Dr. Steven Jonas

A lot is made of George Bush’s “misstatements,” internally contradictory pronouncements, distortions, and outright lies. Based on what he says, it is very difficult sometimes to tell just what George Bush stands for. For when he talks about the famous “compassionate conservatism,” “spreading freedom and democracy,” “securing the homeland,” “creating a fair tax system,” “fighting a war on terrorism,” “protecting traditional values,” one is often reduced to the “huh?” response: what exactly does he mean, how does he intend to get there, and where are the resources?

When one looks at what he actually does, however, then Bush policies and their meanings become much clearer. As my good friend, personal editor, and The Political Junkies contributor Tony Pell says about the Bushes (and he coined the following phrase in reference to George I; it applies with a vengeance to George II): “Read their lips; but watch their hips.”

And so this column is not about Bush lies. The Georgites always say, “no they’re not,” regardless of the facts on the ground. The spin around the Duelfer Report on Iraqi WMD, as “reposted” as “news” by Fox “News” Channel for example, made it sound like the contents of the Report supported the reasons the Georgites gave for going to war. They just hope to get into an endless and distracting “are, are not, are, are not” argument.

This column is not about Bush mis-use of the language, which the Georgites always pass off as “well, that’s just the country boy in him” (the Andover, Yale, Harvard country boy!). It is not about any of the outrageous Bush statements like the “war on terror is unwinnable,” which he and/or the Georgites always manage to “correct” by the next day or so and then deny that he ever made, or at least ever meant, the original.

This column is about policies and programs that George Bush has either implemented or clearly proposed for implementation. Some are prominent; some are obscure. All of them present a very clear picture of what George Bush wants our great nation to be, to become. If you possibly have any undecided voter friends, you could present this list to them with the question: “Is this is what you want our country to look like?” And then follow up with, “If you do, make sure to vote for Bush.”

George Bush will propose to the next Congress, if he is re-elected, “the further reduction, if not the elimination, of taxes on savings and investments, including taxes on dividends and on capital gains on stocks, bonds, and real estate” (New York Times, Taxes for an Ownership Society, Editorial page, Sept. 15, 2004). If Bush is re-elected, he will have clear majorities in both Houses of Congress, and legislation to implement this proposal will pass, meaning that all that will remain of the income tax will be a wage tax.

The Patriot Act, that piece of civil liberties-busting legislation that the Georgites must have written before 9/11 because its 340-plus densely written pages were introduced to the Congress within about two weeks of the tragedy, will be made permanent. Presently, it is due to expire in 2005. George Bush wants it in place forever. (In a future column, I am going to deal with the question no one seems to ask: why?) Yes, George Bush does permanently want the power, on his own authority, to bypass the Constitutional guarantees for protection against non-judicially-warranted search and seizure (the Fourth Amendment), the right to due process of law (the Fifth Amendment), and the right to a speedy trial by jury in criminal cases (the Sixth Amendment, for any person, US citizen or not, whom he deems to be a “terrorist threat” of one sort or another.

In the United States, marriage is both a religious and civil procedure. It is defined in and regulated by the law in each of the 50 states, as well as by the numerous codes of the numerous religious entities that exist in our country. George Bush supports the passage of the “prohibition of gay marriage” amendment, which would deny the benefits and obligations of civil marriage to same-sex couples. That would vitiate the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that prevents any state from denying “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It would restore the status quo ante bellum (the Civil War, that is) that one or more classes of persons, defined by who they are, not anything they have done, can be placed outside of one or more provisions of the law, this time at the Federal as well as at the state level. If the homosexual community is hit first (as it was in Nazi Germany), which one would be next? (Just guess.)

As detailed in the September 18, 2004 Report from the office of Congressman Henry Waxman of California, the Bush Administration would continue its process of creating the most highly secretive Administration in United States history. For example, Bush has already issued an Executive Order severely restricting access to the papers of former Presidents, denied access to any records of the famous Cheney task force on energy, adopted a policy to refuse initially any requests for Executive Branch information under the Freedom of Information Act, and doubled the number of government documents put under the seal of “classification,” including ones issuing from such Departments as Agriculture and Health and Human Services.

