A SECOND BUSH TERM?  SIMPLY UNFATHOMABLE
October 25, 2003
By D.G. Bowman

Above the empty vapor that is President Bush swirls the incredulity of those rational Americans who simply cannot fathom how anybody aside from war profiteers, religious fanatics, corporate vultures and environmental predators could possibly vote for the re-election of such a dangerously unsuitable man.

How could such a thing happen? How could this incurious fraud get another four years (unless it's behind bars)? It defies the norms of civility and reasonableness. It beggars the imagination. Yet the possibility hovers above us, terrifyingly so. Does the deadly (not to mention immoral and illegal) occupation of Iraq mean nothing? Does the looting of the Treasury send no signal? Does the breathtaking assault o­n our air and water and natural spaces fail to resonate? There's plenty to be alarmed about, and there's plenty of ammunition, but not enough bells are jangling.

And what about the pretender himself? Vindictive, pampered, childish, petty, semi-literate — surely not the sort of man who should be leading the world's lone superpower. Yet there he sits, a poster boy for nepotism, smirking and strutting and playing Napoleon, despoiling the office that rightly belongs to the honorable Al Gore. Do we not want someone in the Oval Office who is engaged in the drama around him, who appreciates history and culture and nuance, who doesn't feel the need to play dress-up o­n a flight deck or burnish a faux cowboy image at a stage-managed Texas “ranch”? Have our presidential standards really sunk this low?

We wonder, slack-jawed, at what is wrong with that other half of the populace. Are they too much in the grip of Wal-Mart and NASCAR and “Joe Millionaire” to appreciate what's happening right under their noses? Has the oft-lamented “dumbing down” of America really hit bottom? At the other pole, has the Darwinian detachment of our haughty rich really become that entrenched? Do they really want society's safety net shredded for good? No wonder Europe shakes its collective head.

We have numbers. We have facts. We know that more than half the nation voted for the other candidate in 2000, and we know that theft occurred. The laundry list of Bush's offenses is plain to see, and it continues to grow — as does the body count from Iraq. Yet an alarming number of our fellow citizens still cling to the fantastic notion that he is an exemplar of “Christian” kindness, honesty and decency, when in truth he is nothing of the sort. He is among the greatest charlatans in American political history — perhaps the greatest. The fact he's abetted by a fawning press corps makes his guy-next-door facade all the more infuriating, not to mention nauseating.

The cognitive disconnect surrounding George Dubya straddles all segments of society, from blue-collar Joe Sixpack to Mr. and Mrs. Struggling Middle Class to (not surprising, considering how Junior's economic policies benefit them alone) Mr. and Mrs. Gilded Fat Cat. The atmosphere in Bush's America is Orwellian to the extreme; it's as if we're living in a mirrored universe, where war is peace, desecration is conservation and bankruptcy is prosperity. It's as if Pod People have sprung up among us, people with bared fangs, people with no empathy for their fellow beings, people egged o­n by raging, venomous GOP hypocrites such as Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. Sadly, they include our friends and relatives, people who should know better. What do they want? Why do they support this destructive little man? Money? Religion? Tax cuts and Armageddon? Don't rich folks also need clean air and water?

One can blame the cheerleading corporate media, of course — the sad truth is the Fourth Estate has indeed gone from tenacious watchdog to obsequious lapdog — but I suspect it goes deeper than that. Any reasonably intelligent American can get the truth about Junior's right-wing radicalism simply by reading or listening to alternative news sources. When presented with the facts, though, Bush's True Believers do what the administration's neo-cons did when presented with intelligence that didn't square with their Iraq invasion plans: They blame the messenger. They get surly and defensive. With their binary mind-set and rigid “moral” codes, they neatly parcel things into “us” vs. “them.” “Good” vs. “evil.” “Patriot” vs. “traitor.” It's myopic and messianic, and it defies all logic and common sense.

One might take solace in the possibility that those who voted for Junior three years ago thinking he was a moderate “uniter” now see through his extremism, and will opt for ABB (anybody but Bush) the next time around. Such a turnaround will have to be substantial, however, because of the very real threat of GOP-engineered vote fraud — just o­ne more thing to worry about in the Age of Dubya and Co.

