State Of Deception

New Uses for Duct Tape

What’s the old saying - "a picture is worth a thousands words"? I’ve always been a littleskeptical about that phrase, but it was born out last Wednesday when George W. Bush’s "Boxgate"incident hit the airwaves. There was Bush extolling "free trade" (corporate globalization) and hislatest regressive tax cut in a St. Louis trucking company warehouse. He huffed and sneered about thesuperiority of the American System in front of "a printed canvas backdrop of faux cardboard boxes, whichfeatured ‘Made in America’ in large black letters" (New York Times, January 23, 2003). Thecanvass read "STRENGTHENING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY." A handful of warehouse officials applauded in thebackground, framed by two American flags.

The only problem had to do with the only real warehouse boxes that White House"volunteers" could find to arrange in front of Bush. Each box had large pieces of dark brown ducttape placed on their lower left corner. When reporters peeled the tape off, they found three magic words theWhite House wished to hide: "Made in China." It was difficult, the "volunteers" knew, tosquare such evidence (however anecdotal) of corporate America’s reliance on cheap overseas labor with thepro-"globalization" and "Made in America" message intended by Bush’s politicalmastermind Karl Rove. As a young man Rove, it is worth recalling, idolized Richard Nixon. He was reported bythe Washington Post to have conducted training sessions for College Republicans in the art ofNixon-style dirty tricks (See Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl Cannon, Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The BrainsBehind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush, 2003).

The corporate electro-"journalists" (CNN newscasters) who reported the version of "Boxgate"story that I first encountered handled it an interesting way - with a smile. They thought it was… funny.They read the story, showed the clip, chuckled and moved on to the next item. One suspects, however, that thebumbling little White House deception in St. Louis is no laughing matter to the millions of Americans who havelost manufacturing and other jobs to corporate globalization in recent decades. It is no laughing matter,either, to those concerned about the nation’s costly trade and balance of payments deficit or"corporate America’s" attraction to low-wage authoritarian states that deny elementary rights totheir workers. It is no laughing matter to those who think that elected public officials in "ademocracy" are supposed to speak honestly to the people rather than deceive them.

A Chronic "Disconnect Between Message and Reality"

"Boxgate" would be funnier if it wasn’t just a minor part of a much larger and chronic patternof disinformation and dishonesty in the Bush White House. Two years into the Bush-Rove Presidency, the bestquestion that a journalist could ask White House spokesman Ari Fleischer right now is something along thelines of the following: "Mr. Fleischer, would you care to tell the American people just how unbelievablyfucking stupid the White House takes them to be?" It’s a question that won’t be asked in quite thoseterms by the Washington press corps, which speaks in more polite terms, noting at its leftmost margins the"the disconnect between [White House] message and reality."

By any reasonable standard, however, the scale of that "disconnect" under the current regime at1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is exceptional. Let’s examine just four examples of the "disconnect." 

Message: George W. Bush is a "populist" who sides with the "little guy" against Wall Street, isdeeply concerned about the plight of the nation’s poor, and seeks balanced economic growth that serves theentire US population.

Reality: Bush has consistently supported the interests of his class brethren in the corporate plutocracy. He hasenacted and advocates further tax cuts that give the lion’s share of benefits to the top ten percent of"earners," do nothing to stimulate economic growth (as even conservative economists acknowledge),and undermine social programs needed by the nation’s rising number of poor.

Message: As "a uniter, not a divider," George W. Bush is strongly committed to racial justice in Americaand seeks to heal the racial rift in this nation. In line with Martin Luther King’s belief in color-blindequality, he is opposed to the use of race for political purposes.

Reality: Bush appointed a Confederacy enthusiast as Attorney General and refuses to apologize to African-Americans forthe crime and continuing legacy of slavery. He has needlessly antagonized African-Americans by making racistfederal judiciary nominations and filing a White House brief in the Supreme Court case against the Universityof Michigan’s affirmative action program, which he falsely accuses of mandating racial "quotas."His regressive domestic and imperial foreign policy agendas inflict disproportionate pain on African-Americansand people of color at home and abroad. The White House routinely uses race for political purposes, spinningthe presence of two African Americans in key foreign policy positions as proof of its racial sensitivity

Message: The likely perpetrators of the September 2001 terror attacks (al Qaeda) attacked the World Trade Center andthe Pentagon because they hate the "freedoms" enjoyed by people in American and Western"civilization."

