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Dumb, Violent, Masculine? It's A Bush Boy Thing
by Kent Southard
Did you see that segment on 60 Minutes on affirmative action for white boys? Geez, I've been waiting, I dunno, decades to have this discussion; but now that we're poised to blow up the world as an exercise in 'leadership,' I guess putting it off any longer is impossible. The 60 Minutes thesis was straightforward - in the current interpretation of the American mind the intellect is considered 'unmasculine,' and as a result boys are dumbing themselves down so much that they can no longer compete with girls in any activity that requires upper brain function, so much so that colleges and universities have to actively practice affirmative action for the white boys or else they'd have 70-80% female student populations.
In American life, defined in and forever by high school, if you're a jock, you're a man, if you're not, you're not. And though 60 Minutes seems to have just discovered the phenomenon, there's plenty of evidence the problem's been with us for a while. The vibrant high tech sector the country is so smug about, exists thanks to a huge imported work force of highly educated Asians. (Even in telecom installation, where I worked, the best workers were an outfit of Koreans who often had advanced degrees, even though the work was strictly mechanical. The white guys would think they'd done enough just by showing up in their truck.)
Americans think the Internet was entirely an American accomplishment, but the fiber-optic backbone of the Internet was built by the Canadian company Nortel. Americans think we're entirely dominant in space, where the French Ariane rocket has been sending the majority of commercial launches aloft for over a decade. The Big 3 automakers are more truthfully likely to be Honda, Toyota and BMW, companies known for their commitment to engineering and quality.Boeing has lost half its market share to Airbus. And so on.
Everything in the modern economy that requires an advanced intellect, which is to say everything in the modern economy, the vast majority of American men are no longer competitive in because their 'identity' won't allow it. I'm a fan of open-wheel formula car road racing, 'grand prix racing.' Having done a slight amount of it, I can attest that arriving at a corner at a 110 miles an hour, hitting a braking point precisely, and sliding through the turn at the smooth yet ragged edge of adhesion, requires a focus and function of the mind akin to doing higher math - it's much more a matter of intellect than adrenaline. Back in the 60's, a couple of Americans reached the pinnacle of Formula One racing: Phil Hill was World Champion in 1961, Dan Gurney won the 1967 Belgian GP in a car he built himself. No American born driver has won a F-1 race since Gurney. It's been many years since an American driver even drove in F-1 - what's worse, American drivers aren't even competitive here at home in Indy racing anymore; it's become a stepping stone for South Americans on their way to Europe. You only have to look at the face of a GP driver like Michael Schumacher or Mika Hakkinen to what the problem is - they look smart, they have an intelligence they don't hide. Dan Gurney had that too. These days American men don't. Arrogance and aggression, yes. Intelligence, no.
It wasn't always this bad. My father played varsity baseball and football in high school in the 40's. Of course there were 80 kids in his graduating class: 40 guys, 11 guys on the football field at a time, everyone that wants to gets a chance to play. When I got to high school, the school had something like 3,000 students, yet there were still only 11 guys on the football field, and they'd all been semi-pro since they were about six. And so it has remained. So that's one thing.
The other thing is that my father was also a math genius with an I.Q. in the 180's, had a keen appreciation for American literature, loved good Southern architecture and the woods surrounding his home on the banks of the James River, drove a bomber in SAC, was an early computer pioneer, went on to become a fairly extreme conservative. This is the other thing - sports were not the beginning and end of his identity as a man. In his world, the accuracy of the mind was the measure of a man, not whether his testosterone was on a high boil every waking moment. An appreciation for the culture of Western Civilization was an inherent part of the full attainment of manhood; to posit that this would be consigned to the gay ghetto was an unimaginable vision of brutish decadence.
How did things change so? I think it has mostly to do how in the decades since the 40's the whole country has come to depend on corporations for their employment, and have come to submit to their dictates for how every facet of our lives must be lived. Men naturally have felt emasculated in corporate hierarchies; men have also embraced the corporate demand for loyalty above and beyond that given to their families. And so the American male 'identity' has come to be defined by the urge to feel 'male' to make up for the suppression of its actuality, accompanied by the endorsement to neglect wife, family and community, and pressured to not hold a single original thought of one's own.
This 'male' mind calls itself 'conservative,' but this isn't true. For a look at a true conservative culture, spend a Saturday with orthodox Jews as they celebrate the Sabbath. The sex's eat separately, very conservative, with the men often exhibiting a rather astonishing aggression as they eat. But where the men seem a time machine back to the middle ages, which their Amish-like costume only helps, the women seem to have stepped right out of the 1950's, so completely turned out, such fashion plates, so sensitive and gracious, so completely inhabiting the 'traditional role of women.' You see, in the true conservative society, the traditional role of women is valued and honored, the proscribed feminine role being a way to allow a place where feminine qualities would flourish and be valued.
None of this is present in modern American 'conservatism.' The enthronement of corporations has produced essentially a national identity closer to what always been known as 'rogue masculinity:' the pirate at war against society and family, with no place nor value for the feminine, nor even allowance of that proper masculinity that builds society and protects the family. These 'conservatives' claim differently: they have their Promise Keepers, but this is a sham. The male is to reclaim his 'traditional role as head of the family' (in other words, it's still and even more about me-me-me); but once this 'decisive action' is taken, there's very little real follow-up in the way of personal responsibility towards the family or valuing the wife. Brother Jeb provides a textbook example of this 'conservative' male and his family - daughter Noel gets in some unattractive trouble and Jeb throws up his hands and walks away, 'I'm not responsible, there's nothing I can do.'