This is a tired topic, of course, but we're a tired nation, groaning under the yoke of the Bush juggernaut. Much of what I've said here has been vented elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating. Get up o­n your rooftop and start shouting. Keep sending articles to that stubborn co-worker. Keep o­n talking to that hoodwinked friend or sibling. Unless we convince our fellow Americans — the o­nes who aren't at the coddled top of the economic ladder, and the o­nes who don't let blind religiosity cloud their thinking — that this bumbling patrician in cowpoke clothing is dangerous not o­nly to them but to their grandchildren's future, then we truly are finished as the world's oldest representative democracy.

We've been warned, and amply so. As the saying goes, we'll get what we deserve.

D.G. Bowman, a former longtime editor at The Seattle Times, is a writer and editor in Waikoloa, Hawaii. He detailed his gradual and empowering transformation from Republican to Democrat in the October 2001 issue of The Washington Monthly.  He can be reached at for.fauna@verizon.net.

Deficits that Menace (Democratic) and Deficits That Are Tolerable (Republican)

Here are a few tidbits from it: 

As Paul Krugman has noted, “when conservatives denounce ‘runaway government spending’ in California, what they’re really talking about is the effort to hire more teachers and repair decrepit school buildings.”…

Clinton focused o­n balancing the budget even before he hit office, abandoning his “putting people first” agenda in the face of a perceived threat from bond traders to punish him for any populist moves… But “people” were left out, with Clinton cutting the federal budget for education and poverty alleviation and foregoing needed environmental and infrastructure outlays in favor of  budget balancing.

 

…a continuation of Bush’s policies will triple the national debt by the end of fiscal 2013, with a ten trillion dollar increment, matching the performance of  “conservative” Ronald Reagan. A large fraction of  this increment will result from…the deficit-creating expenditures for instruments of death, so favored by the pro-life administration.

From: Nori J. Muster [mailto:email@norimuster.com]

I watched the State of the Union o­n C-SPAN. After the address they had a chat with a political science class at New England College in New Hampshire. o­ne student said she comes from a military family and that Bush has done a lot for the military. Several of the other students were frightened of another 9-11and see Bush as the o­nly o­ne who can protect them. I think it's the same as in the cult. [Nori is the author of Betrayal of the Spirit, about her years as a Hare Krishna….ST]  Bush has everybody scared and divided, and thinking that they have to cling to him to be “saved.” I wrote an article comparing the Bush Administration to a cult, which is how I would explain it.

From: Yvonne Garcia [mailto:yvonneg@tampabay.rr.com]

I am reminded of what Brian Swimme says. He used to wonder how people could stand by and see the children starving, the child slave labor, the many many injustices that go o­n, and how could folks be so “numbed out,” and he realized that it would be too hard for people to suddenly wake up… and then he understood why folks wake up for a minute and then go back to sleep.

But the time is here, and more folks are waking up. Last night I made the mistake of listening to Bush and went to bed nauseated and woke up the same… even now. If Bush were to be re-elected, I would say it's time for a revolution! I cannot imagine us tolerating it.

I think your last post says a lot, that everything is spiritual… I would never have made it during the Iraqi war beginnings were it not for Buddhist practices… breathing in the “pain… the dying children”… breathing out light and love, and thus I went to sleep many nights.

We can not presume to think our egos will come up with the answer. Here's a quote from your last post:

Thay — his nickname, which means “teacher” — posits a bridge between the inner and the outer that we have to navigate. This navigation isn't a failure to stay spiritual, but is incorporated in the very essence of what is spiritual, which is EVERYTHING. That includes the dark, all the while knowing that negative stuff isn't who you are, and that your ground of being is in the light. o­ne of the abbesses at Thay's community says: “It has been my experience that living in full consciousness can be learned. It can become a habit, replacing the habit of unconsciousness. For example, I can now recognize whether I am being fully present or not. From time to time I see that I am not. And I simply think: 'Return.' And I do return — over and over, however many times it takes…This is what spiritual practice really is. It is not feeling guilty for your weaknesses, it is realizing that at every instant, you can simply return to your true nature. The door is always open.”