Reality: The likely perpetrators are largely indifferent to domestic US society. Their real issues with Americarelate fundamentally to America’s intrusive, imperial and oil-driven foreign policy in the Middle East,which is why European nations (with the possible exception of American lapdog Britain) are much less likely tobe targeted by terrorists. Their real goals are to spark jihad within the Middle East and to overthrow Arabregimes they see as insufficiently Muslim. Interestingly, the Bush administration has used 9-11 to roll backthe very freedoms that it falsely accuses the terrorists of targeting.

Message: The Iraq regime and its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) present a clear, present and highly significantdanger to the American people, making a new American "war" for regime change necessary in Iraq. Iraqis the single greatest threat to world peace and the American people by far.

Reality: The Iraqi regime is effectively disarmed and possesses little if any threat to its own neighbors, much lessthe US. Its "leader" Saddam is a vicious dictator but there’s nothing in his past record toindicate that he is suicidal, which he would have to be to use weapons of mass destruction against Americansor his neighbors. North Korea’s declared intention to begin mass production of nuclear weapons is a muchgreater threat to world peace and American security. The single most important such threat at present is thebellicose imperial unilateralism of the world’s leading manufacturer, possessor and distributor of WMDs -the United States, led by the arch-imperialist Bush gang.

The list of the Bush gang’s deceptions, including the bizarre notion of the "Evil-Axis" andRove’s recent description of Bush as an "environmentalist," goes on and on. It should be fullycompiled and juxtaposed against the Bush administration’s forthcoming publication of Saddam’s propagandacampaigns of 1990-2003. Surely the White House’s effort to turn 9-11 and fear of al Qaeda into rationale forwar on Iraq and fear of Saddam should be counted as one of the most remarkable top-down propaganda operationsin the modern record. In the meantime, we look forward to elaboration on the above and other formsmessage-reality "disconnect" tonight, as George W. Orwell delivers what promises to be the mostdeceptive State of the Union address in memory.

Bush II likes to give his associates knick names. Rove, for example, has received the clever moniker"Boy Genius." Here’s one we ought to consider for our President: "Pinocchio." Unless heactually believes the stuff his handlers have him saying to the people. In which case good old "Dubya"seem as appropriate as ever

 We Can See Through Your Lies

Fortunately, there is growing evidence that the American people are on to Bush’s lies. A recent WallStreet Journal/NBC polls reports that a 49 percent plurality of Americans now disapprove of the way thatBush is "handling the economy." Fully 61 percent doubt that Bush’s "economic stimuluspackage" will do much to stimulate economic growth. Bush’s proposal to eliminate taxes on corporatedividends, the centerpiece of his package, is rated by poll respondents as the least productive among a set ofpotential actions the government might take to restore growth. By a 59 to 31 percent margin, respondents agreethat the package would "benefit the most wealthy" rather than "all Americans equally" - ajudgment that Bush has dismissed as "typical class warfare rhetoric."

Also interesting, the approval rating for Bush’s handling of foreign policy has taken a considerable dive- from 75 to 52 percent - in the last three months, something that cannot but disturb White House strategistsas the Bush administration enters its "endgame" in Iraq. Washington Post reporter MichaelDobbs notes that "public opinion in the United States and Europe is closer to the Frenchposition" - opposition to early military action on Iraq - "than the U.S. [well, WhiteHouse] position" [emphasis added].

Not surprisingly, Bush’s overall approval rating is falling. It currently rests at 54 percent, down from82 percent one year ago and 62 percent one month ago. The portion of Americans who express disapproval ofBush’s job performance has risen to 40 percent.

 "The Fetters Imposed on Liberty At Home…."

The bad news is that this data probably speeds up the war timetable in the Bush-Rove White House. Theconventional political wisdom holds that the people will rally around the president once it becomes clear that"our boys" are entering combat. The Machiavellian counsel of Rove argues that saber-ratting againstforeign Evil Others is a serviceable antidote to the domestic population’s growing unrest over issues ofsocioeconomic homeland insecurity and related deep inequality. As James Madison’s once noted, that "thefetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real,pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad."

Americans would do well to keep these and other pieces of wisdom from the nation’s revolutionarygeneration in mind as they try to separate fact and reality from fiction and message in Mad King George’simperial State of Deception address.