Bush's 2007 State of the Union Address: A Socialist Critique
by J. Quinn Brisben

2007 January 24

George W. Bush is not an honest person, as he has proved many times and proved again in his most recent State of the Union address. I doubt if many viewers were moved by his closing attempts to associate himself with a Silver Star winner who was wounded when he shielded his buddies in Iraq, the Harlem man who jumped to the subway rails to save a man who had fallen, or the Congolese man able to get citizenship because of his extraordinary basketball skills. I did think he genuinely admired the housewife who sold her totally ineffective Baby Einstein idea to the Disney cartel, but Disney ought to have paid for this commercial plug on a state occasion. Possibly its executives have already contributed to the 2008 Republican campaign. The way in which the television medium has debased the political process in this country is a continuing scandal that ought to be addressed by the president and congress but will not be as long as it is so pathetically easy to bribe politicians with tube time.

Most of us tell white lies in order to ease social interaction, and Bush is no exception. I doubt if he really is pleased to address Nancy Pelosi as "Madame Speaker", nor does he sincerely join in prayers for the recovery of Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, who may be replaced by a Republican governor and throw the Senate up for grabs if he does not recover. I doubt if his congratulations to the new Democratic congress were as hearty as he indicated. The important lies start coming when he assures Congress that all are united in extending this nation's prosperity, which has steadily diminished for the average person in the Bush administrations, in wishing to spend money wisely, which throwing it down the war rat hole does not, and keeping faith with our troops, which Bush never has. He has lied about his reasons for putting them in harm's way and lied about the reasons why they do not have the equipment to defend themselves properly. I am sure he is sincere in wanting the Democratic Congress to work for reactionary Republican purposes as it has in the past.

He intends to balance the budget without raising taxes. Even such a dim bulb as Bush must know that this is impossible. War unbalances the budget, and Bush wants to escalate war. His budget strategy is an obvious continuation of the Reagan strategy to pile up debt until social programs starve and keep using regressive taxes to widen the gap between the very rich and those who produce their wealth. He also says he is opposed to "earmarks" in appropriations bills. Since most of those "earmarks" benefit those who support Republican campaigns and increase the wealth of the energy oligopoly that enriches the Bush family, I think subsidies for the rich will continue to be tucked away in unlit corners of legislation. His past record indicates that when he says he wants to "fix" Medicaid and Medicare and "save" Social Security he really wants to follow the dictates of the late Milton Friedman and destroy these programs.

The No Child Left Behind Act has been a terrible failure except in so far as it has worked to destroy the public school system and demoralize creative teachers, which was possibly its unstated purpose. The present social class and racial segregation in increasing numbers of schools is a paramount danger to what is left of political democracy in this country. Attempts to increase the profits of private companies through charter schools and other "privatizing" devices have been mostly disastrous and are likely to continue to be so. Every organization of working teachers opposes them, and for good reason.

Bush's health care proposals are ridiculous. Every other industrialized nation in the world has a more equitable and effective medical system than ours, and no amount of media propaganda can change that fact. The Bush tax exemption proposals can only increase the deficit and enrich pharmaceutical companies and other parasites while making poor people into stigmatized second-class citizens. Private health insurance accounts are only an invitation for financial sharks to steal.

Bush's immigration proposals are nothing more than a plot to lower the wages of US workers, make those of Mexican and Central American workers lower still, and at the same time pay obeisance to the racist proclivities of much of his core constituency. Any proposal that does not include amnesty keeps immigrant workers without rights and subject to constant employer terrorism. The widening of Interstate 35 through Texas and proposals to extend that and other roads is nothing less than a plot to deny jobs to organized workers and increase the numbers of the unorganized and technically illegal. The slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" is more relevant than ever. US workers should not only fight for their own rights but work to make sure that Mexican workers are in at least partial control of their governments at home.