Suzanne to Yvonne:

I love that quote — it is so fundamentally helpful. I still wonder why people vote against their self-interest.

From: Steve Gray [mailto:stevebg@adelphia.net]

I can think of several reasons why Bushie Jr. may get re-elected.

1. The voters are imbeciles. Look at the most popular magazines (at the checkout stands) and programs (Fox “news”). Look at the amount of celebrity worship that goes o­n. Why is Arnold the Governor? Why did OJ Simpson get off? Voters love celebrities. Look at the number of people stupidly defending Michael Jackson without knowing a goddamn thing about his guilt or innocence.

2. The voters are TV addicts. They believe ads. Republicans, loaded with unlimited money, will saturate TV with attack ads o­nce they find out who the opposition is.

3. The corporate-owned press has abdicated their responsibility. They, especially Murdoch and Fox, are after o­nly money. If they were to get honest about Bushie Jr., he might come down o­n them somehow.

4. Americans are brainlessly respectful toward religion.

5. Voters, being idiots, easily identify with their “peer,” Bushie. They see this guy stumbling through the simplest thing and like that much more than Gore's intelligence. Stupid voters think that Bushie's unpretentiousness means that he will somehow favor them. The voters totally miss how much lying Bushie's administration routinely does.

6. The US is more corrupt than I ever thought possible. The corporations own and buy everything, including the government.

Suzanne to Steve:

You think the fundamentalist sort of person Bush is, which is to people's liking, trumps how he doesn't serve their self-interest?

From: Jonathan Reams [mailto:jonathan@reams.com]

It's easy to see how people would vote for him – he simply resonates with their way of thinking. It doesn't matter what our perception of the facts are; it's all those whose system of values and thinking is similar to his that will vote for him. And they are a large number of people. We tend to hang out with those of like mind, and thus be insulated from other ways of thinking. The Spiral Dynamics model is VERY helpful in understanding these dynamics.

From: Wynn Free [mailto:wynnfree@yahoo.com]

I don't know if you are aware of what's below but, if not, I suggest you study it carefully. (My book o­n the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce coming out very soon!)

Arrest the President Now!

By John Kaminski

It begins:

Enough 9/11 evidence exists to hang Bush, imprison thousands.

On September 11, 2001, the most infamous day in American history, the tallest buildings in New York were not knocked down by airplanes hijacked by Arabs — they were destroyed by demolition charges.

This is no longer wild conspiracy theory — it is a series of provable facts, deftly presented o­n a website that every American should not o­nly read but possibly memorize, so they can repeat it verbatim to every law enforcement officer in the country. The web site is located here: http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/towers/

The site outlines a terrifying proposition: If the collapse of the Twin Towers were caused by demolition the entire official story about that sad day collapses like the house of evil cards so many Americans and people around the world already suspect it is.

The site, http://wtc7.net, backs up its conclusions with a devastating play-by-play of what actually happened o­n 9/11, and what could not possibly have happened according to universally accepted engineering principles.

The official story collapses under scrutiny, the site insists. It lists five stunning assertions:

Fires have never destroyed steel buildings.
The collapses were not investigated.
The physical evidence was destroyed.
The official explanations are ludicrous.
The evidence indicates demolition.
Demolition is provable.

Suzanne to Wynn:

This info is all over the place. Amazing how it doesn't seem to matter…yet.

One of the most startling parallel reports is in a new book by David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11.  This is stunning coming from him. Here's what my friend, Irv Thomas, sent out, along with the Griffin review:

“I was literally stunned o­n seeing that the author of this expose was David Ray Griffin. Very likely most of you have never heard of him, but Griffin is totally outside the political OR investigative sphere, much less any of your typical conspiracy theorists. He is a writer of the highest integrity in the field of Postmodern Theology. He is editor of the SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought, and his personal credits include such titles as Archetypal Process, Spirituality and Society, and Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology. I happen to have four books of his in my own collection, which is why I am familiar with all of this.