In every possible way, George W. Bush is the 'Promise Keepers' president - he's always proclaiming 'restored authority' while avoiding actual responsibility at every turn. (Harken accounting? 'Um, in the accounting world, not everything's black and white.') His administration is also the complete embodiment of the urge to 'feel male' through aggression instead of through actual productivity. The foolish and childish male imagines that the wielding of a weapon imparts an elemental male 'instrumentality' to him. 'I am God' the D.C. sniper says. He imagines that war will allow him to attain his complete masculinity. Well, I haven't been there, but I've known a few who have - you know those first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan? Graphic, of course, but there was a point being made. Individual 'instrumentality' has nothing to do with it - modern war is mechanized slaughter on an industrial scale, creating a man-made weather system, a blizzard of flying steel. You know that old SNL skit of the Bass-O-Matic, where Dan Ackroyd drops a bass into a blender? That's modern warfare.
Americans used to have a more mature sense of these things, perhaps when more of us worked in machine shops and could make the connection between attending a machine press on behalf of mass production and attending a machine gun on behalf of mass killing. But we're now a different country. Colin Powell has seen combat and knows the truth of it, but in the Bush administration he stands alone in this. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rice - all seem eager to go out and kill somebody to prove they're real men. And it seems our country has produced a perfect storm of weak-minded rogue masculinity that will allow this administration to do as it wishes.
"I am God" says the D.C. sniper. --10.21.02
Upon meeting my sister's new husband, a supervisor at a major defense aerospace plant, for the first time last Christmas, the first words out of his mouth after coming downstairs were "So I understand you used to be a conservative and now you're a liberal." Pleased to meet you too! After that opening, I felt no constraint in expressing my position that the Republicans had come to reliably betray American values, with perhaps the most egregious example being the Reagan/Bush Sr. record with Saddam Hussein - giving him chemical weapons, remaining silent when he used them against the Kurds, April Glaspie giving him an open door to Kuwait, and finally the encouragement of the Kurds to revolt and their subsequent betrayal. I quoted the Bush Sr. administration saying Hussein needed to remain in power 'for the stability of the region.'
My new brother-in-law said 'well, without him Iran would invade Saudi Arabia. Anyway, we're just going to have to take over the whole Middle East and run it.'
At the time as you may imagine, this comment occasioned the thought, 'this guy's a fairly complete wingnut.' But now I see that as a side benefit of his employment he merely had already been briefed as to what the rest of us now see unfolding. And what the country also now knows is that this Iraq war, and the rest to follow, was written 'on spec' by Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, et. al., a decade ago, and they've been shopping the script around like some B-list Hollywood writers ever since - first to Bush Sr., then to Israel, until finally hitting payday with Bush the lesser.
Curious, isn't it, that Dick Cheney would finally choose himself as Dubya's running mate? Arguably the first presidential candidate in history so weak of mind and character, so generally suggestible that he would not only enthusiastically embrace the role of action hero, but embellish it further as having been 'chosen by God.' By all appearances Bush believes in his role, in fact resembles nothing so much as those evangelists that make big money on television, seeking to convince through the sheer fervency of his sincerely believed emotion. But, ya know, the Jimmy's Swaggert and Baker seemed to believe in the righteousness of their emotion, and as we know from their no-tell motel escapades, that's not a reliable indicator.
Does this Bush administration truly plan to 'spread democracy throughout the Middle East?' Post-war scenarios for Iraq leaked so far include installing the general who actually gassed the Kurds on Hussein's behalf, or breaking up the country and giving the non oil-rich sections to Jordan and Kuwait respectively, both of which are monarchies last I checked. This administration lies, and betrays America and its values, with its every breath and every fiber of its being. --October 7, 2002
The 'product roll-out' has indeed been carefully scripted, and thuddingly obvious - using the one year anniversary of 9/11 as a springboard of patriotic fervor, Bush went to the UN the next day to announce its coming 'irrelevance,' followed immediately with thinly-veiled accusations of lack of patriotism for any American politician disagreeing with his agenda. And to complete the policy Blitzkrieg, the new defense posture. Perhaps it's time to remember the beginnings of this Bush administration, and notice the clear similarity between this sudden Iraq urgency, and the product roll-out of a huge new 'energy crisis,' which we now know to have been phonied up by the administration's buddies in the energy industries. The clear direction of that 'energy crisis' was to support an expansive oil-based agenda, though with Jim Jefford's defection, the 'crisis' suddenly evaporated before the administration's ultimate aims were revealed. But there can be no doubt what the Bush White House has always wanted to sell us - the military control of the world's oil, and thus of the world's economies. But as with all empires and their dictators, it's not apparent that Bush cares if we're buying or not.
And it should be noted that Iraq will only be the first public precedent of this new empire-building agenda - the actual first precedent is already under way in the Caspian Sea oil region, where the 'war on terrorism' has provided the pretext for a series of military bases, few in Afghanistan, being built to protect (control) oil and gas pipeline routes from those vast new reserves.
--Kent Southard, Sept. 25, 2002
So... I guess despite the Bush administration's siccing the FBI on them, the Senate Intelligence Committee managed to find out a few things. Apparently there were warnings morning, noon and night, warnings big and warnings small, warnings in black and white, warnings in color, warnings every day of the week and twice on Sundays. As opposed to Condi Rice's claim that no one imagined that 'airliners would be used as missiles,' there were any number of warnings they would be used as such, specifically against American targets, warnings as late as August of 2001. Plenty of people had 'imagined.' (And why has the 'terror assessment' never been explained for which John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial at the end of July?)
And why does Condi Rice still have her job? She claims she 'doesn't remember' being briefed by Sandy Berger about the Al Qaeda threat - what is her job again? National Security advisor? She 'doesn't remember?' She 'couldn't imagine' such a threat?
But then again, maybe she's just lying. Gee, d'ya think? The White House refuses to divulge what the administration knew, though the Senate Committee says the important warnings were known 'at the highest level of the government.' And as has been noted, the White House has set the FBI on the Committee to try in some measure to shut down the investigation.
The Senate Committee's report offered the sole caveat that the exact time and date of the attacks weren't known. Well, the exact date and so on could well have been inferred from the Al Qaeda transmissions intercepted by the NSA.....but not translated until after 9/11....because 'Al Qaeda transmissions weren't a priority,' as the White House explained.
