Sorry State of the Union
Cold comfort for workers
in Bush war speech
By Leslie Feinberg
President George W. Bush used the annual "State of the
Union" address on Jan. 28 as a bully pulpit to push closer to
the brink of war against the people of Iraq.
In doing so, he managed to never once utter the word
"oil"--the single word that sums up what millions of people in
the United States fear is fueling the Pentagon war machine.
Instead, Bush just kept repeating the Big Lie. Mantling his
militarism in moralistic oratory, Bush vowed that the United
States will never "permit the triumph of violence."
School children should know that the Pentagon bristles with
more massive weaponry than any martial power on the planet. And
millions of people of all ages in this country and around the
world have marched and rallied to make this clear demand:
"U.S.--hands off Iraq!"
Bush pulled out all rhetorical stops to try to sell Wall
Street's war. The bogus "weapons of mass destruction"
subterfuge has not proved to be a decisively successful weapon
of mass distraction. So the Commander in Chief ran up the
flagpole the suggestion that Iraq might have some as-yet
undisclosed ties to "terrorism" and a murky connection to the
9/11 attacks.
There's no smoking gun to back up either of those
allegations--either of which could have been used by
politicians in both parties in the War Congress to sell their
plan to re-colonize the oil-rich Middle East.
Instead, Bush alluded to "information" and
"intelligence"--not proof--that he says Secretary of State
Colin Powell will present to the Security Council on Feb.
5.
Arrogantly referring to imperial allies who are dragging
their feet on this U.S. war of conquest, Bush stated
unequivocally that he is ready to order the Pentagon offensive
unilaterally.
Again and again Bush couched this war as pre-emptive.
War is peace.
Democrats--including presidential hopefuls--bolted the
congressional chamber before Bush was even finished talking, in
order to rebut his speech.
Yet the jockeying over who was the most patriotic, who had
the most effective military course of action, and who could
best administer the capitalist economy in a time of deep
recession without any substantive solutions offered, was a
sorry spectacle indeed for anyone who still held a glimmer of
hope that the Democrats would lead the country out of its
social, economic and military morass.
'Beat plowshares into swords!'
By the time the first notes of "Hail to the Chief" echoed in
the rotunda, Bush's speech was already crafted to a
fare-thee-well. Cabinet members and corporate interests had all
weighed in.
Last year Bush strode to the dais to deliver his infamous
"axis of evil" speech, harbinger of his intent to wage endless
war. This year, the chief speech writer for Bush's State of the
Union address was Michael Gerson, described by the Jan. 28
International Herald Tribune as "the pencil-chewing evangelical
Christian who put the evil in the 'axis of evil.' "
The Jan. 28 event was choreographed, too.
The atmosphere of war was in the air in D.C. on Jan. 28,
literally.
The militarization of the Capitol was "unprecedented,"
according to the FBI. The Federal Aviation Administration
doubled Washington's no-fly zone. Fighter jets streaked across
the skies overhead. Blackhawk helicopters chopped the air near
the Capitol dome.
Thirteen police agencies put their forces on the Capitol
grounds, including 250 FBI agents and 1,500 U.S. Capitol
cops.
Yet according to U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer,
there had been no specific threats.
Bush hammered away at what he said was the Iraqi
government's violations of civil rights and use of torture.
This diverts attention from reports of U.S. torture of
prisoners held illegally at Guantanamo, the racist mass
disappearings of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian people in this
country, and the concomitant trampling of hard-won civil
liberties.
Bush didn't mention, and neither did any of the Democrats,
that the prison-industrial complex seems to be the only
workplace in which "affirmative action" is allowed to thrive,
or that the United States use of the death penalty as a racist
weapon of terror against the impoverished and disenfranchised
is rightly seen as barbaric around the world.
In his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush had sworn, "My
economic security plan can be summed up in one word: jobs."
Since then, the private sector has lost at least 181,000 jobs,
according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Unemployment is nearing its highest levels in more than 50
years. The states are facing massive budget deficits. Health
care is priced out of reach for tens of millions. Social
services are drying up while dammed-up wealth is being
channeled into the military-industrial complex and Wall
Street.
And what does the Bush administration offer as a solution?
Speeding up the gigantic tax cuts for the already affluent.
Billions to beef up police powers. And an endless budget to
wage endless war.
Bush claimed that his Robin-Hood-in-reverse economic package
would create full employment for anyone seeking a job. All it
will take, he opined, was for more small businesses to hang out
"help wanted" shingles. But Mom-and-Pop small businesses are
going under.