“That he should take up the cudgel in this really world-shaking situation is a matter of major moment. So I just wanted you to know that, as you look into the review and get ready for what will very likely be an outpouring of reaction and response. If it does not happen, it will merely be o­ne more instance of how rottenly deficient is the current state of our media and climate of critique.”

Book Review: The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11

Was the Bush Administration Complicit in 9/11?

by Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether

Until recently I dismissed the suggestions that the Bush administration might have been complicit in allowing 9/11 to happen as groundless “conspiracy theory.” I regarded the federal investigative bureaucracies as suffering from a “lock the barn door after the horse has escaped” syndrome. American government agencies seemed to me to be full of repressive energy and exaggerated overreach after some atrocity had occurred, but remarkably incompetent when it came to preventing something in advance. There is no question that the Bush administration has profited greatly from the 9/11 attacks o­n the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but I did not imagine that they could have actually known they were being planned and deliberately allowed them to happen.

Thus it was with some skepticism that I agreed to read the new book written by David Ray Griffin, a process theologian from the Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, California), that argues the case for just such complicity. This book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, is due for release in January, 2004. Griffin admits that he too was skeptical toward such suggestions until he began to actually read the evidence that has been accumulated by a number of researchers, both in the United States and Europe. As he became increasingly convinced that there was a case for complicity, he planned to write an article, but this quickly grew into a book.

The first startling piece of evidence that Griffin puts forward is establishing the motive among leaders in the Bush administration for allowing such an attack. Already in 2000 the right-wing authors of the “Project for the New American Century: Rebuilding America's Defenses,” opined that the military expansion they desired would be difficult unless a “new Pearl Harbor” occurred. They had outlined plans for a major imperial expansion of American power that included a greatly increased military budget and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily to secure oil supplies, but also to control the region generally. But they believed that the American people would not have the will for such actions without some devastating attack from outside that would galvanize them through fear and anger to support it. In short, they had already envisioned facilitating a major attack o­n the United States in order to gain the public support for their policy goals.

Griffin then shows the considerable evidence that the Bush administration knew in advance that such an attack was being planned, despite claims by the administration that such an attack was completely unanticipated. As early as 1995 the Philippine police conveyed to the U.S. information found o­n an Al- Queda computer that detailed “Project Bojinka” that envisioned hijacking planes and flying them into targets, such as the World Trade Center, the White House and the Pentagon. By July of 2001 the CIA and the FBI had intercepted considerable information that such an attack was planned for the Fall. Leaders of several different countries, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as leaders of Russia, Britain, Jordan, Egypt and Israel, conveyed information to the United States that such an attack was being planned. It appears not o­nly that all these warnings were disregarded, but that investigations into them were obstructed.

The actual events of September 11 leave many puzzling questions. Standard procedures for intervention when a plane goes off course were not followed in the case of all four airplanes. Within ten minutes of evidence that a plane has been hijacked standard procedures call for fighter jets to intervene and demand that the plane follow it to an airport. If the plane fails to obey, it should be shot down. There was time for this to happen before the plane was over New York City in the case of the first jet and more than ample time in the case of the second. Moreover when the order was finally given to intervene, it was not to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, seventy miles from New York City, but from Otis Air National Guard in Cape Cod.

Griffin also examines unexplained issues about the other two planes. Eye witnesses and o­n-site evidence suggests that a missile or guided fighter aircraft, not a large commercial plane, crashed into the Pentagon. Moreover the part of the Pentagon that was hit was not where high ranking generals were working, but an area under repair with few military officials. Flight #93 was the o­nly plane shot down, although o­nly after it appeared passengers were o­n the verge of taking control. Griffin also examines the conduct of President Bush o­n that day, giving considerable evidence that he knew of the first crash immediately after it happened, but delayed his response for some half a hour, nonchalantly continuing with a photo op with elementary school children.

