2004-04-28

An Open Letter to George W. Bush: Part 5

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

By: Jack Dalton

Hi George. It’s been a while since I last wrote you but I’ve been pretty busy lately. About two months ago I received an email from a group of High School seniors in Germany. They contacted me requesting I help them in their studies of the U.S. and U.S. wars. Because this covers so much I suggested to them to formulate some specific questions they would like my opinions on. Apparently they have read some of my previous letters to you and felt I have something to say at least that is what they told me. So, before going any further I will list the questions they presented me with.

Are you contented with the U.S. election system?

If not, what could be done to make it better?

Are you contented with your current home policy?

Do you think you have enough Social Security, pensions, unemployment relief, etc.?

Would you judge your current politik as aggressive?

Is the U.S. politik guided too much thru the economy?

Do you think it is O.K. that the U.S. operates in Iraq without a U.N. mandate?

What do you think of the U.S. government because they are blocking international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol?

Is the U.S. politik strongly influenced by the media (tv, radio, newspapers)?

Who do you think the next president of the U.S. will be?

These are some rather profound questions to be asked by a group of high school kids, don’t you think? I only wish that there were more people in this country asking these questions.

There is a growing body of people that are starting to see all your lies, deceptions and disinformation George, and seeing through them as well. We do not accept your perpetual war plans. We do not accept the patronage of your predator corporate friends that are making billions from the deaths of so many. We do not accept your upward re-distribution of wealth and will fight it every step of the way. We stand against your willingness to by-pass congress by your use of “executive orders,” especially in terms of your political appointments. We strongly oppose your militarization of our country—it is not your personal back-yard to do with as you please, regardless of what you might think. We strongly object to all the Iran/Contra criminals you have surrounded yourself with and have brought back into the body governance—you are starting to look like some Mafia Don with the group you have surrounded yourself with (http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/republicanrule/profiles.html#reich; http://prorev.com/bush.htm ). We object to and stand against your attempt at turning this country into a rebirth of the Roman Empire with the touch of “fascism” you have added to it. Mostly though, we just flat out object to you and everything you stand for, as show by your actions.

You are a tyrant, pure and simple. You have committed so many crimes against the people of this country and others I have not enough paper in which to enumerate them all so the ones I have covered will have to do, for now. If ever there was a case, or need for impeachment, you are it. Guantanamo would be a good place for you and the cadre you have surrounded yourself with. At least that’s the way I see it. I’ll write you again pretty soon about all this, but for now, here is what I wrote the students in Germany I was telling you about. I’ve added a few comments before sending this to you. The harshness and accusations, the disgust and outrage I have left for you and those around you. You and the ones that are killing my country, destroying the possibility of achieving the “American Dream” by helping to turn this into a country of “servers” instead of what was, a nation of “producers.” Who then have to try and raise a family on $8 to $10 dollars an hour. Well, enough for now, on to the “expanded” version of my comments to the students in Germany.

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Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your study of the U.S. You have asked me to answer some rather profound questions, each of which could easily be transformed into a book. I only wish that more of the people in my own country were asking these questions. As you have asked for brevity in my answers I will do my best to do so. I will include links to additional information that I highly recommend reading, as the information on those links will help you to better understand my thinking and opinions. Because of the interrelatedness of your questions I will answer them in essay form as I feel my answers will make more sense that way.

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Come this November I fully expect George W. Bush to be “elected” President of the U.S. (as he was never elected but appointed in 2000, this would be an election and not a re-election). If this does in fact happen, it will be an unmitigated disaster, not only for the U.S. but the rest of the world as well. Just a cursory look at what Bush has done since being in office suggests this. Bush has withdraw the U.S. from nearly every international treaty the U.S. had ever signed; has ignored the U.N. for the most part; refuses to participate with the International Criminal Court; and has embarked on a national policy of perpetual war; he has curtailed free speech thru the creation of “free speech” zones; appointed federal judges to the bench without congressional approval; he has given us John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act; and the list goes on. What Bush has done already is nothing to what will happen if he does stay in the White House. In fact, Tom Delay, House Majority leader, stated a couple of months ago that, “with a republican majority in the House, 5 more seats in the Senate, and George Bush back in the White House, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” What an ominous warning!