So, just so I understand, there were enough warnings to fill a phone book, John Ashcroft has stopped flying commercial because of a 'threat assessment,' (and Bush and Cheney both left town for the hinterlands during the month of heaviest threats) and yet translating Al Qaeda transmissions 'weren't a priority.'
While we're at it, why does the administration continue to insist that French Intel provided only 'sketchy' intelligence on Zaccarias Moussaoui, while the French insist they provided a very substantial dossier? Why did FBI headquarters' re-write Coleen Rowley's FISA request, so that all mention of the French confirmation of Moussaoui's Al Qaeda status was removed, helping to insure the defeat of the request? Why did the Bush administration's 'reforms' include removing protections for whistle-blowers like Rowley?
And the Senate Committee quite politely didn't even mention what Tom Simons said to the Taliban representatives in Berlin that summer. Nor of why FBI counter-terrorism chief John O'Neill quit that same summer.
Other interesting tid-bits in the news - the California 'energy crisis' was a complete hoax. There's even video tape of one of the energy companies telling a plant to shut down without cause. A video tape the Bush administration has sealed and refuses to release. Somewhat in the spirit of Dick Cheney's energy meetings, you might say. He's still in contempt of the court order to release that material, isn't he?
Remember the California 'energy crisis?' The Bush administration was in office about twelve minutes before it announced a huge new 'energy crisis,' bad or worse than the 70's, and pointed to California as the proof. Remember the proffered solution? More oil!
You know, ol' Dick Cheney's quite the enterprising fellow. In the waning days of the first Bush administration, Cheney authored a Defense Planning Guide that stated that America's goal should be global dominance, a dominance of natural resources, naturally, and markets, enforced by unilateral military dominance. And in his interim between government service at Halliburton, Cheney took time off from playing with employee's pensions and selling equipment to Saddam Hussein to address an oil industry meeting in 1998, wherein he said 'the Caspian oil region is the most important strategic region to have arisen in my memory.' The Caspian oil and gas that becomes available to American companies after transit through a pipeline laid across Afghanistan. (See ref. to Tom Simons above.)
So, let's connect a few dots, shall we? The Bush administration arrived in office with a pre-existing agenda to exert military dominance over the world's oil reserves. To create a perceived need for this, it may have colluded with the energy companies to create the appearance of an 'energy crisis' that would have to be solved. (Still uninvestigated so far is the doubling of the pump price of gasoline that accompanied the spike in electricity prices, even though the wholesale price of oil was unchanged.) (But then, that's probably one reason why Cheney won't release those records.)
With the switching of Sen. Jeffords, the administration could no longer control the Congressional agenda, and hence the line of narration over its issues - the 'energy crisis' suddenly vanished and was never heard from again.
How to create justification for the military action against the strategic oil fields? Well, the Bush administration had been negotiating with the Taliban for this and that. The Clinton administration had developed and passed along a plan to destroy the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan - the Bush White House took this plan and 'expanded' it, and as the story goes, it was on Bush's desk the morning of the 11th. (Even though he was in Florida.) How was it 'expanded?' Well, the U.S. military is building bases in Central Asia wherever these oil pipeline routes are planned. Cool, huh?
And now we're going to invade Iraq, which has the world's second largest reserves of oil.... --Kent Southard, Sept. 23, 2002
Things Worth Remembering Before The War Propaganda Storm Increases
Thank God for Scott Ritter, eh? Gen. Zinni too. And I thought I'd never say it, but Brent Stone Cold Scowcroft, Lawrence Eagleberger, Henry the Original Gangster Kissinger, Dick the True Dick Armey, and James Baker the goddamned third, too. God bless them all. Because without their opposition to George W. Bush's Blitzkrieg for oily Lebensraum in the Middle East, any other intelligent and principled opposition would now find itself labeled 'unpatriotic' and dragged from its cars and homes and beaten in the streets, which is I'm sure what Karl Rove had in mind. But, rock-ribbed conservatives all, they have spoken out and rather emphatically too, so in this moment of righteous rage-interruptus maybe there's still time to state a few facts.
Just for fun, let's think back to the China spy plane incident - remember how the Bush administration initially came out all butch and swinging, nothing but hot talk about war with China? Remember who was doing that? Perle, Wolfawitz, von Rumsfeld, etc. - everyone who's so horny now for war with Iraq. (To be followed by Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and then, maybe China.) And remember who it was that pulled Bush junior's fat out of that fire? It was Scowcroft, Kissinger, Powell and Poppy himself who worked the diplomatic back-channels to put the accident/incident into proper perspective. And remember Dubya's role in all this? Wondering if the aircrew had free-weights and Bibles? It was reported that what military decisions being made at the time, whether to run a carrier task force by the Chinese coast, were not being made in the White House - Bush was apparently not allowed in that loop.
We all thought at the time that this was all proof that either the training wheels were still on this administration, or this was in fact the second presidency of Poppy. I guess we have to give the decision to the training wheels scenario; but now that Junior has his driver's license, it seems he's still driving drunk at 110 into oncoming traffic.
As for Iraq - this week we learned that U.S. Intelligence hasn't prepared a new assessment of Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction' since 1991. Why the urgent need for a 'pre-emptive' attack this month, but not last? According to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, 'Because August is not a month that you roll out a new product.' 'Besides,' Karl Rove chimed in, 'The president was on vacation.' Pretty compelling, huh?
We also recently learned of a Pentagon briefing early in 2001, where one of Wolfawitz's underlings punched his finger in the Saudi delegate's chest and told him 'As soon as we get settled we're going after Iraq, and then we're going to start calling the shots in the Middle East. And you better go along because you don't have any choice.'
So it would seem 'calling the shots' has rather more to do with the issue than 'weapons of mass destruction.'