These are o­nly a few details of the myriad data that Griffin assembles to show that, not o­nly did the Bush administration have detailed information that such attacks were going to occur o­n September 11 and failed to carry through protective responses in advance, but that they also obstructed the standard procedures to intervene in these events o­n the actual day it happened.

Griffin concludes the book with some considerable evidence of the way the Bush Administration has obstructed any independent investigation of 9/11 since it occurred, both withholding key documents and insisting that the official investigation, when it was set up, limit itself to recommendations about how to avoid such an event in the future, and not focus o­n how it actually was able to happen. Griffin writes in a precise and careful fashion, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric. He argues for a high probability for the Bush Administration's complicity in allowing and facilitating the attacks, based not o­n any o­ne conclusive piece of evidence, but the sheer accumulation of all of the data. He concludes by calling for a genuinely independent investigative effort that would examine all this evidence. He himself plans to send the book to the Kean Commission presently charged with that task, even though he has doubts about its real independence.

I personally found Griffin's book both convincing and chilling. If the complicity of the Bush Administration to which he points is true, then Americans have a far greater problem o­n their hands than even the more ardent anti-war critics have imagined. If the administration would do this, what else would they do to maintain and expand their power? 

(Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether has been a pioneer Christian feminist theologian for over three decades and is among the most widely read theologians in the world. Her book, Sexism and God-Talk, a classic in the field of theology, remains the o­nly systematic feminist treatment of the Christian symbols to date. With wide-ranging scholarship, Dr. Ruether has written and edited over thirty books and hundreds of articles and reviews.)

From: Elihu Edelson [mailto:bothsidesnow@prodigy.net]

Thanks. I wish someone had enough guts to expose what passes for Bush's religion, which is essentially anti-Christian. Maybe Kucinich could do that, as he has nothing to lose and is a Christian. It also occurred to me that Bush exhibits the characteristics of a “dry drunk”– mainly hubris. It would be better for a gutsy columnist to bring this out, rather than a candidate — someone like Wm. Rivers Pitt.

The Bush policy is based o­n fear and division (gays are scapegoats, among others — e.g. women). The word “liberal” is flung as an epithet. Maybe the Democrats can get people to really see the mess the Bush gang has gotten us into and come up with a vision thing… I may reprint Bowman's essay in Both Sides Now, space permitting.

Suzanne to Elihu:

The dry drunk idea I believe is in play. I bet the Christian critique, is, too. You don't seem to think so…??? Pitt's great. He's o­n our list. Do you know that he hasn't written to this?

All the Democrats seem so lame about exposing Bush — even Kucinich doesn't do the job of exposing the horror that Bush is.

From Elihu to Suzanne:

I can't keep up with everything either. I get the mailings from Truthout & try to catch everything of Pitt's, but could possible miss something. Anyhow, the progressives have plenty of legit ammo if they will o­nly use it.

From: Susan Ferri [mailto:ferricommercial@aol.com]

I have been having this conversation with everyone from my son to my brother's father-in-law. It simply boggles my mind. I was even more shocked to discover o­n Saturday night that my own step mom is o­ne of these people who boggles my mind. Scary, scary, scary…

Suzanne to Susan:

My 93 year old Jewish mother, too — unbelievable.

From: Mark Macy [mailto:markmacy@worlditc.org]

I agree with your wondering: “Does anyone have insight into how Bush maintains support from so many people who are so hurt by his policies? “

In a word, “Ma-a-a-a.” When social animals are in fear, they flock together, and the Bush crew has worked hard to perpetuate fear. That's all I can figure.

Thanks for your insights and o­nline newsletter.

Suzanne to Mark:

One of my friends wrote an expose of the “cult” she belonged to, and has written about how they do what they do by keeping people in fear. She wrote an article comparing the Bush Administration to a cult: http://surrealist.org/betrayalofthespirit/bush.html

Glad you like my work — I like yours, too.

From: Michael Connor [mailto:earthstudent2012@yahoo.com]

Thank you for the great piece o­n “Second Bush Term?” I can always count o­n you for important items.

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