By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 31 January 2006
i knew that i was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become
them, accept.
then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.
– Charles Bukowski
“He
shall from time to time,” reads the Constitution, “give to the Congress
information of the state of the union, and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
And so it shall be. George W. Bush will be speaking tonight from the
podium in the House of Representatives. Before him will be arrayed
Senators, Representatives, generals and judges. The balconies will be
filled with observers, luminaries, reporters and a few so-called
“special guests” whose presence will be used to reinforce some argument
or another.
It
shall be quite a thing to see, a show worth watching if only to observe
exactly how many lies, distortions, threats, taunts and smirks can be
crammed into a single speech. This will be Mr. Bush speaking, after
all, and the truth is not in him. It will be in every pertinent sense a
mere commercial, a television advertisement from a failing company, a
whitewashing of ugly truths by a staggering CEO whose sole desire is to
keep the stockholders in line for another quarter.
In
the interests of truth, the actual state of this union deserves to be
displayed for all to see. This is the deal. This is how it is.
The Real Economy
Since
2000, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen to nearly 37
million. More than 13 million of these are children. More than one in
four American families with children make less than $30,000 a year.
Look within that number and you will find 46% of African American
families with children and 44% of Hispanic families with children fall
below this mark. Average annual income for Americans fell once again in
2005. 46 million Americans live without health insurance.
The
response to this? Vice President Cheney, three days before Christmas,
cast the tie-breaking vote on a spending reduction bill that will fall
most heavily on the poor, the infirm and the elderly. Funding for
health care, child support, and education subsidies for low-income
families has been gutted. Medicaid benefits for the poor were cut by $7
billion, and Medicare programs for the elderly were cut by $6.4
billion. Federal student-loan programs were cut by $12.7 billion.
On
the very same day, the Senate passed legislation that drastically cut
funding for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education. The Head Start program was hit especially hard: the cuts
here eliminate some 25,000 slots for low-income children. All in all,
these spending reductions are expected to save $40 billion.
Meanwhile,
recently-passed tax cuts ravage the budget far more deeply than these
drastic budget cuts. Two tax cuts in particular that went into effect
on New Year’s Day will cost $27 billion, more than half of what the
spending reductions are supposed to save. These cuts will cost more
than $150 billion over the next ten years. 97% of the money from these
cuts will go to households making more than $200,000 a year. Households
with incomes under $100,000 will get 0.1% of these cuts.
If
all of Mr. Bush’s tax cuts are stopped or allowed to expire, $750
billion will be added to the federal budget. That is more than enough
to pay for the programs that have been eviscerated. It won’t happen,
not with the priorities of this administration, but that is the simple
math of the matter.
New Orleans Drowned in a Bathtub
The
first weeks of September brought to all Americans a devastating
tragedy. The city of New Orleans was all but obliterated by Hurricane
Katrina when levees meant to hold back the waters failed. The failure
of these levees came, in no small part, because of unprecedented budget
cuts for the Army Corps of Engineers, which was tasked to keep the
levees viable.
The
tragedy was compounded by the utterly incompetent management of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and its head, Michael Brown, whose
experience with disaster management came while he was serving as an
attorney for owners of Arabian horses. In the weeks to follow, lavish
promises were made by Mr. Bush. “We will do what it takes, we will stay
as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and
their lives,” he said on September 15th.
Those
promises have been broken. We have gone from oaths to revive this
cherished city to this: “I want to remind people in that part of the
world, $85 billion is a lot,” said Bush on January 26th. Hundreds of
thousands of Americans remain displaced, many holding on by the skin of
their teeth in cramped trailers. Thirty million cubic yards of debris
remain uncollected – the Washington Post estimated over the weekend
that this was “enough to build a five-sided column more than 50 stories
tall over the Pentagon.” There is not even a plan in place to begin to
attack the problem. The Bush administration has left New Orleans to
rot, and the next hurricane season is four months away.
Anti-tax
crusader Grover Norquist once famously stated that he wanted to shrink
the federal government to the size where it could be drowned in a
bathtub. As evidenced by the budget cuts and tax giveaways described
above, many within this government feel as Norquist does. Thanks to
their actions, to the cuts in the Army Corps of Engineers budget, to
the nomination of useless cronies like Brown to vital positions of
civil defense, to a war in Iraq that has bled the budget further and
left Louisiana without sufficient National Guard troops to help the
population, it is New Orleans that has been drowned in Norquist’s
bathtub. A major American city has been shattered, and nothing is done
about it.
