all hail the potted plant!!!

[Guest guest]

All The King's Horses

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | Opinion

 

Wednesday, 14 August, 2002

 

My last column in this space was entitled 'Bush the Idiot or Bush the Fiend.' It

wondered, in short, whether George W. Bush was a dullard or a despot. I received

a great deal of mail in response to this piece. Some believed him a fool, and

others a criminal. The great majority of respondents, however, delineated a

third prospect that is far more likely, one that I failed to mention. It seems

most people believe Bush has as much control over the ways and means of

governing as a potted plant has control over the ways and means of the sun.

 

A little analysis of the situation demonstrates that the majority of those who

wrote me regarding this third option are absolutely correct. We could freeze

George W. Bush in carbonite like Han Solo, hang him on a wall like a tapestry,

and the machinery of his administration would hum along with nary a hiccup.

 

Ergo, attacking George W. Bush for his policies and politics is about as useful

as attacking the aforementioned potted plant because it is too hot outside. One

has no say regarding the other. There is no question that his administration

must be reined in and brought to heel for the sake of our economy, our

environment, our safety and our democracy. Attacking Bush himself, however, will

yield nothing in the end. One must look elsewhere to find the power. In finding

it, one must locate the soft spots.

 

Let us look first to those within his administration who are clearly and

actively rowing the oars on this ship of state.

 

Richard " Dick " Cheney

 

As a Wyoming Congressman, Dick Cheney voted against the Clean Water Act, against

any sanctions for air polluters, against the Head Start program, and against

anything having to do with affirmative action. Ten different times he voted

against economic sanctions to be imposed upon apartheid-era South Africa, and

was one of only two who voted against a resolution demanding the release of

Nelson Mandela. When questioned by the press about his voting record during the

2000 campaign, Cheney said, " The American people want to hear about the future,

not the past. " The media said, " Yes, sir, " and proceeded to fulminate about the

proper pronunciation of his last name.

 

As Secretary of Defense during the first Bush administration, Cheney stomped all

over the freedom of the press during the Gulf War. A Time Magazine

photojournalist named Warren Bocxe was detained by American forces on Cheney's

orders for 30 hours for violating the unprecedented restrictions that were

placed upon the media during that conflict. During the war, Cheney vastly

overstated the accuracy of American missile strikes when presenting

'information' to the media, and went out of his way to cover up deadly mistakes.

David Hackworth, a former Army colonel who reported on the war for Newsweek,

said in the aftermath, " The American people did not get the truth. "

 

In the interim between his Bush gigs, Cheney became CEO of Halliburton Petroleum

Corporation. During his five years there, Halliburton feasted upon the American

corporate welfare system, gathering nearly $2 billion in taxpayer-funded loans

from the government - in the five years before his arrival, Halliburton only got

$100 million in government loans. Cheney secured $2.3 billion in government

contracts while in charge, double the amount Halliburton had before he came

aboard. Also during Cheney's time, Halliburton turned a tidy sum through sales

to Iraq, earning $23.8 million. Technically, Halliburton did not violate the

sanctions against Iraq because it used European subsidiaries to do the deal.

 

Unfortunately for anyone with money in the stock market generally, or anyone

holding Halliburton stock specifically, Cheney seems to have been better at

locking up journalists than running a business. While CEO, Cheney oversaw the

purchase of Dresser Industries by Halliburton, despite the fact that Dresser had

292,000 claims for asbestos-caused health problems pending against it. Cheney

badly underestimated the liability of these claims, and Halliburton stock got

clobbered soon after the merger. The SEC is currently investigating Cheney and

Halliburton for overstating its profitability by $100 million, an action

familiar to the executives of WorldCom and Enron. The accounting firm that

approved this book-cooking, incidentally, was Arthur Andersen.

 

John Ashcroft

 

Ashcroft was controversial from the word " go. " He was nominated for the position

of Attorney General, the most powerful law enforcement position in the country,

despite a voting record and pattern of action during his time in the Senate that

is truly chilling when one considers our current situation. In his six years as

a Senator, Ashcroft introduced or sponsored seven different constitutional

amendments, including one in 1996 that would have made it laughably easy to

amend the constitution. Given his efforts to undermine the separation of church

and state while a Senator, the intentions behind this last attempted amendment

are clear. Another of his proffered constitutional amendments sought to destroy

a woman's reproductive rights, even in cases of rape or incest.