Bush is a creature of the oil industry and favors no proposal that will not increase its profits, no matter what his misleading rhetoric would seem to indicate. He proposes fuel standards, but not the kind of taxes that would force gas-guzzling SUVs to pay for their true cost to the environment. The government has never invested sufficiently in alternative energy sources like solar and wind power that are likely to make a long-run difference, or even in stopgaps like a clean coal gasification project. Ethanol is currently a fraud designed to enrich a few companies like Archer Daniels Midland and will remain so until further research learns to use biomass more efficiently. One good short range proposal would be to socialize all private energy companies, as the Socialist Party has been proposing since 1976, since they seem to operate naturally under monopoly conditions anyhow.

Bush wants less debate on his judicial nominations. I agree that we should have conservative judges, judges who want to preserve the US Constitution, especially the Congressional war-making power, the limits on the suspension of habeas corpus, and the 1st amendment which guarantees freedom of speech, press, and assembly; the 4th amendment guaranteeing freedom from unlawful searches and seizures, the 5th amendment guaranteeing due process of law, the 6th amendment guaranteeing basic rights in criminal trials, and the 8th amendment prohibiting torture. Bush's judicial nominees have sometimes rejected these conservative ideas and are thus unfit to serve as American judges. If he wants quicker approval of his judicial choices, he should choose better persons.

The Republican Party's recent electoral defeat was largely due to Bush's repeated disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and the unpopularity of his planned war on Iran. Yet he waited until halfway through his address to discuss these issues. He continually uses the phrase "war on terrorism", but war can be made only on states and "terrorism" is not a state. "Terrorism", a dangerously partisan usage for a leader who condones the massacre of innocents and the torture of un-indicted detainees, can only be fought with common police methods such as more effective guard patrols and subornation of informers, methods which Bush's inability to distinguish among foreigners and the prejudice his subordinates have against persons familiar with another culture have tended to render ineffective.

He states that Al-Qaeda's days of comfortable sanctuary, easy movement, steady financing, and free-flowing communications are long over. This is a lie, as his failure to capture Osama bin Laden proves beyond a doubt. Al-Qaeda has plenty of sanctuary with the Pakistani intelligence services that are our supposed allies, slaughters American soldiers seemingly at will, grows steadily in numbers with plenty of financing from Saudifamilies who also support the Bush family, and has no trouble communicating the same way the rest of us with cell phones and computer access communicate. Bush's offensives have only made things worse, and his claims to have forestalled later terrorist attacks are doubtful.

I am glad Bush finally realizes that there are some historical differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and that he has performed the difficult feat of antagonizing both groups simultaneously. He might learn more if he made comparisons between Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and some of the Christian and Jewish extreme groups whose favor he courts. His current condemnation of Hezbollah is part of an attempt to lure this country into an attack on Iran, a development that all Americans ought to resist, especially those in Congress interested in restoring their war-making power. Bush does not seem to realize that every invasion and escalation he has ordered so far has increased the chaos, and every attempted use of more US troops in the future is likely to make the situation still worse. Neither the vast majority of Afghans nor the vast majority of Iraqis has any faith in their US-imposed governments. Our bullying of those governments is not likely to improve things.

As usual, Bush fails to mention the root cause of his dilemma. The attempt of the companies that Bush and Cheney represent to gain hegemony over the planet's energy resources is simply not going to work. If we go back to square one and include all the industrialized and industrializing powers in on the action for the twilight of fossil fuels, we might be able to create an international force capable of keeping order until an equitable distribution of the spoils with justice for all the locals can be worked out. In any case the continued presence of our troops can only make things worse, curtailing our domestic liberty as well as that of the people of the Middle East. What is good for Halliburton and Exxon Mobil is not good for the country.

I am glad that Bush wants to cooperate with China and Russia in bringing North Korea under control. I am even gladder that he did not choose to mention Chavez in Venezuela or the ailing Castro in Cuba as threats to our liberty that must immediately be attacked by missiles. I am glad that he wants a democratic state for Palestinians despite his distaste for the leaders they have elected. I am glad that he finally realizes that the problem of H.I.V./AIDS in Africa cannot be solved by abstinence education or enriching big pharma. I am glad he finally realizes that the World Bank cannot collect all the debts it is owed even with the help of the Marines and the CIA. Finally, I am glad that Bush no longer looks quite like Alfred E. Neumann. He is worried. Our best strategy is to keep him worried.

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