It might also be remembered that, as reported by the Washington Post and others, the Bush administration deliberately downplayed the importance of any threat posed by Al Qaeda previous to 9/11, in favor of its chosen concentration on Iraq. So it would seem their Iraq plans have gotten us in trouble before.
It's worth mentioning that this little coterie of Pearle, Wolfawitz, etc. are the foremost proponents of our country controlling the entire planet as our empire, which could be characterized in an off-hand way as 'calling the shots.' (And maybe the whole point of going to the U.N. this week with a long list of demands to be met on an accelerated schedule was in fact to render it 'irrelevant' because the U.N. couldn't keep up with the moving goalposts.)
It's fairly inexplicable that the U.S. media continues to ignore the story that Dick Cheney made some measure of his Halliburton millions by doing illegal business with Iraq.
Iraq has lots of oil, apparently.
Once upon a time, the administrations of Reagan and Bush the elder gave chemical weapon supplies to Saddam Hussein as our preferred thug in Iraq's war with Iran. When Iraq gassed the Kurds, the U.N. resolution condemning the act was vetoed by....the U.S.
Iraq was prompted to invade Kuwait because Kuwait was using U.S. supplied oil technology that allowed it to drill at an angle and so was drilling across the border and stealing Iraq's oil. Before launching the invasion, Hussein made an appointment with the U.S. ambassador, April Glaspie, and told her of his plans and asked what our response might be. Glaspie dutifully cabled back, and received a reply that she gave Hussein - 'The U.S. has no position on this issue.'
The H.W. Bush administration lied about Hussein threatening Saudi Arabia: independent satellite photos showed no Iraqi troops or armor on the Saudi border.
That Bush promised the Kurds American assistance if they would rise up against Hussein; when they did, he reneged and made sure Hussein was allowed to keep his helicopter gunships which were used to slaughter the Kurds by the thousands. Interviewed on the golf course with club in hand, Bush said 'That's not our problem, those people have been killing each other for years.' (For anyone interested, I think that was the moment I quit being a Republican.)
This past week it was reported that our present George Bush made the decision last October to prosecute this war with Iraq. No fresh facts, no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11, the decision was reportedly arrived at by 'a kind of osmosis.' This was also about the time that Bush decided he 'had been chosen by God.'
When you just lay out the simple facts in order, it presents a pretty curious spectacle, doesn't it?
--Kent Southard, Sept. 15, 2002
American People Have Not Given Bush Green Light For Iraq Attack
I don't know on what evidence Mr. Sperling [Christian Science Monitor, 8/25/02] thinks George W. Bush has a 'green light' from the American public to invade Iraq. Comparisons with the debate that preceded WW2, with its America First movement and Charles Lindbergh drawing huge crowds across the country, ignore the obvious difference that our present historical moment is characterized by a corporate media so co-opted by the administration's agendas that voices that differ or dissent are studiously ignored.
How many Americans are currently aware that the current commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James L. Jones, has spoken out against invading Iraq? Or that former Marine Gen. Zinni, our current envoy to the Middle East, has done the same? Zinni made some very caustic comments about those members of the administration that are pushing for war, noting that all of them had avoided wartime service when they had the choice.
George W. Bush has met with protests everywhere he goes from the day of his spurious inauguration while the media chooses to show only the cheering of his heavily-screened supporters. The ego of Mr. Bush is apparently so fragile that whenever possible physical barriers are erected to shield Bush from being able to even see the protestors. Secret Service agents have said it is a matter of 'national security' that Bush not have them in his line of sight - and this has been going on since well before 9/11.
So please Mr. Sperling, do not assume we Americans have given George W. Bush carte blanche to attack Iraq. The media is doing much to keep Americans in the dark, and those of us who manage to stay informed have our views dismissed out of hand. This administration had demonstrated its lack of trustworthiness at every opportunity - from refusing to release the details of its dealings with Enron, to Bush's weak evasiveness over Harken; to ignoring Tenet's and Clarke's frantic warnings on Al Qaeda, to claiming credit for what turned out to be Bill Clinton's plan for eliminating that group.
This administration lies, dissembles, and prevaricates as a matter of daily habit, and does so simply out of its own sense of entitlement. It cannot be trusted in its motives, justifications, or soundness of plan. Nothing it has done in its first two years of office gives us cause for confidence in it.
I was in a protest against Bush here in Dana Point last Friday evening, and I can tell you that even here in conservative South Orange County, we got more support from passing traffic that derision. I would suggest Mr. Sperling try a little harder to truly gauge this issue of such grave import before writing so carelessly. --August 30, 2002
Some observations from the protesters' side of the street, outside the luxurious St. Regis resort hotel in Dana Point (famous for its brie and white wine swilling):
It was entertaining to witness the many 50 and 60-something white men, most often alone in their very expensive vehicles, leaving the St. Regis, and while still under the protective wing of a few dozen cop cars, give us the finger as if it was something very special. This is something of a tradition in the GOP apparently, stretching back to George H.W. Bush, Nelson Rockefeller, and Spiro Agnew. To all of which, I say "Same to ya, buddy!"
A few young men in the largest available pickups sped past shouting 'Strike Iraq!' and such. To which I say, "Sell your little toy and enlist, if you're so horny for it. It's a lot easier to just sit in your truck and listen to Rush all day. My sister's boy will be on the front lines; don't ask others to do what you're not willing to do yourself."
