen of "continuing prosperity" ring
hollow when ordinary citizens find their neighbors out of work, and themselves
increasingly unable to pay their bills. In this respect, Americans are similar
to ordinary Russians during the Soviet era who clearly understood that there
was little "truth" to be found in "Pravda."
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The counter-revolution against Bush is now well under way, most
notably with the defection of one Republican Senator, James Jeffords of
Vermont, which turned control of the Senate over to the Democrats. With that
chamber now in control of the opposing party, a Constitutional instrument is
now at hand to obstruct the Bush program. Democratic control of the other
chamber, the House of Representatives, in a year and a half is quite
probable.
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A commanding majority of the American public supports effective
reform of campaign financing. The present system, which amounts to the
legalized bribery of politicians, has led to the present corruption of
American politics whereby members of Congress represent, not their
constituents, but rather their corporate contributors. The Senate recently
passed a campaign finance reform bill, which was effectively defeated this
past week in the House. While technically a defeat, this event has further
alienated the members of Congress from the public, which has the final word in
the next election – November, 2002.
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Much of the mischief afoot in American politics today was
brought about by the extraordinary public-relations skills of a retired
Hollywood actor and his political handlers. But the new "front man," George
Bush, is no Ronald Reagan, to say the least of it. Bush diligently avoids any
unscripted public appearances, and breaks out in a cold sweat when separated
from a teleprompter. Even so, both his scripted and his rare spontaneous
utterances are usually both pathetic and comical. Thus, unlike Reagan, Bush
neither projects command nor instills confidence. Bush's pose as "just an
ordinary guy like the rest of you" is beginning to wear out. The American
people expect much more from their President.
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Despite these manifest shortcomings, the Bush team is
extraordinarily arrogant. Even though Bush received a minority vote and stole
the election, Bush's team acts as if they achieved office in a landslide. Thus
they are quite capable of "over-reaching" – in fact, they have done so several
times in the few months they have been in office. As they serve their
corporate clients, Republican politicians have a habit of disregarding the
interests and opinion of the citizens which, in fact, elect them. "Pride goeth
before the fall." It happened with Bush's father. It may well happen to the
son.
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"The Bush Agenda" is a tissue of lies, evasions, and
contradictions which enriches the wealthy few at the expense of the vast
majority of the population, which has violated and debased the democratic
principles upon which this Republic was founded, which impoverishes the public
treasury and mortgages the future, which destabilizes the international
security regime by abrogating treaties at whim, and which threatens the very
future of the planet with an outrageous disregard of the scientifically
validated threat of global warming. The American public is susceptible to a
slick public relations campaign: Reagan proved that. And that public is slow
to anger and action. But while changes in public opinion can be glacially
slow, they can also become glacially irresistible, as Richard Nixon was to
find out when he went outside the law to destroy his "enemies," and as Lyndon
Johnson was to discover as he pursued an immoral war in Viet Nam.
The opponents of this illegitimate President are scattered and
disorganized, but their cause is just and they are determined. They will, I am
convinced, work within the Constitutional structures: they will deprive Bush of
his Congress in 2002, and of his office in 2004. In the meantime, determined
opposition both within and outside the United States can derail the most
obnoxious aspects of the Bush Agenda: his opposition to effective action on
global warming and his missile defense scheme. His domestic "successes" – tax
relief for the wealthy and opposition to campaign reform – can only serve as
effective ammunition in the struggle to bring him down in the next
election.
And so, to my friends abroad, I would say again: We are united
by much more than that which separates you from the policies of our Usurper
President. The debasement of the American democracy in the November 2000 is both
a national and an international tragedy. We are joined in a common cause to
contain and then to repair the damage.
Because this misfortune has fallen
most immediately upon the American public, it is our primary responsibility to
effect remedies. Indeed, due to nationalistic sentiments, direct international
support of American efforts to repair our body politic can be counter-productive
(as would American interventions into your own domestic politics).
Even
so, there is much that our friends abroad might do to contain the Bush
menace.
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Support international efforts, both within and outside of your
governments, to present concerted opposition to the Bush policies on global
warming and missile defense. A consortium of industrialized nations should
take the initiative in addressing the climate problem (as it has with the IPCC
reports). Demolish the American conceit that "nothing significant happens
internationally without American participation, or even
leadership."
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Increase communication within international NGOs, with joint
conferences and publications, etc. Emphasize and publicize participation by
American representatives who dissent from Bush Administration policies. Let
your compatriots and the world know that Bush does not speak for a large body
of scientifically and ecologically informed American citizens.
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Encourage your industries and governments to engage in massive
and aggressive research in alternative energies. Regardless of action that may
or may not be taken with regard to global warming, the petroleum age is likely
to come to an end during this coming century. Unless research on a transition
to a solar and hydrogen world economy is undertaken immediately and a new
energy infrastructure put in place, the eventual depletion of available
petroleum will cause a collapse of industrialized agriculture and global
famine – most severely in the industrialized nations. Bush's answer is to
increase petroleum consumption while cutting research in alternative energy,
thus bringing that day of reckoning ever closer. It therefore falls upon
scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and governments abroad to take up the
urgent task of leading the industrial world into the post-petroleum economy.
It is altogether likely that such an enterprise would receive generous support
from progressive American investors. If benign technology abroad succeeds and
leads, then American industry will follow, as it did when Germany and Japan
took the lead in automotive and electronics technology.
In general, be relentless in your criticism of the Bush policies,
and in your protests against his corporate sponsors. But criticize calmly,
non-violently, and rationally. Do your homework and base your protests and
actions upon sound science.
Together, we can get through this
emergency – and together, we will prevail.
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