I for one no longer make assumptions of “fair” elections in this country. There are many reasons I believe this but for the sake of brevity will only mention a couple of those reasons here. The Diebold voting machines, the Electoral College and corporate money in politics are what I see as the three biggest problems the U.S. faces when it comes to its elections.

The Diebold voting machines in widespread use today have already proved themselves to easily manipulated and open to all kinds of fraud (www.blackboxvoting.com ; http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html ). Coupled with the fact they have no verifiable paper trail elections can no longer be viewed as fair and honest. Add into the mix the Electoral College and the undeniable fact that it is they who elect the president and not the people, well, simply stated, the American system of elections is a mess to say the least (http://www.fec.gov/pages/ecmenu2.htm ; http://theelectoralcollegesucks.com ). There would have to be extensive changes made in our system of elections to re-establish a legitimate governing body of, by and for the people, that answers to the people in actual fact.

First, all the corporate money that so dictates policies coming from congress must be eliminated from the political process. The corporate money in our political system has created the situation whereby the candidate with the most money wins---winner take all. The corporate money flows to the candidate that is going to be the most “friendly” to those moneyed interests that have put up the money. That is not my idea of how a democracy is supposed to be or work. That’s government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich—who keep getting richer while everyone else gets poorer (http://www.corporations.org/welfare; http://www.corporatetraitors.com/petition/index.asp ). Secondly, I would eliminate the Electoral College as it exists today and get back to a one person, one vote popular election.

Some years back, William Colby, former Director of the CIA, stated that “the CIA OWNS everyone of significance in the major media.” That statement pretty much sums up why the reality of what is happening in Iraq is not being factually reported by the U.S. media.

With people being “taught” to be “positive” and not “negative” and to look for the good, well, this has more than just a little to do with what does or does not get reported and how. We can see this in the sanitized version the media presents to us as “news.” Fallujah is a perfect example. The death toll of children and women makes bad “copy” here so they do not disseminate it.

This administration has an “end” in mind and the truth and reality of what has, and is happening in Iraq, Fallujah in particular, as NOT being reported by U.S. media is required. The media, by avoiding factual and truthful reporting is an absolute participant in the creation of “manufactured consent”, at the same time propagating and supporting the “necessary illusions” of and by the Bush Cabal.

Political agendas were and are at the very heart of the manipulations of the news and information coming out of Iraq as presented by the U.S. media (for more information about this see: www.infrormationclearinghouse.info/article2320.htm; http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_05.pdf; http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf ). Also see the “plans” Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were making back in 1992 to propel a one-world superpower http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm .

The end of last year, one of the media CEO’s (I can’t remember if it was ABC or NBC) was quoted as saying, “we are not in the news business, we are in the business of providing a format for our advertisers.” That, right there, all by itself, tells everyone what we are faced with when it comes to the “news and information” being disseminated by the media in the U.S. The media in this country has been evolving into this for the past 50 years. Its advertising dollars and not informing the public that is the driving force with and behind the U.S. media.

In the run-up to the Iraq Invasion, the world was given various reasons as to why this country “had” to invade Iraq. None of which even closely resembles the “reasons” now articulated by Bush & Co. and “reported” by the U.S. media. Through media “cooperation” we have gone from WMD’s, nukes, and Usama/Saddam/9-11 connection to, liberation, freedom and democracy without so much as a “hold on a minuet” from the American public, in general. As we are told, the safety and security of the U.S. rests totally on bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq…oh really? I don’t know about you, but to me something got lost in the middle. The reasons given us to “justify” the invasion were all spin and disinformation (you know, the dissemination of plausible but false data) and out right lies, which were “marketed” to the American public, through PR press releases, by U.S. corporate media; most major print publications, thousands of radio stations, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and the king of spin, Fox. This has been the most incredible “unified mass marketing” media campaign behind a sitting president and his “policies” I have ever seen take place in my 60 years. The medias involvement in the “marketing” of the invasion is responsible for the popular support by 50% of the U.S. population for Bush and the invasion of Iraq, which was based on the original reasons given; WMD’s, possible nukes, and Osama/Saddam/9-11 connection, and the subsequent acceptance of and by the American public for the new reasons being given; freedom, liberty and democracy. Would you like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, I can make you a good deal? More importantly, by maneuvering and manipulating the “news” especially in terms of how it is framed, dialog on the “real” reasons for the Iraq invasion has all been shut down. Public discourse is relegated to dialog on the “new” reasons for the invasion. This is exactly what the Bush Cabal needed and wanted to carry out their “policies” in Iraq and inside the U.S.