Most of the response from passing traffic was very supportive of the protest, what wasn't seemed mostly to hurry past at a speed that wouldn't allow reading our messages, as if doing so might be dangerous to their willful ignorance. George W. Bush lives in a heavily tinted world, so I don't know if he saw my sign, but if he did he surely understood it - 'AWOL from the ANG.' Bush and I were both members of the Air National Guard (ANG), the difference being I can prove I pulled the whole six years - Bush can't. After being jumped over a huge waiting list to enlist in the Air Guard, after the government spent a couple of million of the taxpayers' dollars teaching Bush to fly fighter jets, Bush says he 'quit flying.' He quit flying when the military started giving mandatory drug tests, and this was during Bush's lurid partying days - Bush wouldn't take the required annual flight medical exam, and instead requested transfer to an Alabama postal unit. Anyone who's been in the Air Force knows that pilots who merely quit after the huge investment in them are the lowest of the low, doubly so for fighter pilots. But Bush didn't stop there; when his transfer request didn't work out, he simply stopped attending Guard meetings, for TWO YEARS. I can tell you that command gets upset when you miss a weekend, it was understood that anyone exhibiting this kind of behavior would be activated for regular duty. Yet, George W. Bush walked away from his final two years of Air Guard commitment apparently without the slightest censure.
Different rules for the 'fortunate sons' certainly, but the real danger is that this illuminating example of Bush's true character, as with so many others, is so little known to the public at large. As Bush's weak dissembling about Harken shows, he's still as irresponsible and deeply dishonest as ever. (My other sign: 'Birds of a Feather - Corp. Crooks - Bush and Simon.') But our commercial media, owned by the same omnipotent corporations that love Bush so much, has colluded to create an Orwellian mindscape of lies that turns Bush's every leaden feature into its golden opposite.
Under this cloud of deception and disinformation, the Bush administration's every effort has been to establish legal and policy precedents that are systematically destroying the very foundations of America's two and a quarter century experiment with democracy. If Jose Padilla turns out in fact to be just some punk with strange Internet search habits, the administration doesn't back down from proclaiming that American citizens will be deprived from all civil rights if named as 'enemy combatants.' If Bush and Ashcroft had other priorities pre-9/11 that had been made so clear to the FBI and NSA that terrorist investigations were neglected or repressed and Al Qaeda transmissions had no priority for translation, then after 9/11 the solution is to spy on American citizens without having to prove probable cause. If Al Gore looks to actually have the most votes, then Antonin Scalia will say from the bench, as he did, 'There's no such thing in the Constitution as the right to vote for president.' And if there isn't a shred of credible evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, or to much of anything else in current events, that's beside the point - the point of invading Iraq is to establish the precedent for the entire world that the Bush administration considers itself above any law or constraint, and will attack and destroy whomever it pleases.
The Bush administration has plans for nothing less than world empire - and feels so emboldened right now because it is succeeding so well, and so completely beneath the radar of American public awareness. They've taken Bill Clinton's plan for destroying Al Qaeda and turned it into an instrument for establishing military control over the Caspian Sea oil reserves of Central Asia. No real assistance for Afghan nation building seems forthcoming, but military bases by the dozen are being built to guard oil and gas pipeline routes. This has been thoroughly, if gently, reported by some of our more responsible media sources, such as the LA Times and ABC's Nightline.
This is without doubt the most dangerous moment in our nation's history. We stand on the precipice - on the cusp of what Churchill foresaw for the world under the heel of a different nation's fascism, 'A new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.' Think about that the next time you hear the Bush administration talk about its missile defense plan, for which there is next to no credible threat, and wonder about the real purpose of a globe-encircling network of space lasers able to destroy any possible target on the planet's surface, which is the plan's ultimate goal. Think about the world Bush is building, and ask yourself if living under a world dictator with unlimited military power is what you want. If not, maybe next time you'll join us on our side of the protest line.
--Kent Southard, Dana Point, Ca., Aug. 26, 2002
Did you see that recent item where scientists have discovered that the speed of light may not be constant, may in fact have slowed down or can be slowed down? I really hope they can make rapid progress on this, because I for one really, really need one of those 'worm holes' in the universe that such physics-bending would make possible. As I understand it, with a worm hole one can perhaps travel to our parallel universe - you know, the one where everything is exactly as it is here except different?
In this parallel universe, we might expect George W. Bush to have taken his first choice in jobs, that of Commissioner of Baseball. Can you imagine it now, Bush hosing up the baseball strike and receiving the full brunt of national outrage and press bile? 'Who is this witless, pig-eyed, gibbering twit anyway? And how the Hell did he get this or any job?' - would be the general sentiment. As I said, I would really like to get to that more reasonable reality post haste, because this one is rapidly becoming completely untenable.
Did you notice where Tony Blair sacked his Defense Chief, because the good man wouldn't give up his opposition to invading Iraq? Did you see where Blair followed that with a secret poll, which told him that if he follows Bush into this war he, as allowed by the parliamentary system, will himself likely be sacked? (Starting to sound a bit like Monty Python, isn't it?) Now Britain has been the only country with a ghost's chance of joining Bush's little adventure, so where does that leave us?
We have to understand Britain's special purpose in their 'special relationship' with George W. Bush's United States. We may recall the Bush administration's pronouncements during the more highly publicized phases of the Afghan war to the effect that we, the U.S., 'don't do nation building.' 'That's for other countries.' You know, little countries. We do war, our 'allies' clean up after us. Afghanistan has already provided the model - Bush makes public promises about helping Afghanistan rebuild, while actually providing nothing; admitting this last week to a reporter that 'they just hope it will all work out.' It's working out so well that U.S. Special Forces now serve as Hamid Kharazai's bodyguard - which is to say that he's become such an unpopular puppet he wouldn't survive 24 hours on his own. (A hint - after the bombing of weddings and what not, not everybody shooting at Americans from now on will necessarily be Al Qaeda, whatever TV news says.) Things are working out so well that Pakistan's Musharraf is known as 'Busharraf,' with about as much confidence in his tenure as Kharazai. British Royal Marines were supposed to be keeping tabs on Afghanistan, but they seem to have gotten fed up and said 'Piss Off.'
We've also recently learned of a Pentagon meeting in early 2001 which included representatives of Saudi Arabia, wherein the new Bush administration revealed its intention to go after Saddam Hussein as soon as it was settled in, to start 'calling the shots in the Middle East.' (This focus on Iraq may fairly explain Bush's fatal inattention to Al Qaeda, despite the best efforts of Sandy Berger, George Tenet, and Richard Clarke.)