To
add insult to injury, the Bush administration utterly refuses to answer
any questions on the matter. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut,
perhaps the most widely-known Democratic defender of Mr. Bush, is the
ranking minority member on the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee. Even Mr. Lieberman is flabbergasted by
the stonewalling of the White House.
“My
staff believes that DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) has
engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation in
the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation’s
natural progression to where it leads,” Lieberman said last week. “At
this point, I cannot disagree. There’s been no assertion of executive
privilege, just a refusal to answer. I have been told by my staff that
almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses
regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been
met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the
White House.”
Mark
Folse, a New Orleans native, operates a blog called “Wet Bank Guide.”
On Monday, Mr. Folse posted a message for Mr. Bush. “I’ve never lost
the deepest allegiance I’ve ever held: to my city,” wrote Folse. “We
have always known we were a people different and unique, as divided as
we may seem. That sense of identity as a New Orleanian is the powerful
bond that draws me on. It is the deep love of country that drives me –
of my country, New Orleans and southern Louisiana. It is the irrational
emotional attachment to my piece of America that leads men and women to
go willingly up Bunker Hill, to follow General Pickett, to volunteer
for Iraq.”
“A
life of assured privilege has protected you from having to take these
sorts of risks,” continued Folse, “to find the strength to get up and
go into the maw of uncertainty, to risk and gamble your own and not
other peoples’ lives or money. You can pledge allegiance or sing the
anthem or give a stirring speech as well as any, but you know you have
no allegiance except self-interest.”
“If
nothing moves you except your own self-interest,” concluded Folse,
“then consider this. There are hundreds of thousands of us, scattered
throughout most of the United States. We are everywhere you and your
party will go to campaign: Arkansas and Atlanta and Austin, Dallas and
Detroit and Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Baltimore and Boston,
Chicago and Charlotte. Many will remain there indefinitely, unable to
go home, precisely because you have lied to them and betrayed them. We
will not let you escape from the net of lies you have woven. Wherever
you turn, you will find us, ready to call you out.”
The
situation in New Orleans is a problem that will not go away. Men like
Mark Folse will make absolutely sure of that.
“Scandal” Is Too Small a Word
The
Abramoff scandal directly touches some sixty Republican congresspeople,
according to campaign finance records that show where the disgraced
lobbyist sent his money. Mr. Bush recently promoted the lead
investigator in this case, effectively removing him from the
investigation. Despite this, the hard look into Mr. Abramoff’s dealings
continue. Mr. Abramoff’s plea deal has a lot of people in Washington
suffering from flop-sweat.
Patrick
Fitzgerald’s investigation into the outing of a deep-cover CIA agent by
administration officials continues apace, and has already cashiered
Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby. According to t r u t h o u t
investigative reporter Jason Leopold, Fitzgerald has “spent the past
month preparing evidence he will present to a grand jury alleging that
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove knowingly made false
statements to FBI and Justice Department investigators and lied under
oath while he was being questioned about his role in the leak of covert
CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity more than two years ago, according
to sources knowledgeable about the probe.”
“Although
there have not been rumblings regarding Fitzgerald’s probe into the
Plame leak since he met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the
case more than a month ago,” continued Leopold in his January 10th report,
“the sources said that Fitzgerald has been quietly building his case
against Rove and has been interviewing witnesses, in some cases for the
second and third time, who have provided him with information related
to Rove’s role in the leak.”
None
of this will be mentioned in the State of the Union speech tonight. The
Bush administration continues to stonewall these investigations with
all its might – Mr. Bush has denied ever knowing Jack Abramoff, despite
the existence of several pictures showing them glad-handing each other
in the White House – and the Republican-controlled congress will
certainly do nothing to advance the questions being asked.
In
contrast, a portion of the speech will certainly be dedicated to
moralistic sloganeering about values. Remember, as high-flown words
about truth and justice are spoken, what the Abramoff and Plame
scandals represent: a government run by thieves, stroked by swindlers,
and staffed by assassins who sing of defending the nation even as they
cast us down into greater danger.
And, by the way, the Enron trial started on Monday.
The Middle East
2,242
American soldiers have died in Iraq. Tens of thousands more are
grievously wounded. Tens and tens of thousands of civilians are dead or
maimed. Scores more simmer in rage and pick up weapons to attack
American forces. American soldiers wishing to go around the Pentagon to
augment their meager armor have been threatened with the revocation of
death benefits for their families. A coalition of fundamentalist Shiite
groups has taken over the government, the two main parts of which are
notorious terrorist organizations with umbilical ties to Iran. Hundreds
of billions of dollars have been spent to do this. There is no end in
sight.