None of this would have been possible without the medias support and help. The Bush administration is by far the most extreme right-wing and secretive, exceeding even Richard M. Nixon that I have ever seen (http://www.bushsecrecy.org/index.cfm; http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/2003rpt.pdf ). Its use of the media to “sell” its policies to an anesthetized body public and what they have been able to ‘sell’ is truly amazing…and frightening (http://www.datafilter.com/mc ). Everything is being driven by political ideology especially when it comes to Iraq. That’s the Vietnam connection; a politically driven war based solely on extreme right-wing ideology, religious zealotry steeped in moralistic self-righteousness.

If the Bush Cabal can successfully keep stories and photos of flag-draped coffins containing the remains of our returning dead thru a “gag order” what would make anyone think they would publish, or talk about, the thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens, including women and children, that have been killed and maimed by U.S. forces and all the no-name “smart bombs?” Was it not Gen. Richard Myers that said the U.S. does not do body counts? Collateral damage my ass! These are dead human beings…but Bush and Co. with the help of the media will do everything they can to prevent faces from being put on the dead…which are growing in numbers at an alarming rate. They don’t care about their own dead, let alone the Iraqi dead. If and when the American public gets tired of seeing the dead, this thing will be brought to an end. The problem is due to the fact the media is not showing the dead; not showing the real cost of war…the dead and dying…it is way to busy doing Bush PR work.

This in the end is what brought the Vietnam War to an end…a mobilized American public that got tired of seeing dead bodies coming back. The Bush Cabal is very cognizant of this so their response is to issue a press gag order concerning photos of the dead, ours and the Iraqi’s…shut down the news, and create conditions whereby the press will self-censor their own reporting. What does get “reported” is “sweetened” up, sanitized by the use of “acceptable” terms and phrases…”collateral damage” instead of innocent women and children blown to hell and back; “civilian contractors” instead of what way to many of them are, guns for hire, mercenaries ( a lot of whom were trained at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Ga.) (http://www.soaw.org/new ). You also end up with everyone that opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq being labeled a “thug, murderer, terrorist, evil, anti-American foreign agitators, haters of freedom, and on and on, the list of negative terms seems almost endless. But then what can one expect from people that view everything and everyone in the most simplistic of ways; good vs. evil, with us good and everyone else evil.

The Bush Cabal has an end in mind and nothing is held to be inviolate in the achievement of that end, that especially includes what they will “allow” the media, in general, to report and how. A very big part of this is the way in which the media “frames” their stories and reports concerning Bush and Iraq ( for additional information on “framing” see Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions)

The media in this respect has not only aided Bush & Co. but has become a partner in his policy of “disinformation” by perpetuating the “we good, they bad;” “we God-fearing, they God-less;” we love freedom, they hate freedom;” “we democratic, they hate democracy;” “we love liberty, they hate the very idea of liberty;” these and other “thoughts” like them could not have imbued themselves into the hearts and minds of half the American people if it were not for the negative psychological metaphors created by the selected words and phrases used by the media to “frame” what they say, write, etc. The media is very responsible for supporting the thesis that to question Bush is to support terrorists, it’s just flat out un-American and un-patriotic…what a crock!

