FWD: Bush's record

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

Dear reader,

   Following the success of Serge Halimi’s article in our October

   issue « What's the matter with West Virginia? », we are sending
   you a new article by Serge Halimi assessing the Bush years. 
   The rest of the article is on our website (http://www.mondediplo.com),
   introducing a glittering array of articles from Le Monde diplomatique
   on US themes. 

   We hope you will enjoy them..

   Yours sincerely,
   Wendy Kristianasen

       ______________________________________________________________

          ELECTION 2004 SPECIAL

                 The United States: Bush's record


                         By Serge Halimi

   Despite the usual voter apathy of Americans, the turnout on
   2 november is expected to exceed European levels (1). Will
   that be because of 9/11 and George Bush's response to it -
   the provocative policies coming out of the White House;
   the enthusiasm with which, on the pretext of reacting to the
   attacks on New York and Washington, it proposed
   a "preventive" war against Iraq? When the neoliberals
realised
   that there was nothing to fear about the coercing power
   of the state - provided that they did the coercing -
   the political process was validated further. The electoral
   waverers, the lukewarm, the blasé, all quickly went to ground.

   This is as much a referendum on the current administration
   as an election. Bush has two rare, if not unique,
   distinctions: he was elected even though he received fewer
   votes than his opponent and he is the son of a former
   president. His enthronement was less democratic than
   dynastic. The election result conferred no particular
   mandate on him, and certainly no endorsement for a terrible
   leap to the right, an imperial inflection of the international
   order or the militarisation of American society and
   foreign policy.

   The Democrats - for whose victory many European politicians
   and commentators hope so that once again they can say
   "We are all Americans" (2) - prefer to attribute this
   transformation of the political landscape of the United
   States to some "vast rightwing conspiracy" involving the
   media and the Supreme Court. But that ignores the way that
   President Clinton left behind him a party in disarray,
   without any clear plan and in a minority in the House of
   Representatives, the Senate and in the states.

   The Republicans have the security of knowing that they hold
   the White House, Congress and the governorships of
   California, Texas, New York and Florida. But they want more.
   They want it all and they want to keep it for a long time.
   A few more reactionary judges in the Supreme Court would allow
   them to secure their conservative revolution and roll back
   forever what little remains of the progressive achievements
   of the 20th century. Civil liberties would be an issue:
   the Supreme Court - although it was responsible for Bush's
   election - felt obliged to remind him this July that "a
   state of war is not a blank cheque for the president" and
   that "history and common sense teach us that an unchecked
   system of detention carries the potential to become a means
   for oppression and abuse of others". The neoliberal and
   authoritarian ambitions of the Republicans are transparent;
   but there was no rightwing plot to force both John Kerry and
   John Edwards to vote in favour of the USA Patriot Act and
   support the war in Iraq. Do either of them have any regrets?
   They go on claiming they do not.


       To read the rest of the article visit:
       http://mondediplo.com/2004/10/00bush


kwp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20041031/f8c0a127/attachment.html>