Three
years ago, in another State of the Union address, Mr. Bush told the
nation that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000
liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is 1,000,000 pounds) of
sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to deliver these
agents, mobile biological weapons labs, al Qaeda connections, and
uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons program. Mr.
Bush will have to work very hard tonight to tell a lie as vast,
dramatic and bloody as this.
Certainly,
Mr. Bush will sing the praises of bringing democracy to the Middle
East. It is worthwhile, however, to consider what his concept of
democracy has accomplished to date. Six months ago, a radical named
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran. Thanks to the
intense feelings within Iran’s populace about the US occupation of
Iraq, Ahmadinejad has been able to unify his country behind the
establishment of a nuclear program that frightens the rest of the
world. Ahmadinejad’s election itself owes a great deal to Mr. Bush’s
policies on Iraq.
Last
week, the terrorist organization Hamas was overwhelmingly elected by
the Palestinian people to run their government, leaving the Fatah party
shocked and displaced. While the success of Hamas has much to do with
Fatah’s corruption and lack of progress on several fronts, the slow
radicalization of the general population in the Middle East once again
can be laid at the doorstep of Mr. Bush. It has been revealed that
Bush’s decision to disengage from the peace process between Israel and
Palestine several years ago was a disastrous choice. Couple that with
the occupation of Iraq and the torture of its citizens, and few can be
surprised when the general population in the Middle East turns toward
more radical elements.
Democracy
is a tricky thing. The fact that people in Iraq, Iran and Palestine are
afforded the opportunity to vote, instead of suffering the absolute
control of a dictatorship, is arguably a good thing in the main. Yet
methods matter. When the Iraqi people are given the vote by way of a
ravaging war that inflames the passions of the region and enshrines a
radical government, democracy becomes its own worst enemy. When that
ravaging war empowers a fringe president in Iran, democracy becomes its
own worst enemy.
Methods
matter. Democracy does not exist in a vacuum. When it is forced upon a
population at the point of a sword, that population will see the sword
as the best viable option to exercise its collective will. Almost
immediately, democracy will be used to elect radicals, and those
radicals will dispose of democracy at the first opportunity. The
radicalization of governments all across the Middle East has made the
world substantially more dangerous. Mr. Bush will speak of progress
tonight. The only progress being made is toward a general conflagration.
On
the other hand, Exxon Mobil has posted a $32 billion profit for the
last year. This stands as the largest single one-year profit in the
entire history of the world. Progress indeed.
The Unitary Executive Tapping Your Phone
Mr.
Bush and friends have been jumping through flaming hoops to justify the
blatantly illegal policy of spying on Americans by way of the National
Security Agency. Their tortured arguments in favor of this action, and
their flat-footed declaration that the policy will continue, makes
confetti of the Fourth Amendment.
More
than that, however, it moves this nation one step closer to having an
Executive Branch that supersedes all others in power and scope. Not
only will Mr. Bush spy on whomever he pleases, but he will also torture
whomever he pleases. Put simply, the constitutionally-required
separation of powers, the checks and balances that have maintained the
stability of this republic, is being destroyed. This will echo down the
corridors of our history long after Mr. Bush has left his office.
On
Monday afternoon, Senate Democrats failed to muster the necessary 41
votes needed to avoid cloture on the nomination of Samuel Alito. The
man will be elevated to the highest court. Beyond the fact that Alito
is hostile to a woman’s right to choose, hostile to privacy rights in
the face of unwarranted police intrusion, and hostile to the poor and
disadvantaged, there is the matter of his opinion on the powers of the
Executive. In short, he agrees with Mr. Bush.
The Reign of Witches
The
state of this union is not good. We are poorer, frightened, faced with
the swelling ranks of enemies our leaders have created, and hell-bent
to do away with the most precious aspects of our system of government.
We are surveilled, propagandized, intimidated. We empower the radicals
and disenfranchise the common good. We are fed swill via the television
and thus convinced that what they tell us is what we already believe.
We are bought, and we are paid for.
The
radicals running this country have long desired to destroy the
government’s ability to govern – they found things like taxes
intrusive, which is amusing when one hears them now defending
warrantless spying on Americans – and they are well along the path
towards success. The budget is destroyed, spent on tax cuts and the
Iraq occupation, while millions of Americans suffer the loss of
necessary services. The one percent of the one percent is making a
killing, and the rest of us are left behind.
If
there is hope to be found in all this, it is in the words of Thomas
Jefferson, written 208 years ago after the passage of the Sedition Act.
“A
little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore
their government to its true principles. It is true that in the
meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors
of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs
sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and
then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we
have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.