Corporations won't hang up "Help wanted" signs at a time
when the dizzying race for profits has resulted in capitalist
overproduction and a sluggish economy. The tax cuts will be
pocketed by the richest individuals, but they won't invest
capital in a bogged-down market.
The 'stuff' that can't be deodorized
Before Bush delivered his State of the Union speech, Ken
Khachigan--former presidential speechwriter for Nixon and
Reagan--commiserated with the Commander in Chief's task:
balancing domestic and international issues would be like
forcing "10 pounds of stuff into a five-pound bag."
But the euphemism "stuff" didn't explain why the content of
the bag was so malodorous.
The president sounded like an impassioned environmentalist
at the podium last night talking about protecting the air and
the forests. This from an oil baron who has Mother Nature in
his crosshairs. Bush is architect of the plan to open up
protected lands in the Arctic for oil exploration. And he wants
to give away the trees to the logging interests--supposedly to
protect the vegetation from burning up in forest fires. His
program to develop hydrogen-powered cars is a subsidy to the
automobile monopoly. If the U.S. doesn't corner the market on
these cars, other countries will.
Bush announced $600 million next fiscal year in vouchers for
people seeking treatment for drug addiction--triple the amount
he was expected to call for. Who could quarrel with the great
need for such programs?
Yet in reality, this is a hefty handout that augments his
already generous "faith-based initiative" give-away. The tip
off was Bush's homily about an addict who found recovery in a
religious "treatment" center.
The new vouchers can be used in church-run drug programs
that evangelize, convert patients to religious ideology and
rely solely on bibles and prayers. They offer no medical, or
other secular, approaches. Plus their staffs are not licensed
for this work. (AP, Jan. 28)
Bush lightly touched on his aspiration to shunt Social
Security payroll taxes into stocks and bonds--not a popular
goal in the midst of a three-year bear market.
Characterizing Medicare as a "binding commitment of a caring
society," Bush asked Congress to fork over $400 billion over
the next decade to reform the hard-won, 38-year-old health
program.
Older people would do well to clutch their wallets and
pocketbooks tight when Republicans or Democrats talk about
Medicare "reform."
The plan is to lure seniors away from the relative security
of Medicare into the free fall of health care delivered in the
capitalist marketplace. Bush is offering prescription coverage
as the carrot; Medicare does not cover any outpatient costs for
drugs for the 40 million people enrolled.
But when these seniors get hit with the stick, they'll
discover that they can no longer see a doctor of their choice.
Instead, they'd be relegated to government-subsidized,
privately owned HMOs that have submitted bids for the lucrative
Medicare contracts and then offer the cheapest health care
delivery possible.
The capitalist drive to "control costs" to hike health care
profits already created a debacle for seniors, called Medicare+
Choice. Initiated by Democrats and Republicans in Congress in
1997, it resulted in skyrocketing overall health care costs.
(Boston Globe online, Jan. 28)
Elders still enrolled are now paying more for less care. A
third, or about 33 percent, "pay $50 or more in monthly
premiums," the Kaiser Family Foundation found, "up from 3
percent in 1999. And about 70 percent have $750 caps on
prescription drugs, less than the average drug costs for
seniors. Half of Medicare+ Choice enrollees must use generic
drugs."
Speaking of drugs, the pharmaceutical industry will get
massive government "welfare" from Bush's new Medicare plan. And
they stand to get the lion's share of Bush's African AIDS
initiative that proposes $15 billion over five years. The money
won't be going to the people of Africa and the Caribbean to
design their own effective approaches to deal with the
emergency epidemic.
Why is medical care such a high-priced ticket item? Isn't it
because of the high profits of the insurance companies,
pharmaceutical giants and hospital dynasties--like the one
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was born into? No, according
to Bush the problem is medical malpractice awards. While one
might ask whether the race for profits doesn't lead to patients
suffering as a result of malpractice, Bush wants a federal cap
on damages.
"No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit," he
quipped, trivializing patient pain and injury.
The president added that the problems in the health care
industry, including the estimated 40 million people in this
country who have no health insurance coverage, "will not be
solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates
coverage and rations care."
More double speak. HMOs--which Bush is proposing steering
tens of millions of seniors into--dictate coverage and ration
care.
Bush traveled to Grand Rapids, Mich., for the tradition
"morning after" the State of the Union. There, he reportedly
met behind closed doors at a hospital--Spectrum Health--with
business owners, medical professionals and one patient.
(ABCNews.com, Jan. 29)
Outside, hundreds of anti-war activists protested.
Reprinted from the Feb. 6, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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