What Is Happening In America? Message From Germany
By Eliot Weinberger - Germany 8-5-3

What Is Happening In America? Message From Germany
By Eliot Weinberger - Germany
8-5-3


In the Western democracies in the last fifty years, we have grown
accustomed to governments whose policies on specific issues may be
good or bad, but which essentially institute incremental changes to
the status quo. The major exceptions have been Thatcher and Reagan,
but even their programs of dismantling systems of social welfare seem,
in retrospect, mild compared to what is happening in the United States
under George Bush-- or more exactly, the ruling junta that tells Bush
what to do and say.

It is unquestionably the most radical government in modern American
history, one whose ideology and actions have become so pervasive, and
are so unquestionably mirrored by the mass media here, that the
population seems to have forgotten what "normal" is.

George Bush is the first unelected President of the United States,
installed by a right-wing Supreme Court in a kind of judicial coup
d'etat.

American democracy: the separation of church and state. There are now
daily prayer meetings and Bible study groups in every branch of the
government, and religious organizations are being given funds to take
over educational and welfare programs that have always been the domain
of the state.

Bush is the first president to invoke the specific "Jesus Christ"
rather than an ecumenical "God," and he has surrounded himself with
evangelical Christians, including his Attorney General, who attends a
church where he talks in tongues.

It is the first administration to openly declare a policy of
unilateral aggression, a "Pax Americana" where the presence of allies
(whether England or Bulgaria) is agreeable but unimportant; where
international treaties no longer apply to the United States; and
where-- for the first time in history-- this country reserves the
right to non-defensive, "pre-emptive" strikes against any nation on
earth, for whatever reason it declares.

It is the first-- since the internment of Japanese-Americans in World
War II-- to enact special laws for a specific ethnic group.
Non-citizen young Muslim men are now required to register and subject
themselves to interrogation. Many hundreds have been arrested and held
without trial or access to legal assistance-- a violation of another
pillar of American democracy: habeas corpus. Many have been taken from
their families and deported on minor technical immigration violations;
the whereabouts of many others are still unknown. And, in Guantanamo
Bay, where it is said that they are now preparing execution chambers,
hundreds of foreign nationals -- including a 13-year-old and a man who
claims to be 100-- have been kept for almost two years in a limbo that
clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention.

Similar to the Reagan era, it is an administration openly devoted to
helping the rich and ignoring the poor, one that has turned the
surplus of the Clinton years into a massive deficit through its
combination of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly those
who earn more than a million dollars a year) and increases in defense
spending. (And, although Republicans always campaign on "less
government," it has created the largest new government bureaucracy in
history: the Department of Homeland Security.) The Financial Times of
England, hardly a hotbed of leftists, has categorized this economic
policy as "the lunatics taking over the asylum."

But more than Reagan-- whose policies tended to benefit the rich in
general-- most of Bush's legislation specifically enriches those in
his lifelong inner circle from the oil, mining, logging, construction,
and pharmaceutical industries. At the middle level of the bureaucracy,
where laws may be issued without Congressional approval, hundreds of
regulations have been changed to lower standards of pollution or
safety in the workplace, to open up wilderness areas for exploitation,
or to eliminate the testing of drugs.

Billions in government contracts have been awarded, without
competition, to corporations formerly run by administration officials.
In a country where the most significant social changes are enacted by
court rulings, rather than by legislation, the Bush administration has
been filling every level of the complex judicial system with
ultra-right ideologues, especially those who have protected
corporations from lawsuits by individuals or environmental groups, and
those who are opposed to women's reproductive rights. It remains to be
seen how far they can push their antipathy to contraception and
abortion. They have already banned a rare form of late-term abortion
that is only given when the health of the mother is endangered or the
fetus is terribly deformed, and a large portion of Bush's heralded
billions to Africa to fight AIDS will be devoted to so-called
"abstinence" education.