So the Iraq agenda existed in its entirety prior to 9/11 - this is not part of the 'war on terror,' whatever that is. In the face of this week's formidable display of senior Republican opposition to invading Iraq, including even Stormin' Norman for God's sake, Richard Pearle tells us that if we don't invade Iraq after all the administration's talk about it, it will make George W. Bush look bad.
Some of us might suggest George W. Bush already looks bad, without any need for the deaths of many thousands or millions, or the destruction of the Middle East's oil fields that would send the world into economic depression for possible decades. How much better would he look after all this?
And this Richard Pearle. The media doesn't really mention it, but Pearle is not, strictly speaking, a member of the Bush administration. He maintains an office at the Pentagon, apparently, but he is not a government employee, he holds no political office. He is employed by those right-wing 'think tanks' run by Richard Mellon Scaife, the man who funded and directed the Clinton witch-hunts. I mean, we're living Little Orphan Annie - Daddy Warbucks running the world. Richard Pearle's been showing up on TV of late, and you can tell why his appearances are strictly rationed. Pearle looks like a villain in a James Bond movie, like he should be stroking a Persian cat while he dumps the beautiful woman in the shark tank. What's worse, he sounds like a villain in a James Bond movie, all weird accent and breathy and arched expression - you almost expect him to say, "I don't expect you to talk Mr. Bond! I expect you to die!"
So there we are - apparently something like half a dozen people have convinced George W. Bush that invading Iraq is the thing to do, and now his very manhood depends on it. It's so manifestly silly and over-the-top it seems more science fiction than current events. If this were an episode of Star Trek, we could all travel through that worm hole into the world that made sense. As it stands, we're apparently all condemned to follow George W. Bush down the rabbit hole, to whatever post-apocalyptic future may await. 08.18.02
The first Monday of the month saw the Bush administration's signature phalanx of dark GMC Suburbans double-parked outside a catering facility just off the California 55. Inside, DEA Director Asa Hutchinson, darling of the Christian Right, star of the GOP House impeachment of Bill Clinton, raider of California's Medical Marijuana Clinics, was here to speak out against the use of crystal meth - "Meth, Not in Out Town."
I would be the first to admit I came to Mr. Hutchinson's little meeting with a pre-existing agenda, or at least a pre-disposed attitude. My gal friend C. had succumbed to cancer just two weeks previous, five years after being turned away from UCI Medical because she didn't have insurance, with a tumor that made her look 7 months pregnant. After divesting herself of her assets so as to qualify for county coverage, the intervening years of chemotherapies and surgeries were made bearable through the use of marijuana, right until the very end when she was given pure morphine. As mentioned, the DEA, at Hutchinson's direction, had raided California's medical marijuana clinics, materially making C.'s life that much more miserable. You could safely say I was fairly in the mood to throw grenades.
But Asa Hutchinson wasn't here, this day at least, to abuse our respectable middle class ladies who take tea and a toke. He was here to fight meth, the drug that everyone loves to hate.
Meth, what with its often violent trailer-trash image, might seem the perfect drug to be against, especially in an Orange County whose unyielding conservatism hasn't prevented many of these self-same Republicans from harboring a deep ambivalence towards the War on Drugs - where medical marijuana is very common in cancer support groups and has earned the endorsement of at least one congressman and the very conservative OC Register editorial page, where Superior Court Judge James Gray has earned national celebrity with his criticism of the 'War.'
Ostensibly part of a national tour of 'Town Hall Meetings,' Orange County being the 26th in two months, to 'dialogue' with the 'street' on the war on meth, what Asa Hutchinson brought with his entourage was in fact little else but a bit of now classic Bush administration political theatre. I guess Hutchinson's budget didn't allow it, but if there had been one of those backdrops emblazoned with the message of the day that his boss uses, it would have said - 'Bush Administration Family Values Save Youth From Meth,' or more to the point, 'Bush Administration Family Values Save Beautiful White Youth From Meth.'
The core of the morning's program were the testimonies of three (white) teen former meth users, graduates of the private rehab clinic that seems to be the focus of local non-incarceration efforts. Each gave the story of their personal journey to tweakerdom and back - each said they started in their early teens with alcohol then marijuana, the gateway drugs they said (and so why is there 'responsible' use of alcohol only?), then friends got them on meth, then they stopped brushing their teeth and bathing, the stink was simply amazing, and two soon developed deeply unattractive skin conditions. All expressed, during their addiction, a complete lack of interest in being clean: one girl implied she turned tricks to support her habit, the boy said he had stolen for his, the other girl said she had had ambitions to become a 'big bad drug lord.'
One can't argue with such stories, and God bless 'em, it was gratifying to see them now, all cleaned up and happy to be here. The young women especially were keeningly lovely, if possessed of a certain wariness that was no doubt well earned. As I said, who could argue with such success? Not me, but one could offer the observation that proffering the example of these three attractive white kids as being emblematic of the meth using population, and of the targets of the War on Drugs, is perhaps less than honest.
The several adult speakers, representing Federal and local law enforcement and what of the political establishment offered uncritical support of the Drug War (no Judge Gray here today), made no mention of adult meth use, much less of what may be happening in OC's huge 'minority' communities. The general purpose of these speeches seemed to be to do a kind of backfill, wherein the meaning of what the War on Drugs constituted was filled in with Bush administration-specific message points. The Santa Ana Chief of Police told of his city's efforts to build a new jail, rejected by the voters, but nevertheless pursued as a "business enterprise," built to take in prisoners not the city's own - "build it and they will come," and they did and they have, "80-85% of prisoners are Federal cases......the jail clears us $1 mil a year."
