Back to Disaster: Channeling Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad

Back to Disaster: Channeling Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad

By David Michael Green

Created Apr 4 2008 - 11:30am

One of the most astonishing facts about the Bush presidency is simply that

it continues to exist.

Only a combination of certain critical conditions have kept the man and his

government from suffering the same fate as Mussolini or Ceaucesceu. A

politically naive public, a neutered opposition, a compliant press, a

Constitutionally-fixed term of office, a truckload of fear, a moderately

sufficient economy and a remotely plausible victory in an unpopular war have

all conspired to encourage a surly public to simply wait out the clock for

the demise of the Creature from Crawford.

Now, however, both of those last two factors are imploding. The Bush

administration is consistently on the wrong side of (repeated) history, and

more pressure is riding on the other remaining factors - especially the

knowledge that these fools are required to leave, regardless, in nine months

time - to keep the dam from bursting.

Side-by-side headlines in Thursday's New York Times more or less say it all.

The front-page-above-the-fold article entitled, "In Economic Drama, Bush Is

Largely Offstage", proceeds to tell the story about how the president hadn't

heard that gas prices are approaching four bucks a gallon, and how he was

lecturing the public on the dangers of government action while his own

Treasury Secretary (a member of the government, last I checked) was in fact

acting, cutting a bullshit deal with Congress.

Next to that article we find this: "U.S. Cites Planning Gaps In Iraqi

Assault on Basra: Maliki Underestimated Militias, Officials Say, and

Overestimated Iraq Army". Remember, for those of you whose scorecards are

somewhat out of date, said Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is the 'good guy' over

there, the one we're pinning our hopes on. And his army is the one that's

supposed to stand up so that ours can stand down. By all accounts, Maliki

just woke up one morning and launched. Apparently having little else on his

schedule, he decided it would be a good day to invade Basra. No planning, no

consultations, no reinforcements. I mean, they had this stuff figured out as

far back as the sixth century BCE, didn't they? Back when Mesopotamians were

Mesopotamians!

Looks to me like Mr. Bush has managed to clone himself in Iraq: None of that

democracy crap, loads of impetuous and imperious incompetence. If you see

Maliki running around for forty years with a bottle in his hand, you'll know

how deep go America's lessons in good governance for the Iraqi people. Trust

me, they've learned a lot more than any nation should ever have to.

Meanwhile, as if the economy hasn't been crummy enough for working stiffs

these last three decades, now jobs are fleeing, and gas and food prices

rising steeply. But that's just the good news. A lot of the signs out there

suggest that this could be the Big One this time. And why not? We've

deregulated the financial industry to the point where, for all intents and

purposes, it's the fiscal equivalent of a

no-limits-mixed-martial-arts-free-for-all. Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck

inside some kind of PBS documentary series on the Great Depression, and it's

the segment on 1929. Oh boy.

No worries, though, ladies and gentlemen. All that cheerleading experience

at Andover is now coming in handy for George W. Bush. (By the way, if we

ever needed any proof of the 'liberal bias' in the American press, the fact

that a prep school cheerleader comes off as a tough guy international

sheriff, and the last two Democratic presidential nominees, both of whom

served in Nam, are portrayed as effete wimps ought to be quite sufficient.)

Meanwhile, as one after the next of the props holding up the American

economy get kicked out from underneath it, there he is reminding us that

mere ice could never sink a ship as big as the Titanic. Of course, idiocy

and smugness are by this time fully expected from this particular Deciderer.

But what is truly a sight - though hardly less expected - are the attempts

by Bush and Paulson and the rest to scavenge the last remaining crumbs of

national wealth still to be raided before the tsunami washes away half the

continent, house and breakfast table included. I guess some habits are just

hard to break. Are these the clowns Joni Mitchell had in mind when she wrote

"Raised on Robbery"?

Regulation? Oh, no, we can't have that. That will kill risk-taking and

entrepreneurialism. It could harm the economy! Musn't allow responsible Wall

Street speculators to have their greediest impulses regulated, even if the

welfare of an entire world economy might be at stake. Support for homeowners

getting tossed out of their houses because of scuzzy financing scams they

were sold? That would be a bail-out, young nipper! Smells sorta vaguely

communist, don't you think? It would imperil our free enterprise system by

introducing the moral hazard of government underwriting personal risk.

Follow me carefully now, as I explain the nuances of government assistance

in a capitalist economy: Bailouts are fine for massive corporations like

Chrysler, foreign countries like Mexico, or fat speculators like the nice

people over at Bear Stearns, but we can't have ordinary working folks

getting government hand-outs! Don't wanna wind up with a nation full of

Frenchmen, you know.

If Americans knew the first shred of history, they'd realize that this just

a replay of Herbert Hoover. "Don't Worry, Be Happy", that particular

Republican president sang (or at least he would have if the song had been

written back then). Sure, Herb, that's cool, babe, but next time Americans

came up for air, one-fourth of them had pink slips in their hands and

nothing in their cupboards, not even the occasional disoriented cockroach.