Most of all, America doesn't feel like America any more. The climate
of militarism and fear, similar to any totalitarian state, permeates
everything. Bush is the first American president in memory to swagger
around in a military uniform, though he himself-- like all of his most
militant advisers-- evaded the Vietnam War. (Even Eisenhower, a
general and a war hero, never wore his uniform while he was
president).

In the airports of provincial cities, there are frequent announcements
in that assuring, disembodied voice of science-fiction films: "The
Department of Homeland Security advises that the Terror Alert is now .
. . Code Orange." Every few weeks there is an announcement that
another terrorist attack is imminent, and citizens are urged to take
ludicrous measures, like sealing their windows, against biological and
chemical attacks, and to report the suspicious activities of their
neighbors.

The Pentagon institutes the "Total Information Awareness" program to
collect data on the ordinary activities of ordinary citizens (credit
card charges, library book withdrawals, university course enrollments)
and when this is perceived as going too far, they change the name to
"Terrorist Information Awareness" and continue to do the same things.
Millions are listed in airport security computers as potential
terrorists, including antiwar demonstrators and pacifists. Critics are
warned to "watch what they say" and lists of "traitors" are posted on
the internet.

The war in Iraq has been the most extreme manifestation of this new
America, and almost a casebook study in totalitarian techniques.

First, an Enemy is created by blatant lies that are endlessly repeated
until the population believes it: in this case, that Iraq was linked
to the attack on the World Trade Center, and that it possesses vast
"weapons of mass destruction" that threaten the world.

Then, a War of Liberation, entirely portrayed by the mass media in
terms of our Heroic Troops, with little or no imagery of casualties
and devastation, and with morale-inspiring, scripted "news" scenes--
such as the toppling of the Saddam statue and the heroic "rescue" of
Private Lynch-- worthy of Soviet cinema.

Finally, as has happened with Afghanistan, very little news of the
chaos that has followed the Great Victory. Instead, the propaganda
machine moves on to a new Enemy-- this time, Iran.

It is very difficult to speak of what is happening in America without
resorting to the hyperbolic cliches of anti-Americanism that have lost
their meaning after so many decades, but that have now finally come
true.

Perhaps one can only recite the facts, and I have mentioned only some
of them here. This is, quite simply, the most frightening American
administration in modern times, one that is appalling both to the left
and to traditional conservatives. This junta is unabashed in its
imperialist ambitions; it is enacting an Orwellian state of Perpetual
War; it is dismantling, or attempting to dismantle, some of the most
fundamental tenets of American democracy; it is acting without
opposition within the government, and is operating so quickly on so
many fronts that it has overwhelmed and exhausted any popular
opposition.

Perhaps it cannot be stopped, but the first step toward slowing it
down is the recognition that this is an American government unlike any
other in this country's history, and one for whom democracy is an
obstacle.

- Eliot Weinberger June 2, 2003

<< What Is Happening In America? Message From Germany >><BR><BR>
No. Everyone REMEMBERS what normal is. Sept. 10, 2001.
The German doesn't remember what took place the next day.

People like you just don't get it. 9/11 changed everything. The new
enemy of the free world hides and plans sneak attacks. They Aren't in
charge of a country. We can't simply defend our borders. Preventive
mesures are necessary to protect the people of the USA.

9/11 changed nothing... and those that say so are very naive,

uninformed, or trying to protect their asses. It was this way before
9/11 and certainly as you say it is this way after 9/11. It is the job
of our intelligence to stay on top of security issues and I am 100%
sure they were aware of these types of attacks before 9/11.

During our disaster planning and security tests, we use to send folks
out to various data centers to try to break the security. We always
had people on staff that were in tune with people that wanted to break
our security... they were skeptical of everything and they had to be
thinking about every possible attack, the likelihood, prevention,
backup and recovery.

What do you think was behind the US Department of Defense project that
created the Internet... it was all part of disaster recovery if the
network was partially destroyed by bombs or other disasters and still
function... so even if you don't hear about possible types of attacks,
doesn't mean that our intelligence agencies don't know... and
certainly people in other countries have known.