The Bush Administration is in the process of giving border patrol agents “sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens from the frontiers with Mexico and Canada without providing them the opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge” (R.L. Swarns, US to Give Border Patrol Agents, New York Times, August 11, 2004). Who will be the next group of persons for whom a police agency will be able make a determination of law violation and go right on to determine and then impose punishment? This, by the way, is the exact same power that the Nazi German Schutz Staffel (known colloquially as the “SS”) had. Who, here, might be the first victims? Protestors against such policies, perhaps?

If Bush has his way in a Second Administration, his choice for CIA Director, politico Porter Goss, would have the power to engage in domestic intelligence gathering and surveillance, whether or not any criminal activity is suspected. Presently, the FBI does need some semblance of suspicion of criminal activity in order to do the same thing.

It is already clear that Bush follows the dictum of Hermann Goering, pronounced by him shortly before his death at this own hand at Nuremberg: to enhance the power of government over the individual. Goering said: “whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship . . . all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

George Bush appoints people like Prof. Diana Schaub to the Federal Bioethics Commission. Speaking on stem cell research, she said: “Every embryo for research is someone’s blood relative. . . . I would not be prepared to restore the intellectual functioning of a 93-year-old man by sacrificing embryonic life” (Stem Cells and Slavery, Science, June 18, 2004, p. 1742). Talk about the imposition on all of us of one particular personal belief on the matter of when life begins! The Georgite approach is to apply the “life-begins-at-the-moment-of-conception” doctrine to both the beliefs and actions of every member of our society, regardless of whether or not they agree with it.

“The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate is the highest in the industrialized world -- 10 times more than in the Netherlands or Switzerland. Of the 900,000 U.S. teenagers who become pregnant every year, 8 in 10 say their pregnancy was un-intended” (Playing Politics with Women’s Lives, Science, July 2, 2004, p. 17). The Bush policy for dealing with this situation is a combination of abstinence preaching, sorry “teaching,” and the criminalization of abortion.

On a wide variety of environmental, health, labor, and personal safety matters, the Bush Administration has re-written existing regulations to suit the wishes of industry, often with former industry employees and/or lobbyists writing the self-same regulations (J. Brinkley, “Out of the Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations,” New York Times, August 14, 2004). The article’s headline says it all about the public relations approach of the Administration on this policy.

This ends this litany of what Georgitism really means. Among Bush’s many failings, however, is not a “failure of leadership,” as Bob Herbert described the Administration’s conduct in relation to Iraq policy in his New York Times Op-Ed column of August 6, 2004. While I agree with much of what Bob Herbert has said over time, I totally disagree with this position. It is not a failure of leadership, on Iraq or on any of the issues presented briefly above.

The Bush Administration’s ideology is clear: it is an approach to government and governing that puts as much power as possible, with as little legislative, judicial, or public accountability as possible, in the hands of the Executive Branch. It takes the country back to the Coolidgean view that “the business of government is business.” Moreover, since George Bush is capable of distracting huge numbers of people who are in fact negatively affected by his governmental philosophy and actions, and actually get them to support him, from the Georgite perspective he is the perfect leader for their movement. After all, look at just how much the twin forces of the Radical Reactionary Right (mis-named the “neoconservatives”) and the Republican Religious Right have achieved in such a short time under George Bush’s leadership, and at how much more of their agendas they will be able to achieve, should their chosen leader be re-selected. For the implementation of his chosen policies and for his voters, George Bush is a fine, almost a perfect, leader.

“VIETNAM AND IRAQ: SOME COMPARISONS”

The military situation in Iraq is reportedly deteriorating with amazing rapidity. Despite what Bush and his Iraqi Charlie McCarthy “Prime Minister” say in public, the Georgites realize this too. That this is so is indicated by the column that appeared from the pen of the White House’s official leaker, Bob Novak, he of Valerie Plame fame, beginning to prepare the way for the institution of a “cut and run” strategy, presumably to be implemented as soon as possible after a putative Bush victory on Nov. 2 (perish the thought!)