OC Supervisor Todd Spitzer gave a very TV-friendly performance that emphasized the crimes that can attend illegal drug use. He recalled his 10 years as an LA cop (so that's where he got that haircut), and told a story of driving down an alley and discovering a junkie with 'a needle in his arm' who took off running. As Spitzer gave chase, he said he drew his weapon, whereupon he did that drawing from a holster gesture that the camera had to love, because the perp was breaking a window to make an escape. It didn't really sound that threatening on the face of it, lethal force worthy, but the TV message was there - drug users are very dangerous! Sptizer also gave Orange County the solid imprint of 'Bush Country' - "Yes, we're a Conservative county! (We don't favor drugs here!) And yes, we're a Compassionate county!" (Bush ran as the 'compassionate conservative,' you may remember.) Compassionate apparently, because of the OC Meth Task Force's recognition for the need for treatment. For which there are only 20 openings, at the clinic used, at a time. Serving a county of several millions.
When it was finally Asa Hutchinson's turn to speak, it became apparent that the central message of the day was to be found in the general direction and atmosphere already created, and less by anything he brought to the occasion. (Kind of like his boss that way.) As seemingly mild and uncharismatic as Barney Fife, Hutchinson said that on Friday morning he'd woken up at 3:30 AM to accompany DEA agents as they made a cocaine bust in Los Angeles. (Imagine, cocaine in LA! Ranks right up there with Ashcroft finding 12 hookers in New Orleans doesn't it?) But Hutchinson expressed pride in his adventure, or at least that's what his words said. There was throughout his talk something about Hutchinson of the school principal expressing his pleasure with the efforts of the student government Easter decorations committee - a tepid, lightly felt, polite rote-ness that seemed to betray a lack of any great connection to his subject matter. It was a speech that arrived as dead in the ear as any ever given. Anyone expecting Michael Douglas from 'Traffic' was in for a severe disappointment. (There was, in fact, something very much of the self-referential and completely inconsequential artificial world of 'student government' about the whole morning. There was the palpable feeling that, among Republicans at least, many self-absorbed and vainglorious student government types go on to the real government without any intervening exposure to the real world.)
Hutchinson mentioned the need to change communities, so that 'one drug gang just doesn't get replaced by another.' But what with the Bush administration's gutting every domestic program it can find, how this is to be accomplished is yet to be imagined. Perhaps Hutchinson's apparent lack of real feeling for his job stems from his years as a Reagan-era Federal Attorney, when he allegedly provided cover for the Barry Seal drug ring operating out of the Mena, Arkansas airport (Iran-Contra anyone?) and knows all too well his job is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Whatever the reason, it didn't seem to matter to the crowd, happy to have taken part and basking in the reflected glory of high political power. (Half those assembled seemed to be GOP operatives, identified by their cell phones, androgynous physiques and eerily lightless eyes. This is something the TV camera doesn't really reveal about movement conservatives, you have to see it in person. The women especially are deeply odd, with every ounce of femininity seeming wrung out of them. It was as if they had voluntarily reached deep within and murdered themselves.) All told, it was a trademark Bush administration event - the issue at hand was framed so that it became a morality play that took its proper place within fundamentalist Christian and hard-right cosmology (Bush Administration Family Values Saving Beautiful White Youth From Meth) while deftly side-stepping the real issue - adult meth use and the community issues that encourage that use.
Because the available evidence is that the majority of meth use is by adults, and a great percentage of their use is somewhat akin to the example of the cancer patient smoking marijuana - they use it just to get by. From TV and movie production crews working 17 hour days, to non-union telecommunications workers putting in 20 hour days without end, to de-regulated long-distance truck drivers - just a few examples of our brave new 'flexible' labor pool that no longer have hours in the day for sleep, and so use meth to get through the work week. The last comment of the day was from one of the sweet teen girls, who responded to a question on supply with, "I scored most of my meth from my friend's parents." Her statement fell on the room with an uncomfortable silence. She had no way of knowing, but she had wandered off-script. Bush administration 'Family Values' were not going to do anything to change these parent's endless work days, in fact the administration's sentiment was rather opposite, and so the matter simply wasn't to be discussed. The tension in the room was broken by the announcement of the opening of the lunch buffet line, which everyone gratefully pushed off for. --Kent Southard, August 16, 2002
I figure I must be on the short list of those likely to have a file created for, ( or added to), John Ashcroft's TIPS program. I've been receiving suspicious packages from individuals with Arab names, from locations both abroad and domestically. I've also received mail from nations of known terrorist activity. I've been shopping on Ebay, you see, and it's often a rather inexplicable experience.
When Levi's announced they were closing their American manufacturing, I developed a yen for 'authentic old-timey American quality' and by-and-by discovered the existence of Levi's 'Vintage' line of perfect re-creations of their old jeans - the product that made their name, built stout like you wouldn't believe in the original Levi factory on Valencia Street in San Francisco. The only problem with the line is that it was priced like Italian couture. Enter Ebay. Through the mysteries of the marketplace and the magic of the Internet, I've been able to obtain a couple examples of these Levi's at some fraction of suggested retail. The first pair came from a guy in London, and is the 1944 issue of the 501, complete with doughnut-hole buttons with the top one featuring a 'laurel wreath of peace' design that was a standard item on WW2 American clothing. The second came from a fellow in Texas, and is a perfect, crisp, re-issue of the zipper style Levi's I wore as a kid in the 50's. My Mom would wash them once and put them on me wet and then send me out to play, so they would shrink down to my actual size. In honor of the occasion, I washed these once and then went for a motorcycle ride. For whatever reason, both these Levi's came from men with Arab names, and judging from their e-mail's, a less than perfect grasp of the English language.