DJ

--

People like you just don't get it. 9/11 changed everything.

The new
enemy of the free world hides and plans sneak attacks.

They Aren't in
charge of a country. We can't simply defend our borders. Preventive
mesures are necessary to protect the people of the USA.

Bush is popular in the USA becuase he stayed strong on the war against
terrorism, despite others who tried to stand in the way. And yes, the
Iraq war was directly related to the war on terrorism.

By the way, don't forget, these muslim terrorists hate GB, France,
Germany, and Russia, too. They are next on the hit list.

In the Western democracies in the last fifty years, we have grown
accustomed to governments whose policies on specific issues may be
good or bad, but which essentially institute incremental changes to
the status quo. The major exceptions have been Thatcher and Reagan,
but even their programs of dismantling systems of social welfare seem,
in retrospect, mild compared to what is happening in the United States
under George Bush-- or more exactly, the ruling junta that tells Bush
what to do and say.

It is unquestionably the most radical government in modern American
history, one whose ideology and actions have become so pervasive, and
are so unquestionably mirrored by the mass media here, that the
population seems to have forgotten what "normal" is.

George Bush is the first unelected President of the United States,
installed by a right-wing Supreme Court in a kind of judicial coup
d'etat. He is the first to actively subvert one of the pillars of
American democracy: the separation of church and state. There are now
daily prayer meetings and Bible study groups in every branch of the
government, and religious organizations are being given funds to take
over educational and welfare programs that have always been the domain
of the state.

Bush is the first president to invoke the specific "Jesus Christ"
rather than an ecumenical "God," and he has surrounded himself with
evangelical Christians, including his Attorney General, who attends a
church where he talks in tongues.

It is the first administration to openly declare a policy of
unilateral aggression, a "Pax Americana" where the presence of allies
(whether England or Bulgaria) is agreeable but unimportant; where
international treaties no longer apply to the United States; and
where-- for the first time in history-- this country reserves the
right to non-defensive, "pre-emptive" strikes against any nation on
earth, for whatever reason it declares.

It is the first-- since the internment of Japanese-Americans in World
War II-- to enact special laws for a specific ethnic group.
Non-citizen young Muslim men are now required to register and subject
themselves to interrogation. Many hundreds have been arrested and held
without trial or access to legal assistance-- a violation of another
pillar of American democracy: habeas corpus. Many have been taken from
their families and deported on minor technical immigration violations;
the whereabouts of many others are still unknown. And, in Guantanamo
Bay, where it is said that they are now preparing execution chambers,
hundreds of foreign nationals -- including a 13-year-old and a man who
claims to be 100-- have been kept for almost two years in a limbo that
clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention.

Similar to the Reagan era, it is an administration openly devoted to
helping the rich and ignoring the poor, one that has turned the
surplus of the Clinton years into a massive deficit through its
combination of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly those
who earn more than a million dollars a year) and increases in defense
spending. (And, although Republicans always campaign on "less
government," it has created the largest new government bureaucracy in
history: the Department of Homeland Security.) The Financial Times of
England, hardly a hotbed of leftists, has categorized this economic
policy as "the lunatics taking over the asylum."

But more than Reagan-- whose policies tended to benefit the rich in
general-- most of Bush's legislation specifically enriches those in
his lifelong inner circle from the oil, mining, logging, construction,
and pharmaceutical industries. At the middle level of the bureaucracy,
where laws may be issued without Congressional approval, hundreds of
regulations have been changed to lower standards of pollution or
safety in the workplace, to open up wilderness areas for exploitation,
or to eliminate the testing of drugs.