On one level, there is an amazing, and tragic, reprise of the US War on Vietnam taking place in this US War on Iraq. Recall that in the Viet Nam era the American people were first told that it would be a militarily easy task to beat the “Commies” and install “democracy,” just as we were told it would be easy to find those Iraqi WMD, break up the Iraq/al-Qaeda link, beat Saddam and install “democracy.” Yet in both cases that has proved not to be the case. Given that covert American intervention in Vietnam began around 1956, the military situation in Iraq is actually deteriorating at a faster pace than it did in Vietnam. In Vietnam, there was a real “South” Vietnamese, anti-nationalist, army and at some point “Vietnamization” of the war (referring to those Vietnamese who fought on the US side) against the Ho Chi Minh communist-nationalists appeared to be a real possibility. But in the end “Vietnamization” never happened. “Iraqi-ization” now appears to be a dead letter from the git-go.

And so, there is an increasing amount of analytical interest in comparing the two wars waged by the US at then, one end and now, the other end of the Asian continent. In these examinations, most people look at strategy and tactics of the wars themselves. In this column, however, I am looking at the issue from a rather different perspective, that of one real American victory (in Vietnam) and the other a potential one (in Iraq).

“Victory?” you might be saying at this point? “American victory” in Vietnam? We lost, didn’t we? Well, militarily we seemed to have lost. Nixon began the military disengagement, and the final pullout took place under President Ford, with those haunting photographs of people leaving by helicopter from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon, as the legitimate government of Vietnam entered the city, providing a visual exclamation point. But if one examines what happened in terms of the original goals for the US Vietnam intervention, set by Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers in the 1950s, the US won: their goals were achieved.

The French-Vietnamese War ended in 1954. The Geneva Conference of that year produced a treaty signed by the French and the Vietnamese and guaranteed by Great Britain and the Soviet Union. It brought hostilities to an end, temporarily divided the country in two, and provided for national elections to be held in 1956 -- elections that everyone knew would be won by Ho Chi Minh and his people. Pointedly, the US refused to sign or recognize the treaty. They knew that if the plan in it were allowed to proceed, the chances were very good that Vietnam would peacefully progress to socialism and could be an economic success. If that happened, the same thing might well peacefully occur in other Southeast Asian countries, were democracy to be given a chance. The “domino theory” about the spread of “socialism with a national face,” distinguished from and not necessarily allied with the Soviet Union, and certainly not with the traditional enemy, China, communist or not, was quite correct.

And so, in the view of the US leadership of the time, everything had to be done that could be done to prevent the democratic process from introducing socialism to a country and then possibly succeeding in a peaceful setting. If looked at in this light, the Vietnam War was a US victory. The peaceful establishment of socialism was prevented. Its spread by example and peaceful means to neighboring countries was prevented. Vietnam today has a sort of market socialist economy, but the country was ravaged by almost 20 years of war and two to three million of the best and the brightest of its people were killed. It is hardly the economic or social engine of the development of democratically-installed socialism that it might have become had it been left alone. In terms of the original American goals for the intervention, this was a win, a palpable win.

And what then, of Iraq? Is there not going to be a definite US loss there, especially if the Georgites themselves are openly (through their Novakian mouthpiece) considering “cutting and running?” Once again it depends upon what the real objectives of the invasion were. We know that it wasn’t WMD, because there were none, and it wasn’t a “Saddam-bin Laden” link because there wasn’t one of those either. We also know that it wasn’t “bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq” because a) that was a Georgite afterthought, b) the inimitable Paul Wolfowitz told us so in the following little noticed statement: “The purpose of this war wasn’t to remake Iraq any more than the purpose of World War II was to remake Germany and Japan” (Tierney, John, “The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts,” New York Times News of the Week in Review, May 16, 2004, p. 5), and c) since when have Republicans, given their record around the world since World War II, been interested in bringing “freedom and democracy” anywhere? This crew doesn’t even believe in it for our country, viz. rigged elections and The Patriot Act.

So what was, and is, the objective then? By a process of elimination if nothing else, it’s got to be oil, bases, and expanding US influence in the region. OK, so what happens if the Georgites unilaterally withdraw after the elections (other than, too late, Kerry being handed a really good response to the “flip-flop” charge, but just a little too late?) Do they achieve the third of the above? No. How about the second? Well, possibly, at least a few of those bases under construction in the Western Iraqi desert, easy to supply by air, hard for any Iraqi resistance forces to get to across that desert. And the first? Well, possibly, bingo!

Let’s say a Georgite “cut-and-run” isn’t quite just a “get out.” Let’s say that it’s done under the cover of a UN-sponsored establishment of a Federal Republic, but really a tri-furcation. The major Iraqi oil reserves, both known and estimated to be there, are in the Kurdish portion and the southern Shiite portion (sorry Sunnis, none for you under trifurcation). And let’s say that the Kurdish Republic receives US guarantees for its existence, enforceable from Turkey. Turkey? How Turkey? They’ve got their own Kurdish problem, don’t they? But suppose that the US is able to make a deal with the Iraqi Kurds that in return for a reasonable share of their oil revenues, with the oil being directly in the hands of US oil companies of course, the Kurds will stop their campaign for an enlarged, unified Kurdistan. And since the oil would go out through Turkey, the US might even be able to entice them to be nicer to their own Kurds in return for a nice royalty on the trans-shipments. I know, I know, there are also Iran and its Kurds, but it might be possible to make a deal there, too. As it does to Bush’s fundamentalist Christians, it can talk to fundamentalist Muslims as well.

And so, if the original number one objective of the invasion was indeed oil, this scenario produces a US win, and a big one. Just like in Vietnam. If it really is the oil, the Georgites don't need the whole damn place, they just need Kurdistan. And while we sit here thinking, “Aren't the Georgites dumb and totally irresponsible, letting things go up in smoke and death like this”, maybe what is happening now was the grand design after all. To let Iraq disintegrate into three, then ask the UN to come in to provide a “Federal Republic” fig-leaf, while the US conveniently keeps control of the "peaceful" part in the North (with those huge unexplored potential reserves).

I believe that the US oilmen have been focusing on Kurdish oil all along, ever since the American virtual protectorate for that region was set up following the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

How might a Kerry Administration deal differently with the situation? I happen to think that the only possible. even relatively peaceful, resolution (notice I did not say “solution”) to the Iraq tragedy is in fact the establishment of some sort of Federal Republic. Repeating something I put forward in “TPJ 20, On the Kerry Campaign, I” of July 8, 2004, first, Kerry could renounce any US interest in owning or controlling any fraction of the Iraqi oil reserves, regardless of what part of the country they lie in. Second he could announce that all construction on permanent US bases would be stopped and the bases disbanded or turned over to the UN on an interim bases, for future transfer to the Iraqi government from the UN. (Without much fanfare, the Senator has already done this.) Third, he could announce that, to the extent possible, given contractual obligations, reconstruction projects would be turned over to Iraqi companies. Fourth, he would renounce the infamous “Bremer Plan” that opened up the whole Iraqi economy for pillage by foreign (mainly US) companies. Fifth, he could propose a realistic Federal structure for a future permanent Iraqi government, with UN guarantees. The country we know as Iraq was an artificial British construct dating from the 1920s. Realism could countenance going back to some form of the centuries-old provincial arrangement, as it existed under the Ottoman Empire. And sixth, he could announce that US policy would be for the oil reserves to be the property of the entire Iraqi people, with the Federal government retaining control over it, again under a UN guarantee.

Well, there’s something for openers, anyway, and far different from the imperial design of the Georgites.

This comment on the first Presidential debate, Sept. 30, 2004, comes in two parts. The first consists of comments based on live notes that I took down on my laptop computer as the debate progressed. The second, very short, presents a few thoughts about particular issues that did not come up, and their significance, and a couple of comments on post-debate commentary.