Still, as Hoover reminded them, the appropriate role for government is to

stand by and watch. Charity is a private matter. Starvation is an option.

Food, healthcare, housing - it's not appropriate for the government to help

out with this, even in a disaster. If you liked Hurricane Katrina, you'll

love Tsunami Bush, the twenty-first century's reprise of Typhoon Hoover.

Right now the economy feels about as sturdy as a rice-paper umbrella in a

hailstorm, and about equally likely to keep the bad stuff away. Jobs are

disappearing, healthcare benefits eroding, houses foreclosing at record

rates, and inflation is rising, even when the government conveniently

excludes the escalating costs of food and petrol from the measure. The

proximate source of all this instability is - of course - insatiable greed

in unregulated financial markets meeting the inevitable brick wall of

economic reality, at about 140 miles per hour. Turns out even Ponzi schemes

can't escape the laws of physics. All of which, of course, is more than just

a little reminiscent of all the good fun the grandparents of today's

corporate sharks brought your grandparents in the 1930s. What's that old

saying about the second time being farce...?

But, hey, we're not stupid. Okay, well, we're not always stupid. After the

first iteration we learned that trusting 'the market' to regulate itself was

a bit like trusting Eliot Spitzer to enforce anti-prostitution ring laws. So

we created a regulatory apparatus that prevented the worst abuses by the

worst offenders, on the theory that putting bad rich people in jail was not

quite a sufficient remedy after they might have wrecked an entire global

economy in pursuit of their greedy ambitions. And, lo and behold, in the

decades following the New Deal, America had an enormously prosperous and

stable economy that produced a massive increase in the size of the middle

class, and still even allowed the rich to get richer.

But that wasn't enough for the greediest amongst us, and so Reaganism was

created to dupe the middle class into participating in their own fleecing.

You know: "Bad communists!" "Bad terrorists!" "Nice tax cut!" "Satisfying

nationalist chest-thumping!" What's that about the national debt? What's

that about crumbling infrastructure? What's this business of stagnant wages?

Cuts to poverty programs? Oops! Time for another war to distract public

attention from certain inconvenient realities. Let's invade... uh, uh,

Panama! They're evil, aren't they?

Now we've got Bush and his bag men out-Reaganing Reagan, who in turn had

made Hoover look like Trotsky by comparison. The only difference between the

Bush administration and the Enron corporation is that Ken Lay forgot to hire

Dick Cheney as its shotgun-wielding enforcer and Alberto Gonzales as its

chief counsel. Talk about stupid.

So what's the right's prescription for a tanking economy? As the rivets pop

one by one in an accelerating crescendo of failing institutional bulwarks,

the Bush administration trots out - what else? - a program of bailouts for

the investor class, a half box of crumpled-up Kleenex for the middle class,

and more of the lovely deregulation that got us here in the first place.

Anyone remotely surprised by this turn of events hasn't been paying

attention for a very long time. Remember when candidate Bush called for

massive and reckless tax cuts for the wealthy in 2000, when the economy was

booming? Remember when he called for the same remedy in 2001, when the

economy was in the toilet? There can only be one explanation for wantonly

violating the laws of both Keynesianism and monetarism at the same time:

fixing the economy was never your real agenda.

The only amazing thing about the desperate attempts by BushCo to wring the

very last drops of middle class wealth out of an imploding economy is the

breathtaking shortsightedness of the monied class in whose name it's all

being done. Were they all absent from kindergarten that day when Miss

Kinnian went over the parable of The Goose That Lays The Golden Eggs? Just

who do they imagine will be shelling out the shekels needed to fuel their

yachts, once they've wrecked the system itself? Lenin was right. These fools

are so greedy, and so short-term in their focus, they've sold the rope with

which to hang themselves. Unfortunately, by the time that happens the rest

of us will have long ago drowned in the mud and the blood lapping up against

the scaffold.

Brilliant, eh? Well, if the economy has come a cropper, at least the good

news is that we're not condemned to repeat history when it comes to that

stubborn little conflict in Iraq. You know, the one that is sucking up all

our money, wasting lives by the millions, ruining our military and trashing

our good name abroad. Just like in Viet... er, never mind.

I have been waiting for the better part of five years now for the Iraqi

equivalent of the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive. Perhaps the assault on Basra

is it.