Some tipster might conclude Al Qaeda scored a container load of Vintage Levi's, and now is selling them to support terrorism, I dunno. But the pair from Texas, at least, came complete with a tag from T.J. Max, so I suspect this was simply somebody with a good eye and some entrepreneurial spirit. As I said, I also received mail from a nation which has experienced terrorist activity, in this case Croatia. The item in question is a postcard sealed in plastic, for which I paid $5, of Dan Gurney sitting on the starting grid in his 1967 F-1 Eagle-Westlake. Dan Gurney was the last American-born driver to win a F-1 race, and that year he did it in a car he built himself in Santa Ana, California. The Eagle was one of the most beautiful race cars ever to turn a wheel, and in 1967, arguably the most competitive year in Grand Prix history, Gurney was the only driver able to compete in a straight fight with the immortal Jimmy Clark in the Lotus 49. There were bumper stickers at the time that said 'Dan Gurney for President,' and hey, we've done a lot worse. Since Gurney lives not 30 miles from me, you'd think you'd be able to find something around here that acknowledged his singular achievement - but no, for this great little picture, my source is Croatia. Go figure.
But you see what I'm getting at - each transaction is completely innocent, and yet my mailman, if instructed to notice 'patterns' of deliveries from 'suspicious' sources, could quite easily decide that I fit the 'profile,' and once you fit the 'profile,' then you can bet your last dollar you're going to get your own file, whatever public statements Ashcroft makes to the contrary. Once you have a file, well, you have a file. Having a file will perforce hurt your ability to gain employment, get credit, find a place to live. You are added to the number of all others who have files, allowing Ashcroft or whomever to stand in front of the microphones and say 'We have hundreds of thousands, (or millions) of so-called Americans who we've linked to support of terrorists! Now is not the time to dither about civil liberties!' And so on.
I saw recently where Albert Einstein had an FBI file, and suffered heavy FBI surveillance, purely on J. Edgar Hoover's contention that Einstein was a 'liberal intellectual.' Well, you could say the same of Thomas Jefferson, I suppose. There's a strain of American Protestant culture, finding voice in the GOP hard-right, that holds that to read too far afield from the Bible is sinful; and so the 'liberal intellectual,' with his many books, is branded a danger to morals and the public safety. Will the cable-guy receive a profile of probable anti-American conspirators that consists of 'lot's of books on display in home'? And speaking specifically to Mr. Ashcroft's concerns, what about art? I've got a Renoir litho, an affordable posthumous print to be sure, of a reclining woman that's, you know, nekid. Too many books and bare bosoms - I'm sure to get a file.
Most damning, though, I've written at some length about my deep dissatisfaction with George W. Bush. The LA Times printed a letter I wrote that said with the life he led, absent his name and connections, Bush would be lucky to get a job selling shoes. It was my finest hour. So you see how things are stacking up against me - Strange mail from Arabs and States of Concern; probable 'liberal intellectual;' considerable history of anti-Bush sentiment. A fair assessment would rightly conclude that there's absolutely nothing there; whereas, someone with a pre-existing political agenda could twist the appearances to justify surveillance, with the ever-increasing apparatus required for that, or possibly worse in the cause of martial law.
This is how police states work, I think. It doesn't matter so much that the grounds for surveillance and a file are specious, but that once the apparatus is established and in motion, most everyone ends up with a file for one reason or another. In order to give oneself a leg up, everyone looks for any opportunity to add to their neighbor's file, and so it goes, with the state controlling everyone through the device of their files.
I'm not sure it matters greatly whether or not the Bush administration intentionally desires to establish a police state. The Bush administration has revealed itself to be little else but a loose collection of loose cannons, not least among them John Ashcroft with his Christian Reconstructionist ambitions. This administration's every move seems to take it another step beyond Constitutional law and democratic accountability, and in that lawless space the ambition of an Ashcroft could easily achieve its perverted aims.
Kent Southard
Re NPR's recent feature concerning longstanding American oil company's interests in oil and gas pipelines through Afghanistan - ABC's Nightline ran a two-part special a couple months back that maybe they missed. Nightline was examining the largely unheralded spread of US military bases throughout Central Asia, ostensibly to serve the 'war on terror;' except the bases were being built in areas where no terrorists had ever been active. The bases were adjacent to new oil and gas pipeline routes, however. Ted Koppel closed the second evening with the carefully worded observation that the US is 'deeply invested in Central Asia, and we're not about to leave anytime soon.'
The Guardian earlier in the year interviewed a Kazak government official who offered his view of why the Americans were building so many military bases in the region - 'There's no war on terror. They're just here for our oil.'
Don't you think decent mention should have been made at NPR of why a gas pipeline to India was of such urgent interest? Perhaps because Kenny Boy's Enron needed the cheap gas for a monster new electrical plant they had built in India that couldn't survive without it?
Don't you think decent mention by NPR should have been made that the French authors of the book they obliquely referred to, 'Bin Laden, the Hidden Truth,' are also the authoritative authors of the financial study of Al Qaeda that the Bush administration has been using to shut down their financing?
And when will NPR see fit to share with us the corroborated story of how the Bush administration had re-opened oil pipeline talks with the Taliban? Talks that ended with Bush's representatives threatening war against the Taliban? After all, Condi Rice did say a war plan was on Bush's desk the day previous to 9/11, didn't she?
And when can we hear about poor John O'Neill, the head of the FBI's counter-terrorism office, our foremost Al Qaeda authority, who quit the FBI in disgust with the Bush administration's thwarting of his efforts? O'Neill apparently was of the informed opinion that it all could be traced back to the Saudi's. Not that we can ask him, of course, as he was killed at his new job as head of security at the WTC. But, is there any evidence to corroborate his claim? Well, what did Colleen Rowley say? She said that FBI headquarters altered her request for a FISA warrant against Zaccarias Moussoui by deleting the confirmation from French Intelligence that Moussoui had Al Qaeda connections, insuring the requests refusal. Bureaucrats do what they're told - Rowley's superiors shut down her investigation because they were simply following orders.
No conspiracy theories here, just the facts, available for anyone making the effort to pay attention. Which is something many no longer trust NPR to do. --July 29, 2002
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