First, I thought that the questions coming from Jim Lehrer of PBS were well-done, to the point, no zingers; none planned out specifically to embarrass either candidate a la the famous question to Dukakis in 1988 about Kitty and the death penalty for a potential rapist. Second, I thought that Kerry was marvelously well-prepared and so well-rehearsed that he did not look at all like he was rehearsed, just the way the top method actors do it. Bush, most observers agree, looked tired, weak, wimpy, out-of-place, the trademark smirk replaced by a look that could have come from a Mad magazine cartoon. To me, Kerry looked Presidential. Bush looked like an arguer, not even a debater (but then I am prejudiced). Bush often appeared halting: the “uhs” and the “you knows.” Kerry didn’t utter one “uh” until almost the end of the 90 minutes.

Kerry came out fighting on such on-the-ground Iraq issues as shortages of body armor and armed Humvees. He pointed out the truth, that the situation on the ground, for the Iraqis and American troops, is getting worse by the day. He attacked Bush on what he has done and not done, and put forward positive plans. Bush’s main response was to immediately lie about the connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and then make the amazing claim that America’s security lies in “securing freedom around the world.” Kerry kindly did not ask him just how Bush planned to go about that monster task, especially with a military that is already way over-stretched, at the same time that he is clamping down on freedom so fiercely here at home.

Bush ducked on the question, would the election of Kerry make it more likely that a terrorist attack would occur. “He won’t. win, I will,” said Bush. Bush went to the argument he kept repeating ad nauseum, that the US is “attacking the enemy everywhere we find him.” He talked about the progress of voter-registration in Afghanistan. He did not talk about voter-registration and what his party is doing to ensure that the lowest possible number of Afro-Americans get to vote in Florida. Bush attacked the “ideology of hatred,” but did neglect to mention the hatred that spews forth every day, against, for example, our homosexual community, from his base in the Republican Religious Right. Kerry used the opportunity presented by the question to say that he will be strong on terror, by going after it in places it is truly bred. In that context, he attacked Bush on going into Iraq, citing the Bush lies on WMD, etc. Kerry then used the opportunity to he list his military endorsers (and the list is a long one).

When Kerry was asked (Lehrer using Kerry’s own words) “What colossal misjudgments has Bush made?” He cited: not wanting to go to the UN on Iraq in the first place; giving up on the UN inspection process (he did not say the obvious: Bush knew that he couldn’t let Hans Blix proceed to the end because he, Bush, already knew that Blix would in the end find no WMD); Bush did not use war only as a “last resort,” that Bush lied (although Kerry was careful never to use that specific word) in saying that “the inspections failed.” Kerry got in a Kerry-type (that is subtle) zinger by pointing out that Iraq was not at the center of the war on terror until Bush went to war in Iraq.

Kerry called for new spending on homeland security and Bush asked “how is he going to pay for it?” Bush of course has never raised similar questions about the cost of the war in Iraq, and it was on raising the money to pay for that war by not giving yet another tax cut to the rich that Kerry voted, once, against the famous “$87 billion.” When Kerry attacked tax cuts in relation to paying for homeland security, presenting at the same time a detailed plan for taking many specific homeland defense actions that Bush has not, Bush didn’t respond.

Bush continually called all the Iraqi insurgents “terrorists,” that is until towards the end he referred to them as “Saddam loyalists” and “Ba’athists.” Hmm. One of Kerry’s subtle jabs that will get continuing play is his use of George I against George II on not going to, and going to, Baghdad without a doable exit plan. Another is Kerry’s admission that he made a mistake in how he talked about the war, while the Pres. made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which mistake would you rather have, Kerry said? Brilliant.

When Kerry was asked about Bush lies, he said that he wouldn’t use that word, but gave examples Bush “not being candid:” “yellow cake and the State of the Union address,” “building a real coalition,” “not allowing the UN process to go to completion,” “abandoning other lines of diplomacy,” “told us he had a plan.” Kerry also used the opportunity to talk about his own foreign policy experience.

Kerry used his Vietnam experience in a very sophisticated, understated way. A great one-liner was that we “must not confuse the war with the warriors.” He went on to say that he is determined to make sure that the outcome of the Iraq War honors their nobility. He said that he has a plan for winning in Iraq, and spelled it out in detail. The President never did the same thing, either because he doesn’t have a plan, or does but couldn’t possibly share it with American people or the world, not to mention the people of Iraq, because it primarily focuses on making sure that American oil companies get their hands on that Kurdish oil.

The President is not getting the job done, Kerry said, and he very smartly referred to his website where viewers can find more detail on his position. Kerry talked specifically about giving up the bases the US is building in Iraq, and said that he will make a clear statement that US has no long-term designs on Iraq. He pointed out that when US forces first arrived in Baghdad, they guarded the oil ministry, but not the nuclear energy ministry. He could have mentioned many other civil ministries and the museums being left to the predations of the looters, but did not.

Kerry pointed out that 35 to 40 countries around the world have a capability of making WMD. Any pre-emptive war must be undertaken with credibility, he said. Another fine one-liner in this context was: “We didn’t need to rush to war without a plan to win the peace.” In this context he did make the one statement that the Republicans will use to their advantage: “the global test” one. What he meant was that before going to war on its own, the US should make sure to take into account the positions of our allies and see if they will come along with us in significant numbers, but if in the end the President decides to go it alone, after exhausting all other options, he should. But that is not how the Republicans will spin it, and since they have little else to go with, spin it they will. Kerry is going to have to fix that one quickly.

Kerry responded instantly on the question, what is the most serious threat to US security: nuclear proliferation. He stated that he will help Russia to clean up its left-over nuclear material as quickly as possible (which Bush is not doing; has actually cut funds for that project) and that he will give up our own new nuclear weapons expansion program as quickly as possible, for it is totally hypocritical to ask for nuclear proliferation controls when the US is developing an entirely new generation of nuclear weapons. In relation to relations with Russia, Bush said that there need to be checks and balances in a democracy. Funny, he doesn’t seem to think that when it comes to government in the United States. He is working as hard as he can to eliminate that primary feature of our Constitution. Oh yes, also on Russia, Bush approved on Putin’s response to the Beslan horror. Kerry let that one go.

There are many other observations to make, such as that Kerry pointed that Powell had had to apologize for mis-leading UN, Bush has messed up in North Korea, Bush talks about negotiations and sanctions in dealing with the truly dangerous North Korea and Iran, but for some reason didn’t want to follow the same rout in dealing with the much less threatening-to-us Iraq, but this note is getting rather long as it is.

Let me just mention of a couple of issues that weren’t there, and why not. Lehrer asked Bush to address the “character” issue. Bush just lobbed compliments in Kerry’s direction. He couldn’t get into the Swift Boat Brownshirt-type lies because then that would have given Kerry the opening to bring up the truth about Bush’s own “military service” record. Nor did he openly raise the “flip-flop” issue, because his handlers knew that Kerry would come back with both barrels on Bush’s own, much more serious, flip-flops (like, for example, the reason he went to war in Iraq). Second, Bush couldn’t mention 9/11, formerly a big “how great did I respond on that one, folks” issue for him, because that would have given Kerry an opportunity to bring up Richard Clarke, Treasury Secretary O’Neill, the 9/11 Commission Report and what his party is and is not doing with it in Congress, the famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, and so on and so forth. Sometimes what isn’t said can be as fascinating as what is

And finally, briefly on the immediate post-debate analyses. Bush is in real trouble. The only people saying what a great job he did were his flacks, especially Karen Hughes who was all over the place. I held my nose and watched Fox on purpose. Well, when Morton Kondracke and Bill Kristol, big Bush cheerleaders, say that “on balance” Kerry “did better” (“won” was a word that just couldn’t cross their lips, now could it), that means that it went extremely well for Kerry. Friday morning, again, even a commentator from The Wall Street Journal, interviewed on NBC, was saying that Kerry did very well and Bush didn’t.

I do have to note that post-debate on Fox, after their pundits, mainly right-wingers of course, gave it to Kerry on points, right-wing flack Sean Hannity, playing “journalist,” came on, to “interview” Hughes. So one of Bush’s strongest national-media supporters interviews one of Bush’s strongest inner-circle supporters. And then the same flack “interviews” (yes, it was a second debate in fact) Richard Holbrooke, representing Sen. Kerry. Well that’s “fair and balanced” isn’t it? After all, they had one from each side, with the rather weak liberal Alan Colmes nowhere to be seen up front. He did come on later, after most people (including me), on the East Coast at least, had turned off their televisions sets and gone to bed.

And now I am turning of my computer. Hope that you found something of interest and use in this not-so-little missive.

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 UPDATE

“FOUR 800 LB. GORILLAS IN THE CAMPAIGN ROOM”

I write this column not knowing the derivation of the term “800 lb. gorilla in the room.” I take it to refer to an event or an issue that is of great importance in a given setting, to which no one in said setting is referring. One or more participants may be aware of the creature’s existence, but others may be totally oblivious. But in any case, no one is talking about their nature, considering how they came to be in the room, or planning in any way how to deal with them, at least openly. What the gorilla population thinks about having the name of their species used in this sense I have no idea, but if they take offense at it, I do apologize. I didn’t make up the term myself.

There are (at least) four major issues that very seriously effect and are-having/will-have a major impact on the future of our country. Three of the gorillas significantly concern themselves with both foreign and domestic policy. The Bush Campaign is not talking abut any of these gorillas and certainly wants to stay as far away from them as possible. For its true position on any of them would definitely be a negative factor for the Georgites. The gorillas I am talking about are: true Sharonist policy for Israel/Palestine, the Patriot Act and its assault on our Constitutional rights, the role of Big Oil in both domestic and foreign policy, and the Christian Right and its true agenda.

Even though it is the case that the Georgites simply want to these gorillas to stay in their corners, unnoticed, the Kerry Campaign isn’t referring to any of them either, for a variety of reasons. One is that they might not know how to deal with one or more of them, in terms of policy, or politics, or both. A second is that in one or more instances the Kerry position is not all that different from that of the Georgites. A third is that the issue is extremely complex and therefore much groundwork in educating the public would have to have been laid before a reasonable position could be discussed in the electoral context. Therefore, I am not raising these issues here with the thought or the claim that the Kerry Campaign should take them up now. But were the Senator to become President, he is going to have to deal with at least two of them, and I think that he should at some time in the future deal with the other two as well.

The first of the “will have to deal with” issues is that, almost certainly, the current Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, does not in any way, shape, or form desire peace with the Palestinian people – at least a peace that would envision a viable, independent, if demilitarized, state for them in the West Bank and Gaza. What he wants, or at least appears by his actions to want, is to make conditions so uncomfortable for the Palestinians in the West Bank that they will leave, hopefully, in Sharon’s terms, for Jordan. Since his days as a young Army officer, Sharon has referred to the territory now comprising the nation of Jordan as the only true Palestinian homeland, the 1947 UN decision on partition to the contrary notwithstanding.

Sharon, of course, does not currently say this out loud. But several of his cabinet ministers do, as do numerous political and religious figures in Israel to Sharon’s right (if you can imagine anyone to the right of Sharon). Furthermore, the “facts on the ground,” as the Sharonists like to refer to them, that is the ever expanding conglomeration of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, indicate that this is the ultimate goal. There is nothing in the current Israeli policy of annexation, destruction, and ghettoization that indicates anything else. The next US President will be forced at some time during his term to deal with this reality that no one happens to talk about. Gorilla No. 1.

Next is the Patriot Act and its assault on the Constitution. I have written about this issue in other columns and will revisit it only briefly here. Under the Patriot Act the President can, on his own authority, search any home without obtaining a search warrant from a non-secret judge, label any person, citizen or non-citizen, a “terrorist” or “terrorist threat;” then proceed to arrest and imprison that person without making the fact of the arrest public, without informing the person about the offense with which they are being charged; and may hold the person indefinitely without access to a lawyer and without being brought to trial, not even to a grand jury proceeding.

Certain of these provisions have been held to be unconstitutional by a closely split Supreme Court, but the current regime has not backed down in wanting to have them in some form on the books. If the Georgites win the election, and get the opportunity to replace even just Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, rest assured that the current anti-Administration decisions will be reversed. And the Georgites want both to make the Patriot Act permanent and expand the powers under it. Thus, at a stroke, the Patriot Act, without the benefit of going through the Amendment process, has repealed the Fourth Amendment’s protection against warrant-less searches without probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of the due process of law, and the Sixth Amendment’s guarantees of “speedy” jury trial with full knowledge of charges and the opportunity to confront witnesses in criminal cases. Gorilla No. 2.

Gorilla No. 3 is the role of Big Oil in the determination of both foreign and domestic policy of the United States. In foreign policy, for example, if the Iraq invasion is not really about oil, hegemony in the Middle East, and the establishment of permanent bases there (the U.S. has 10 plus of them under construction), what is it about? We know that it is not about WMD or al-Qaeda (except in the sense that a British diplomat, taking the 17^th century English playwright’s George Fahrquahr’s name in vain, recently referred to US policy as a Recruiting Officer for them). It is not about freedom or democracy either. Bush’s record on those subjects for his own country (see Gorilla No. 2) shows that George Bush has no interest in either one. But the Project for the New American Century of Perle, Wolfowitz, W. Kristol, etc., which began proposing an Iraq invasion back in the 1990s and are the foreign policy setters for the Georgite regime, gave us the real reasons for the attack, to which now the aims of Sharonist Israel can be added.

As far as domestic policy is concerned, I don’t have to go through all of the environmental stuff, that fact the Bush and Cheney both come from the oil industry, the power of the oil lobby, and etc. Just this note. It is not the “insatiable addiction of the American people” to oil that make us use so much of it. It is the oil industry’s insatiable addiction to the profits they derive from it. Why do we have such an antiquated railway system compared with every other industrialized country, and one that runs mainly on diesel rather than electric power? Why is energy conservation a dirty term in the US? Do shopping mall parking lot lights really have to stay on all night, as do the lights in my own office complex, where there is no master switch to turn them off in the open spaces? Why was one of the first acts of the Reagan Administration, the first in which the oil industry really had juice, to summarily end a major alternative/renewable energy research program that had started under Carter? Why does not the industry itself realize that yes, no matter much oil they discover, EVENTUALLY it is going to run out, and then where will they be, to say nothing of us?

The US oil industry owns very little of the stuff in the ground now. They make their money by selling the oil they import from the producing nations. Therefore, to make as much profit as they can, now, they need to sell as much of the stuff as they can, now. In this case, it is the future of mankind, not the devil that will take the hindmost. That is why they were, and are, so eager to get their hands on the oil patch in Kurdish Iraq, which may contain the largest reserves outside of Saudi Arabia. Gorilla No. 3

Gorilla No. 4 is our homegrown Christian fundamentalist movement that has so much in common in its approach to civil government with the Muslim fundamentalists. Just briefly here, in domestic policy these people want to enforce by the use of the criminal law their prescriptions for certain personal behaviors that, given the fundamental weakness of their arguments, they can not get people to abide by voluntarily. They want to establish that the US is a “Christian Nation,” just as long as they, and only they, get to define just what is “Christian,” and in their vocabulary “love thy neighbor as thyself” is surely not part of it. In foreign policy, the millenarianism of the Armageddonistas, of which George Bush himself may well be one, holds that the modern state of Israel must hold all the land that the Bible defines as “Israel” before the “Rapture” can occur. And so their more-than-fervent support of Sharon and what he is really after. (Oh-so-briefly) Gorilla No. 4.

Should Kerry win, in my view our task as progressive Democrats will be get these gorillas out of the corners and into the arena of policy discussion. If Bush wins, our task will be to start immediately working on developing a platform for the Democratic Party that will firmly and strongly oppose the Republicans on all of these issues, propose resolutions for them, and set about finding the right candidate to be the Gorilla Tamer for 2008.

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Dr. Steven Jonas is a TPJ contributing author. He is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author of some twenty books. Dr. Jonas is one of America's most perceptive Democratic political analysts.

In The New Americanism, Dr. Jonas presents his case that the Democratic Party has come adrift from its founding principles, and he urges a swift return to support for the constitution as the best source for America's patriotic, political and social culture. "The New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency from Amazon.com (just click on the title).

The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022 is available from Amazon under the name "Johnathan Westminster" (just click on the title).

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