Everyone that stands opposed to Bush and Bremmer in Iraq becomes a “thug, evil doer, terrorist, murderer that hates freedom and democracy…oh really. It seems to me that there is increased anger and opposition to the rape and sale of their country. Civil war?...No, I do not think so…what I see is two forces that used to fight against each other coming together in an attempt to end the occupation of Iraq by the U.S. and the U.S. multinationals that came with the troops.

In the media, the writers and commentators, with a few exceptions, in general, either wave the Bush “flag” or are afraid of having their careers destroyed if they actually and factually report about the Bush administration and what it is really doing…the Bush cabal will crush its opponents in a heartbeat.

If the media was to ever dump the spin, the Orwellian euphemisms that are currently in vogue, and factually report the realities of the Iraq invasion, the stated reasons for the invasion in the first place would have to be seriously revisited and that the Bush Cabal cannot allow; if for no other reason than what really happened on 9/11 would also have to be come to bear which would of necessity require a different 9/11 commission asking the questions this commission will not ask (http://911research.wtc7.net/index.html ).

The Bush administrations policy of “perpetual war for perpetual peace” is having an extreme high cost, not only in human life, but to the economic health and vitality of the country as well. The debt load we are under right now is a little over $525 billion which is increasing at a rate of $42 billion per month on average. We have to borrow right at $1.5 billion a day just to make the interest payments on the deficit and balance of trade deficit which is over $450 billion. The policies of Bush and the republican controlled congress are out to “starve the beast” as they put it. In other words, bankrupt the Treasury to the point were there will be no money to pay for anything except the Department of Defense and the Pentagon. This is their stated purpose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve-the-beast; http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/TaxCutCon.html; http://www.ndol.org/print.cfm?contentid=251788 ).

The very economic numbers this administration publishes are so badly distorted as to not even resemble our real economic health (http://www.doublestandards.org/cap1.html ). While Bush & Co. hype the “economic health and recovery” of our economy they don’t tell anyone what their “real” economic policies are; tax cuts, military expansion, and political/military assertion globally. To quote Perry L. Reed, “Washington has lost the capacity for basic governance of economic matters. Its energies are increasingly devoted to initiatives calculated to diminish the nation’s social contract, to ensure the incumbents’ re-election and political dominance, and to reward the establishment that sustains it—the wealthy and the economic elite,” (The Washington Spectator, March 15, 2004, Vol 30, No.6; also see; www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/crisis/2003/1020consumerdebt.htm ).

Real wages are at 1972 levels when adjusted for inflation; personal bankruptcies’ are at an all time high; home foreclosures have increase by over 70% in the past 2 ½ years; the gap between the rich and the poor is at the highest levels since 1930; most of the jobs being outsourced are value added jobs—the jobs that create wealth, personal and national; 8.5 million working Americans that now fall under the poverty level; corporate tax payments as a percentage of total federal tax revenues have dropped from 50% in 1941 to just 10% today; and health care costs and the related debt are the largest single cause of personal bankruptcies, with 44 million uninsured (see: Income and Inequality: Millions Left Behind for detailed charts and explanations; http://www.adaction.org/Income2004.pdf ).

In a very few short years, this country has gone from a producer nation with a surplus, to a consumer nation with deficits as far as the eye can see. We have allowed corporations not only to ship jobs out of the country but our very factors of production—plants and equipment for example. When you loose those, they usually stay “lost.” So, while those that support Bush and his “policies” call the rest of us “traitors” and “un-American” for our opposition to those policies, we are left with what economist Paul Krugman calls “The Return of Depression Economics” in his book of the same title. If these economic “policies” of this administration are not halted Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, Veterans benefits, and every other program designed to give some kind of relief to those that get left behind economically will become non-existent at the rate we are going. The biggest part of peoples retirement funds have already been wiped out due to all the corporate fraud in the past 3 years which has forced many, too many, retired people to have to go back to work—the fast food industry has loved this.

It is my opinion that the America I grew up learning about and believing in is dead—no longer exists, except in memory. My question now is what will rise form the ashes. That is up to us in this country to yet decide and move toward. Hopefully a Jeffersonian Republican Democracy with full transparency that answers to the electorate in real terms, not as it is now, illusion.

Jack Dalton