 

Ashcroft the Missouri Senator opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,

designed to protect workers from discrimination based upon race. He opposed the

Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He opposed the federal ban on assault weapons like

the AK-47. He voted against clean water protections, and sponsored legislation

to limit Clinton administration restrictions on greenhouse emissions. Ashcroft

the Missouri Attorney General and Governor opposed school desegregation ordered

by the federal courts, going so far as to oppose a voluntary desegregation plan

in St. Louis. These last facts jibe disturbingly with the fact that Ashcroft

publicly praised Southern Partisan Magazine, a publication that has espoused the

belief that slavery was beneficial to slaves.

 

As Dick Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, the past is prologue. History has

swept John Ashcroft along with the rest of us in the aftermath of September

11th, and has left our essential constitutional protections in the hands of a

man who is far outside the American mainstream. Since 9/11, Ashcroft has helped

to craft the PATRIOT Anti-Terrorism bill which sailed through a timorous

Congress that feared its mail. That Act allowed virtually unchecked surveillance

of any American citizen suspected of terrorist activities, and allows the FBI to

investigate on a whim any political or religious group for the same reasons. In

the first draft of the Act, Ashcroft erased Habeas Corpus, the beating heart of

our system of laws and civil protections. That action was later corrected, but

the fact that it happened in the first place speaks volumes about a man who

spent a great deal of time while a Senator trying to rewrite the constitution.

 

More recently, Ashcroft put forth a program called TIPS - Terrorist Information

and Prevention Service - that would involve mail carriers, meter readers, cable

installers and any other manner of individuals who perform services within

private homes spying on fellow citizens. Ashcroft believed this network of

informants would keep terrorism at bay; critics saw a homegrown network that

would report any manner of perceived wrongdoing through the prying eyes of

citizen spies. Though Ashcroft denied that a database would be created to

capture any and all allegations against American citizens in perpetuity, it

stands to reason that local FBI offices would hold on to reports of allegations

- including the raft of false accusations that would inevitably come - as a

matter of course.

 

So many people were outraged by the TIPS Program that it died a swift death - or

did it? A reporter from Salon who signed up for the program on the day it was

announced called the TIPS Hotline recently to see about his application. His

call was routed, not to the FBI, but to the Fox television program " America's

Most Wanted. " Fox has denied any associations with TIPS.

 

There are, literally, legions of people like this populating the ranks of the

Bush administration at this very moment. I could spend another 3,000 words

describing the career record and mindset of Undersecretary of Defense Paul

Wolfowitz, a truly frightening individual. I could spend another 3,000 words

describing Richard Perle, a man who has carried the nickname " The Prince of

Darkness " for thirty years in Washington, a man who pulls all the strings on

Wolfowitz. These men are avowed war-hawks to a degree that is terrifying, and

they are calling the shots along with Cheney and Ashcroft. Do a Google.com

search using their names and see for yourself.

 

There is another 10,000 words in the corporate sponsorship standing behind Bush:

Arthur Andersen, Enron and Citigroup appear on the list of the top 15 donors to

his 2000 campaign, and that is but the tip of the iceberg.

 

My readers are smarter than I am. I had it in the back of my head to mention the

puppet-like nature of George W. Bush, but I did not do so in my last article.

The good readers of Truthout called me on it, and rightly so. In the very near

future, I will dedicate a few thousand words to Messrs. Wolfowitz and Perle, and

to some other nefarious interests who happen to be running the show at the

moment.

 

In the meantime, let us remember the potted plant named George W. Bush. It is

not in control of the events that surround it, and yet it is an evil weed. If it

is to be removed from our garden, the roots must be pulled up from the darkness

that protects them. A plant will wither without nourishment; Bush will wither

when those who run his administration become check-mated and exposed. Basically,

we're talking about gardening.

 

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William Rivers Pitt is a teacher from Boston, MA. His new book, 'The Greatest

Sedition is Silence,' will be published soon by Pluto Press.