Billions in government contracts have been awarded, without
competition, to corporations formerly run by administration officials.
In a country where the most significant social changes are enacted by
court rulings, rather than by legislation, the Bush administration has
been filling every level of the complex judicial system with
ultra-right ideologues, especially those who have protected
corporations from lawsuits by individuals or environmental groups, and
those who are opposed to women's reproductive rights. It remains to be
seen how far they can push their antipathy to contraception and
abortion. They have already banned a rare form of late-term abortion
that is only given when the health of the mother is endangered or the
fetus is terribly deformed, and a large portion of Bush's heralded
billions to Africa to fight AIDS will be devoted to so-called
"abstinence" education.

Most of all, America doesn't feel like America any more. The climate
of militarism and fear, similar to any totalitarian state, permeates
everything. Bush is the first American president in memory to swagger
around in a military uniform, though he himself-- like all of his most
militant advisers-- evaded the Vietnam War. (Even Eisenhower, a
general and a war hero, never wore his uniform while he was
president).

In the airports of provincial cities, there are frequent announcements
in that assuring, disembodied voice of science-fiction films: "The
Department of Homeland Security advises that the Terror Alert is now .
. . Code Orange." Every few weeks there is an announcement that
another terrorist attack is imminent, and citizens are urged to take
ludicrous measures, like sealing their windows, against biological and
chemical attacks, and to report the suspicious activities of their
neighbors.

The Pentagon institutes the "Total Information Awareness" program to
collect data on the ordinary activities of ordinary citizens (credit
card charges, library book withdrawals, university course enrollments)
and when this is perceived as going too far, they change the name to
"Terrorist Information Awareness" and continue to do the same things.
Millions are listed in airport security computers as potential
terrorists, including antiwar demonstrators and pacifists. Critics are
warned to "watch what they say" and lists of "traitors" are posted on
the internet.

The war in Iraq has been the most extreme manifestation of this new
America, and almost a casebook study in totalitarian techniques.

First, an Enemy is created by blatant lies that are endlessly repeated
until the population believes it: in this case, that Iraq was linked
to the attack on the World Trade Center, and that it possesses vast
"weapons of mass destruction" that threaten the world.

Then, a War of Liberation, entirely portrayed by the mass media in
terms of our Heroic Troops, with little or no imagery of casualties
and devastation, and with morale-inspiring, scripted "news" scenes--
such as the toppling of the Saddam statue and the heroic "rescue" of
Private Lynch-- worthy of Soviet cinema.

Finally, as has happened with Afghanistan, very little news of the
chaos that has followed the Great Victory. Instead, the propaganda
machine moves on to a new Enemy-- this time, Iran.

It is very difficult to speak of what is happening in America without
resorting to the hyperbolic cliches of anti-Americanism that have lost
their meaning after so many decades, but that have now finally come
true.

Perhaps one can only recite the facts, and I have mentioned only some
of them here. This is, quite simply, the most frightening American
administration in modern times, one that is appalling both to the left
and to traditional conservatives. This junta is unabashed in its
imperialist ambitions; it is enacting an Orwellian state of Perpetual
War; it is dismantling, or attempting to dismantle, some of the most
fundamental tenets of American democracy; it is acting without
opposition within the government, and is operating so quickly on so
many fronts that it has overwhelmed and exhausted any popular
opposition.

Perhaps it cannot be stopped, but the first step toward slowing it
down is the recognition that this is an American government unlike any
other in this country's history, and one for whom democracy is an
obstacle.

- Eliot Weinberger June 2, 2003

What Is Happening In America? Message From Germany
By Eliot Weinberger - Germany
8-5-3

In the Western democracies in the last fifty years, we have grown
accustomed to governments whose policies on specific issues may be
good or bad, but which essentially institute incremental changes to
the status quo. The major exceptions have been Thatcher and Reagan,
but even their programs of dismantling systems of social welfare seem,
in retrospect, mild compared to what is happening in the United States
under George Bush-- or more exactly, the ruling junta that tells Bush
what to do and say.

Nitro wrote:

People like you just don't get it. 9/11 changed everything. The new
enemy of the free world hides and plans sneak attacks. They Aren't in
charge of a country. We can't simply defend our borders. Preventive
mesures are necessary to protect the people of the USA.