For those whose high school history textbook conveniently forgot to mention

it - along with most anything else that might be of value to an informed

citizenry - the Tet Offensive was a major turning point at home in the

prosecution of the war. For years, the president and his hacks had been

assuaging Americans with inanities like, "We're seeing light at the end of

the tunnel", or "We'll have the boys home by Christmas". When the North

Vietnamese and the Viet Cong drove so deep into South Vietnam that US

marines were literally defending the American embassy from being overrun,

the folks at home got the message. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was

actually unsuccessful for the North in the medium-term, as US forces rallied

and repelled the invasion. But, strategically, the discrepancy between the

initial achievements of the attack and what US policy makers were telling

the public gave the government a 'credibility gap' (it was actually a lot

more like a canyon), and gave the war the smell of defeat. It took another

five years to actually withdraw, but Tet was quite arguably the beginning of

the end.

One reason that both Bush and his war have so far survived is that he could

plausibly argue, especially to the poorly informed, that the US is at least

not losing there. With the 'surge', he could and has been arguing that we

are now winning. Scratch the surface slightly and these become absurd

assertions. Add in the costs attendant to these supposed benefits and the

assertions become downright obscene.

But not many Americans, comfortably insulated from the war by administration

policies, are scratching or adding. Which has had me wondering for quite

some time now, will there be a Tet equivalent to wake somnambulant Americans

out of their stupor long enough to put down the remote, pick up a pen, and

write their representatives in Congress?

Probably not, and it probably wouldn't matter if they did. Democrats in

Congress have shown themselves about as capable of reeling in the president

as the sociopathic president is capable of feeling compassion. And now, of

course, with only nine more months remaining to this disaster (assuming

Cheney actually relents and leaves office), it's almost inconceivable that

they'd remove this human scourge from office. Considering what Bush has

already done, what possible offense could now move Madame Pelosi and

Monsieur Reid to finally act? Does the guy have to nuke San Francisco? If he

deployed Ralph Reed to shut down Vegas, would that be sufficient?

But Basra will nevertheless go some distance toward convincing the sixteen

or seventeen Americans still supporting the war that maybe they goofed after

all. And it will probably especially convince the already enlightened that

the time to act is now. In particular, we can hope that military personnel

and their families will look at these events and will be moved in greater

numbers to say "Basta!" to Basra. It takes a lot for a soldier or a

soldier's

father to effectively say "Cindy Sheehan was right and my commander-in-chief

was not only wrong, but knowingly lied to me", but that is precisely where

the Basras of this war can be helpful.

Maliki said he was putting it all on the line when he attempted to invade

Basra. I say 'attempted' because the assault was apparently so poorly

planned that the government armored vehicles couldn't even get into the

city, being too wide for the narrow lanes. Brilliant. We're likely to be

spending three trillion bucks on some drunken fool's Middle Eastern debacle,

and nobody thought to ship over a tape measure? Anyhow, Maliki claimed -

before he fled, that is - that this was going to be an all-in death-match

against his fellow Shiite, Moktada al-Sadr. And, of course, he was backed by

American air power in his invasion, which the corrupt and inept leader - the

one in Washington, that is - defined more presciently than he could have

imagined as a "defining moment".

In the end, it went down a bit differently than Nuri and George originally

had in mind for their excellent adventure. The Iraqi army, centerpiece of

Bush's "Iraqification" policy, stalled and melted. The public rose up in

disgust and took to the streets in cites all over Iraq, including Baghdad.

The Green Zone imperial fortress is under assault from rocket and mortar

fire. Maliki has given up his fight-to-the-finish rhetoric and is

negotiating surrender with al-Sadr.

George Bush, of course, is having another "Mission Accomplished" moment,

calling this debacle a sign of progress in Iraq. Most Americans have long

ago given up listening to this fool. For John McCain, however, and for the

party he shares with Mr. Bush, this is a disaster of the first rank. McCain

has essentially leveraged his entire presidential bid on the surge. If I had

a nickel for every time he has said "The surge is working" over the last

year, I'd buy out the Republican Party wholesale, then drown it in Grover

Norquist's bathtub.

Irony is too gentle a word for the prospect of this Vietnam vet getting

consumed by another Vietnam war. I once respected McCain on some levels, but

I can't imagine today that he hasn't long recognized - along with Hillary

Clinton, John Kerry and John Edwards - the lie of this war, choosing

nevertheless to subsume the resultant tragedy to presidential ambitions of

seemingly incalculable proportions. How anybody like that ever gets to sleep

at night, I'll never know. You gotta be missing a gene or something. And yet

every president in my lifetime has shown himself quite capable of wholesale

death and destruction when it suited his political ambitions.

And so, here we go, back to the future, back to disaster. We just couldn't

hang with all that prosperity and so we trashed the lessons of the Roaring

Twenties and brought back Roaring Reaganism. We just couldn't learn enough

from the Vietnam experience to prevent some little embarrassment of a legacy

admission to the presidency from taking us into a carbon copy war, even

while he and his homies skipped out on the first one.

It's bad enough that those who don't learn from history are condemned to

repeat the past.

Hell, we are the past.

_______

--

NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not

always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material

available to advance understanding of

political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I

believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright

Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson