SOME THOUGHTS FOR AND ABOUT THE KERRY CAMPAIGN, II

Column No. 21 By Steven Jonas - July 15, 2004

Note to the reader (repeated): As we now approach the run-up to the Democratic National Convention and the Convention itself, I am devoting a series of columns to what are primarily campaign matters, rather than the more historical and theoretical issues I usually deal with.  It happens that I am going to be away during most of this period.  Thus, not only these columns but also the first two for August will have been prepared in advance.  It is possible that some of what I will have to say here will be overtaken by events.  But hopefully, whether or not that happens, you will find these thoughts to be of use as our attention turns to the principal challenge facing the pro-democracy forces, not in Iraq, but here at home: how to defeat George Bush and assure the election of John Kerry.

I should note that some of these thoughts have appeared in one form or another in past columns.  If that be the case, obviously I like them a lot.  So please bear with me.

Constitutional Democracy at Risk

At some point, I think that Sen. Kerry is going to have to confront the danger to the continuation of Constitutional Democracy in the United States as we know it – a danger presented by the Georgites.  It’s a tough subject to simplify, but for one, Al Gore is doing that.  The problem is real, reflected both in Georgite actions and the positions taken by the Georgites’ many open supporters in the media.  The Georgites are brazenly arrogating more and more power to the Executive Branch, on their own authority.  Right-wing media types like Ann Coulter labels all liberals as traitors.  The penalty for treason happens to be death.  Back in May, the Limbaugh clone Sean Hannity said that Spain had "one terrorist event" and then "capitulated," and those U.S. liberals would do the same thing if such an event were to happen here.  If there were an attack and the liberals were to capitulate, Hannity said, the elections would need to be suspended:  "In fact, the elections need to be suspended before it happens because this is too serious to play around with."  If you recall, Bush’s favorite General, Tommy Franks, also talked about the possibility of suspending the Constitution.  I am not making this up.

Now here is what Al Gore, not previously known as a politician for whom the preservation of US Constitutional Democracy was at the top of the list of issues, had to say on the subject in a speech at the Georgetown University Law Center on June 24, 2004 (in part) – Tom Paine

“I am convinced that our founders would counsel us today that the greatest challenge facing our republic is not terrorism but how we react to terrorism, and not war, but how we manage our fears and achieve security without losing our freedom. I am also convinced that they would warn us that democracy itself is in grave danger if we allow any president to use his role as commander in chief to rupture the careful balance between the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of government. . . .

“If the congress becomes an enfeebled enabler to the executive, and the courts become known for political calculations in their decisions, then the country suffers. The kinds of unnatural, undemocratic activities in which this administration has engaged, in order to aggrandize power, have included censorship of scientific reports, manipulation of budgetary statistics, silencing dissent, and ignoring intelligence. Although there have been other efforts by other presidents to encroach on the legitimate prerogatives of congress and courts, there has never been this kind of systematic abuse of the truth and institutionalization of dishonesty as a routine part of the policy process.

“Two hundred and twenty years ago, John Adams wrote, in describing one of America’s most basic founding principles, ‘The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them…to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.’ ”

On this, I need not comment further.

“What’s Wrong with Kerry?”  “Is anything wrong with Kerry?”

Many liberals and leftists both have been saying for quite some time “Where’s Kerry?”  The fact is that he has been going around the country being the John Kerry the voters in the Democratic primaries voted for: reasonably liberal in the current political context; having a thoroughly “electable” persona; a decent although not overwhelming speaker unless he gets really wound up; very experienced in national government, in fact a truly “Presidential” candidate in terms of his knowledge of the Federal government and how it works and doesn’t work from the inside, one better than either party has offered in many a moon; at least a seemingly moral and principled man, who, by the way, happens to know the English language; and, having the “gravitas” factor, one about whom David Letterman said (AOL Broadcast, June 30, 2004): “I caught John Kerry in a lie.  He actually said ‘I can be as footloose and fancy free as the next guy as go out as have a good time.’ “

I believe that going into the Convention the Senator has run a very smart campaign.  He has been solid and policy-oriented, while gradually ratcheting up the pressure and the rhetoric on Bush.  He has clear plans for instituting a completely different approach to government and governing, suited to the needs of the American people as a whole, not just the ideologues and the major campaign contributors of the Georgites.  What seems very clear is that the last thing he has wanted to do is peak too early.  Standing aside and letting Bush, “F word” Cheney, et al., machine-gun themselves in their feet, has a lot to say for the way he is doing things. Right now (that is, at the end of June), in my view, he is doin’ what he should be doin’.

Controlling the Agenda

Continuing on the Agenda theme, as is the case with virtually every one of them (see my book, The New Americanism, chap. 16, esp. pp. 287-289), this election will go to the candidate who controls the agenda.  If the agenda is Kerry and what he did and did not do in Vietnam and whether he threw his medals or someone else's or ribbons over the White House fence, and how he voted one way on a bill and then another after it was amended, Bush wins.  If the agenda is George W.M.D. (War/ More Deficits) Bush and what he has done with the presidency and the nation, Kerry wins.  As Lee Atwater preached, always attack; never defend, just as the Georgites are doing now.  If anybody needs defending, it's Bush, but you will hardly ever hear any of that from the Georgite camp, unless and until they are really cornered.

The Georgites realize this very well. Notice that there are very few elements of defense of the Bush record (indefensible of course) in their current campaign-initiating broadsides.  That says a whole lot.  They know very well that if they can manage to make Kerry the agenda, they win. (To date, they have tried very hard to do this, but have failed miserably as their Administration teeter/totters from one policy failure to the next.)  There is only one man who can beat George Bush in this election, and it's not John Kerry; it's George Bush. The whole Georgite campaign strategy is designed around that knowledge. In the campaign against the last Bush, the motto was "It's the economy, stupid."  Therefore, this time around it must be, "It's Bush, stupid!" For if it isn't, that's really stupid.

There is no 'Middle Ground’

A further comment on this theme: one of the liberals' main faults has been that they think continually there is some "middle ground" that can be reached if only reasonable people would get together. That position was well expressed by the DLCers Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden, who actually came to Bush’s defense over the charges by former Bush advisor Richard Clarke that the Georgites totally ignored the very clear warnings on the dangers presented by al-Qaeda.

Sorry, but there is no "middle ground" as to whether the rich should pay less and less their deserved share of taxes, or whether we should have gone to war on Iraq unilaterally with lies as the rationale, or whether the health care delivery system should first and foremost be a profit center for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, or whether Social Security, as we have known it since the New Deal, should survive or become a profit center for the securities industry, or whether energy policy should be designed first and foremost for immediate profit of the oil companies, or whether global warming is real, and so on and so forth.  These are all questions that have two distinct sides, and all the talk from people like the DLCers – who "deplore the present situation" and ask people to “reason together” and find that "middle ground" – will not change that reality.

Some bemoan the polarization of the American body politic.  Did polarization take place these past two and a half decades under Democratic governance, or with the Republicans mainly in control?  Who did the majority of the polarizing? Hasn't it been by the phony 'Compassionate Conservatives;" The Clinton haters; Gingrich with “the Democrats are responsible for the country’s moral decline” (that is before he was forced out of office for immorality; the DeLay and the totally “us/them” way he runs the House; the Sanctimonious Senator, Hatch; F-Word Duke Cheney; the “anyone who challenges the President after 9/11 is a traitor” Ashcroft; those who orally flayed as unpatriotic Sen. Max Cleland because he thought that the Stars and Bars should come out of the Georgia state flag?

Some consider that Michael Moore with F/911 further "polarizes the political cesspool, and this polarization is making America increasingly difficult to govern."  Well, those who believe in Constitutional government are not going to defeat those who don't by being "nice," because you can bet your bottom dollar that the Far Right isn't 'nice' and isn't interested in being so.  Just see Dick Cheney's performance on the floor of the Senate. Polarization is here, and democrats (small “d”) of both parties should accept that, and get on with protecting our democracy.

On John McCain

Sen. Kerry was obviously not of the above mind when he tried to persuade Sen. John McCain to be his running mate.  What a disaster that would have been.  The move would have attracted few more Republicans than are already AnyBodyButBush-ers and it would have turned off both the liberal and left wings of the Democratic Party, which would have had to do the “hold-your-nose-and-pull-the-lever” thing.  More critically, it would have driven off from Kerry numerous potential Nader voters.  McCain sounds nice from time-to-time, but is actually a reactionary on many issues that are at the core of the Democratic agenda, from choice to the environment (except for, very recently, global warming) to national domestic spending.  There are only a few "moderate" Republicans left, and McCain ain't, nor had he ever been, one of them.

Some anti-Georgites are projecting the dropping of Cheney by Bush and the substitution of McCain.  Doubtful.  Don't think that Cheney and the interests he works for would let go that easily.  Since Cheney wouldn’t be there, and no true Georgite would ever trust McCain since he is a reactionary but not one of theirs, who would run Bush for them?  So why is McCain suddenly appearing at Bush’s side?  Here are few possible reasons: McCain is showing his true Right-wing colors; the Georgites have got something on him; he is being threatened with a well-funded primary next time around for his own senate seat.

SOME THOUGHTS FOR AND ABOUT THE KERRY CAMPAIGN, I

Column No. 20 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - July 8, 2010

Note to readers:

As we are now approaching the run-up to the Democratic National Convention and the Convention itself, I am devoting a series of columns to what are primarily campaign matters, rather than the more historical and theoretical issues I usually deal with.  It happens that I am going to be away during most of this period.  Thus, not only these columns but also the first two for August are being prepared in advance.  It is possible that some of what I will have to say here will be overtaken by events.  Hopefully, whether or not that happens, you will find these thoughts of use as our attention turns to the principal problem facing the pro-democracy forces, not in Iraq, but here at home: how to defeat George Bush and assure the election of John Kerry.

I should note that some of these reflections have appeared in one form or another in one or more of my previous columns.  If that is the case, obviously I believe they have merit.  So please bear with me.

Dealing With The “Liberal Label” Issue

The Georgites will be using the “liberal as a dirty word” strategy with increasing intensity.  This is because they have little else to run on and little other than invective and phraseology designed to distract the electorate from the real issues: the record of George Bush and how John Kerry would re-direct the course of our ship of state back onto that determined by our Constitution.  To do this, the Senator might use something like the following recipe:

"If 'liberal' means . . .

protecting the Social Security System;

providing health care security for everyone;

creating a Homeland Security system that is more than a name and a vehicle for ending the security of our Constitutional rights;

creating environmental security and preservation for the benefit of all the people, not just the special interests;

maintaining the strong defense of our national security by ensuring that our military resources are not wasted on unnecessary foreign adventures, nor on unnecessary, unproven hardware;

restoring the security of a balanced budget and halting ever-upward spiraling Federal deficits;

reversing the addition of large amounts of extra pocket money for Bush's rich friends and contributors;

“If this is what ‘being a liberal’ means, then I am a liberal.”

Getting 20% of the 50%

I continue to believe that the primary electoral key to victory in November is held by the 50% of eligible voters who don’t ordinarily vote in Presidential elections.  Over many years polls have shown that the number one reason for not voting is that eligible voters perceive no differences between the candidates to make getting out to vote worth the effort.  If Kerry can get 20% of this 50%, he will win in a true landslide.

The lesson from the data on why eligible non-voters don’t vote makes it quite obvious what Kerry must do:  clearly distinguish himself from Bush, by taking what are mainstream American positions (see the list above) that the Georgites try so hard to define as “left.” Distinguishing himself in this way will also draw that ever-increasing segment of “Anybody But Bush” customarily Republican voters to him.

As to those poll numbers that so many people are worried about, the ones that as of late June did not show Kerry pulling into a commanding lead over a Bush who is suffering one policy reverse after another, I have to say that I am not upset.  The fact is that most polls simply do not reach the many non-voters who are hopefully going to come out and vote for Kerry.  Further, even that being said, I think, given Bush's enormous build-up over his (false) "strength" in the face of 9/11 and the natural national rallying round at the beginning of the Iraq disaster, it is not surprising that the polls, such as they are, don't fully show the extent to which Bush support has dropped and will not likely recover, just as long as Kerry can manage to keep the focus on Bush and make the primary agenda for the election reversing the Bush Record.

On Iraq

The Bush “turnover” policy is obviously being driven by domestic politics.  Wolfowitz and Negroponte had already (end of June) said that the US will be in Iraq indefinitely, apparently regardless of what form the Iraqi government might eventually take (and as of the end of June, its leaders were talking about a military dictatorship [!]) and what power it might have. We all know what happened to the WMD and Saddam/al-Qaeda links reasons for the War.

Now the “bringing democracy and freedom” argument is begin to ring quite hollow.  Little noticed was the following statement by the inimitable Paul Wolfowitz: “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).  What was that?  Next, will Wolfie be telling us that the primary reasons for the War were: 1. Iraqi oil, 2. permanent bases in the region, 3. American “hegemony,” just as his Project for a New American Century associates were openly saying in the 1990s?

Indeed, I believe that the primary goal of the Iraq invasion was No. 1, getting the hands of the US oil companies on Iraqi oil, but not all of it.  (Warning: those anti-conspiracy theory readers are not going to like this paragraph much at all.)  Southern Iraq is much too unstable and much too contested.  No, I believe that the US oilmen have been focusing on Kurdish oil, ever since the American virtual protectorate for that region was set up following the end of the Gulf War in 1991.  Thus, I think that all along the underlying Georgite goal for Iraq has been to have it end up as a "federated" nation in which Iraqi Kurdistan, and its potential enormous oil reserves, would be come a permanent US protectorate.  A deal would be worked out with the Turks and the Iraqi Kurds to make sure that this would not make more than minor trouble for Turkey.  (At the NATO Summit at the end of June, Bush was already trying to make nice with the Turks.  Wonder what that was all about?) Further, as for the concerns of Iran about its own Kurds, could this become an excuse for a future invasion of Iran?

Now, whether the last paragraph represents reality or not, how could Kerry’s policy differ from Bush’s?  Bush has attempted to appropriate both the UN and NATO for maintaining the military option.  As of the end of June, neither organization was biting with anything like “boots on the ground.”  But he did get a UN resolution and he did get the appearance of “turnover.”  Under such circumstances:

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 military bases would be stopped and the bases dismantled or turned over to the UN on an interim bases, for future transfer to the Iraqi government from the UN.  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 “Bearing Point Plan,” promulgated by the Bremer Regime in one of its first acts (see Antonia Juhasz, LeftTurn Magazine, No. 12, Feb/Mar, 2004, www.leftturn.org; Naomi Klein, The Guardian (UK), 6/26/04).  It ‘privatized’ 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.  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 provincial arrangement, as it existed under the Ottoman Empire.

On the Choice for VP

Please note that this comment could well have been pre-empted by the time you read this column.  BUT, if Kerry wants as his Vice-Presidential running-mate a person who: brings geographical balance; considerable experience in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government at the highest level; is, like himself, a Vietnam vet (although he didn’t see combat); has an extensive background in both domestic and foreign policy and brings a special expertise on the crucial issue for the survival of the species -- that is the environment and its protection/preservation -- and has made Bush and the Georgites a clear target and regards them as clearly different from any true Democrat; can be a terrific speaker; knows that the true primary issue in this election is the preservation of Constitutional Democracy as we have known it for 200 years, and who is proclaiming this loudly, clearly and with increasing fervor in his public appearances; the choice is clear.  It is: Al Gore.  Would he accept the offer?  He just might, given the peril the Nation is in under the Georgites. Yes, extraordinary times do demand extraordinary choices and extraordinary sacrifices.  Just recall that after his defeat by Andrew Jackson in 1828, John Quincy Adams went back to the House of Representatives, where he throughout the 1830s he was virtually the only voice protesting the existence of slavery and calling for its abolition.

COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT

Column No. 19 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – July 1, 2004

On Jan. 25, 2002, the Counsel to the President, Alberto Gonzales, sent President George Bush a memo in which he warned the President about a United States law, the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 2441).  That law prohibits the commission of “war crimes” by any U.S. officials or other personnel.  Included in the definition are any violations of the Geneva Conventions concerning the treatment of prisoners of war.  Gonzales told the President that the Justice Department had concluded that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to any apprehended members of al Qaeda.  He also advised the President that the State Dept. did not agree with Justice.  He proposed to the President that he make a determination that the Conventions did not apply to the Taliban or members of al Qaeda.

In Gonzales’ view, the “war on terror” had rendered certain sections of the Conventions obsolete; “quaint” was a descriptor he used.  One John Yoo, a University of California law professor on leave with the Justice Department, had begun working on ways and means for the US to avoid being charged with war crimes in reference to how certain prisoners taken in Afghanistan were treated in the fall of 2001, as the invasion of Afghanistan was getting under way.  Why might he need to have done this?  Because, according to The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh’s sources at least, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had authorized an approach to prisoner treatment that included physical coercion and sexual humiliation.  The Pentagon denied these charges, of course.  But if such a plan did not exist, why on earth would they have had a legal defense for its implementation prepared?

We now know that the plan was instituted in Afghanistan and then transferred via Guantanamo to Iraq.  That transfer lead inexorably to the Abu Ghraib outrage.  We thus also know that what we saw in those first horrifying photos was not the work of a “few bad apples” among enlisted personnel, carrying out these atrocities on their own initiative, but rather the product of more than a few bad apples fairly high up in the Bush Administration.  The primary question from the beginning has been; how high up the chain of command do knowledge and responsibility go?

The Pentagon, and the CIA, asked for legal rulings justifying the use of what most observers, as well as the usual interpretations of the Geneva Conventions, would term torture. Rumsfeld himself was involved.  That put the chain of command knowledge level pretty high.  If it did not go so very high, why was the Counsel to the President briefing Bush on the legal issues involved?  These are matters that have been and are being dealt with in great detail elsewhere.  In this column, I take a brief look at certain Constitutional issues raised by the whole sordid mess.

Article VI of the Constitution says, among other things, that: “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the Untied States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” Sect. 2, Article II, empowers the President “. . . by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. . . .” The clause from Article VI quoted above has always been interpreted to mean that treaties are part of the Constitution.

The oath of office for the President is found in the Constitution, at the end of Article II, Sect 1.  It says: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  The impeachment provision is found in Section 4 of the same article: “The President, Vice-President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”  One would think that violation of one’s oath, as found in the Constitution itself, would constitute a high crime or at least a misdemeanor.

Yoo was working on ways to have US personnel avoid charges of committing war crimes.  Jay Bybee, now a Federal Appeals Court judge, of the Office of Legal Council of the Justice Department, the federal government’s ultimate legal advisor, wrote the principal memo that Gonzales used in advising the President.  He decided that certain provisions of the Conventions were “outdated” and “quaint.” Further, he told the President that with a simple re-labeling of persons captured in Afghanistan from “prisoners of war” to something else and a redefinition of “torture,” provisions of US law (passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic President, by the way) concerning the commission of war crimes could be by-passed.

In addition, a group of Pentagon lawyers told Rumsfeld that “inherent” in the President’s power as Commander-in-Chief, in war-time, was the authority to authorize essentially anything he wanted to, regardless of US law or treaties.  In this case too, even if such power could be found anywhere in the Constitution (and I looked hard in Article I, Sect. 2 that defines those powers -- and couldn’t find it) it happens that the only US government entity empowered to declare war is the Congress.  Although the President and Fox News say over and over again that “we’re at war,” we are not, at least in Constitutional terms.

In the eyes of most of the rest of the world, what Gonzales, Woo, Bybee, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld’s lawyers did was unilaterally to amend a series of treaties.  And they did this without bothering even to inform, much less negotiate with, our treaty partners (most of the countries in the world).  Since treaties are part of the Constitution, they were thus also unilaterally amending the Constitution without bothering to go through the amendment process.  To this was added the interesting “inherent powers” doctrine that does the same thing.  But the Bush folks are not strangers to amending the Constitution at the stroke of a pen.  The USA Patriot Act does the same to Constitutional rights at home.  I have previously pointed out in this space that the Act voids rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, thus amending the Constitution by de facto repealing of those amendments.  It also amends the last clause of Article III, Sect. 2, in the body, to wit “The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury . . . . “

It is breathtaking that, with reference to torture, all of these lawyers were looking for ways around treaty obligations and US law that they recognized existed.  (It should be noted that other government lawyers, for example from the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Office and from the State Department, were horrified by all of this.)  But the most disturbing aspect of this is that, according to Ashcroft’s Justice Department, all of these actions, from the endorsement of the use of torture in the face of our treaty obligations, to the suspension of Constitutional rights under the USA Patriot Act, allegedly are and can be done on Presidential authority alone.

There are two major issues here.  One is that, if Bush, on Gonzales’ advice, authorized the breaking of the Geneva Conventions, since they are part of the Constitution, that is an impeachable offense.  The other, even more important in my view, is that what is going on here is the substitution of the Rule of Man for the Rule of Law.  This is a very serious threat to every US citizen, and other persons for that matter residing in the United States, as well as to US captives abroad.

Under this doctrine, the President, on his own authority, labels you or re-labels you something in a new category and then all of a sudden you live outside of the protections of the US Constitution, whether those protections are to be found in its body or in treaties that become part of it, as determined by the President under something called “inherent powers.”  Since the President would have leave to define those powers in any manner he would see fit, to come up with such a concept is to endorse explicitly the substitution of the Rule of Man for the Rule of Law.  In so doing, the process also explicitly endorses the eventual end to American Constitutional Democracy, which rests on the bedrock of the Rule of Law, as we have known it.

This, in my view, is the most important single issue facing the American electorate in the upcoming election.  The Georgites have rewritten the Constitution on their own authority.  “We’ll tell you what rights you have and what rights you don’t have, and once we tell you that you don’t have any, we can do whatever we want to with you, whether it’s torture by another name or indefinite imprisonment without charges and without recourse.”  It seems to me that an Executive undertaking to act in just this manner was a major factor in a Revolution that began around 1776.

I do hope very much that Senator Kerry wakes up to what is truly at stake here, soon, and then makes it a central issue of his campaign.

’You Know me Al:’ On the German Reichstag Fire of Feb. 27, 1933 and the 9/11/01 Bombing of the World Trade Center, Part II

Prologue (from TPJ): “If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!  But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!”  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1832

Dr. Steven Jonas posts his regular Thursday contribution to TPJ, the second part of his comparisons the German Reichstag Fire and the attack on the World Trade Center.  Dr. Jonas’s article invokes a simple proposition, will we learn from the lessons of history or will we be condemned to Coleridge’s lantern on the stern.

Fair warning to readers, Dr. Jonas’ article makes a point that few have considered, lighting the bow of our ship of state.

’You Know me Al:’ On the German Reichstag Fire of Feb. 27, 1933 and the 9/11/01

Bombing of the World Trade Center, Part II

Column No. 18

By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH -  June 24, 2004

On June 3, I published Part I of this two-part series. – “’You Know Me Al:’ On The Reichstag Fire Of Feb. 27, 1933 And The 9/11/01 Bombing Of The World Trade Center, Part I” As noted then, most of the material that you read under my by-line is mine.  But as I have done on occasion in the past, I presented there some thoughts from a political historian friend of mine, sent privately to me over time.  I obviously thought them worthy of note.  It happens that my friend wants to remain anonymous in The Political Junkies context.  The material was used with his permission. His initials are “A.L.,” and his thoughts, with apologies to Ring Lardner (Sr.), appear in this column from time to time under the title “You Know Me, Al.”  In this column, I continue the analysis stimulated by his original work. But before getting to that, let me review briefly the history of the German Reichstag Fire, and add a bit more detail.

The Fire occurred on February 27, 1933, just about one month after Hitler became Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany.  The fire was set, most historians now agree, by a Dutch former Communist turned anarchist acting entirely alone, one Marinus van der Lubbe. Within hours, Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels, et al had proclaimed the fire to be the result of a German Communist Party (KPD) plot.  That the KPD knew nothing of it and that the “incriminating documents” quickly produced by the Nazis were later proved to be forgeries meant nothing at the time. The Nazis rapidly shut down all opposition press. They did this usually by simply sending in one of the Nazi Party’s private armies, the SA  (“Brownshirts”) to destroy the facilities and beat up the staff.  Thus within a matter of days they had gained full control of the German media of the time.

I did not note in Part I --- and I thank the friend who brought that fact to my attention --- that at Hitler’s request when he became Chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933 a national election in Germany had already been scheduled to take place on the 7th of March.  This turned out to be just about a week after the Reichstag fire occurred. Those who believed at the time that the Nazis were the real incendiaries had good grounds to think so. For in the final run-up to those elections, the Nazis exploited the Fire for all it was worth, including unleashing a reign of terror, especially against Communists, Socialists, and left-wing labor leaders, carried out by the SA and the SS (at that time Hitler’s private bodyguard) under the guise of 'defending the state against terrorism'.

And so, the Nazis quickly created a national hysteria over the “threat of the Communists and Socialists (SPD),” lumped together as “the Marxists,” to the “peace and tranquility of the German nation,” to the “security of the German volk.”  To deal with “the Marxist threat,” on Feb 28 all of the civil liberties protections of the post-World War I Weimar Republic Constitution were suspended.  It is hardly surprising that in such a state of hysteria, the Nazis achieved their largest vote total ever.  Nevertheless, it was still only 43.9% of the total.  In no democratic election were the Nazis ever to achieve even a simple majority (sound familiar?)  The subsequent “total support” of the Nazis by the German people as a whole as perceived by the outside world was achieved as much through continuing terror continually unleashed against any real or perceived opponents as it was by true love of Hitler and his way.

Following the election, on March 24, 1933, a Reichstag from which all the elected Communist deputies had been purged along with a number of the Socialist deputies, in which many of the Centrist Deputies were totally intimidated, and in which an artificially small quorum requirement has been created by the manipulations of its presiding officer, who happened to be Herman Goering, passed a Constitutional Amendment.  It gave virtual dictatorial power to Hitler and his cabinet for a four-year period.  Regularly renewed during the Nazi Era, it was called the Enabling Act. In practice, that turned out to mean that Hitler became Dictator of Germany, with absolute power.

In the part of  Al’s memo that was published in this space on June 3, he examined some of the reasons how a similar episode of sorts in the United States at this time could have helped the Georgites get through a series of political tight spots --- tight spots that their policies and programs were getting them into at the time: their Leader was a minority President; with the Jeffords defection they had just lost control of the Senate; there was a recession underway; their Leader was being perceived as a weakling (because he was); pushing through the social-control agenda of the Religious Right (essential to keeping their base happy) was becoming more and more difficult.  Further, there was a semi-secret grand foreign policy design as developed in the 90s by the neo-con Project for a New American Century (PNAC) that would be just about impossible to implement in ordinary times.  It was centered on invading and taking over Iraq as part of a grand design to gain for US control of the whole of the Middle East, and to gain control of vast oil reserves especially in the Kurdish region of Iraq, projected to possibly outstrip those of Saudi Arabia.

And so, there was this terrorist organization based in Afghanistan called “Al Qaeda” led by a shadowy figure named Osama bin Laden.  They have already carried several relatively small-scale attacks on US targets abroad over the years, but the Clinton Administration had foiled two major ones: a 1998 plot to blow up 11 airliners over the Atlantic at the same time and a “Millennium Bomb Plot.”  But these guys are still hanging around.  And during the spring and summer of 2001 substantial intelligence “noise” indicates that they are going to try something big again.  My friend Al speculated at the time (November, 2001), not that the Georgites would be directly or even indirectly involved in one way or another themselves (I reviewed current possibilities for a direct, active or passive, Georgite involvement in my column of May 6), but that there was a US Far Right-Wing cabal that was. Al was obviously engaging in some pretty far-out speculation and conspiracy theory mongering here.

Now, while the Nazis apparently had nothing to do with setting the Reichstag Fire, within hours of its occurrence they were able to come up with a plan to use it to achieve previously designed political and Constitutional ends. (Hitler had actually hatched an idea for something like the Enabling Act back in the 1920s.)  Physically arriving on the scene of the Fire a few hours after it started Hitler immediately began demanding evidence that it was the result of a KPD plot.  (There being no equivalent of the White House Situation Room in those days, with security being provided by the SA and the SS, Hitler, unlike Bush, went directly to the site.)  Hitler was immediately told by the investigators that there was absolutely no such evidence and that indeed the most likely suspect, van der Lubbe, had already been captured. He was also told that most likely he had acted completely on his own,

The Nazis, the other German Right-Wing parties, and their financial backers, major elements of the German power elite, had every reason to want to go after their principal political opponents, the Communists (KPD) and the Socialists (SPD), using all available means.  However, the civil liberties provisions of the Weimar Constitution stood in their way.  Beginning the previous November, even before Hitler took power, proposals had been made in the Reichstag by the ruling Right-Wing coalition, to legislate the suspension of the Weimar Constitution’s provisions for protecting civil liberties.  But there was no way that such a plan could command the two-thirds majority needed in the Reichstag for its passage. What an opportunity was presented to Hitler and the Nazi Party by the Fire.

As noted above, very quickly, within days in fact, the Nazi propaganda machinery under Goebbels had whipped major portions of the German population into frenzy about the dangers of a “Marxist” takeover and “blood running in the streets.”  As Goebbels once said: “Propaganda has only one object - to conquer the masses. Every means that furthers this aim is good; every means that hinders it is bad.”  Given that there was no genuine evidence of KPD involvement in the Fire, one can say one this for the Nazis: they were certainly better at producing evidence of a KPD plot than the Georgites have been about producing any kind of evidence concerning Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Saddam/Al Qaeda connection in Iraq.

What are the Georgite 9/11 parallels to Hitler on the scene ignoring the fact of the capture of van der Lubbe and immediately demanding evidence of a non-existent KPD Reichstag Fire plot?  Information that has come out since the time of the 9-11 Tragedy, especially since the publication of Richard Clarke’s and (former Sec. of the Treasury) Paul O’Neill’s books, the Georgites very quickly began to use 9/11 in ways that are eerily similar to how the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire.  As Richard Clarke told us, once in the White House Situation Room, Bush immediately demanded evidence of direct Iraqi involvement in 9/11.  O’Neill told us that Bush had been obsessed with Iraq from the time he took office.  Richard Perle and the neo-con clique had first hatched the plan for an invasion of Iraq in the mid-90s.  Despite the fact, that their leadership from Paul Wolfowitz on down (or up, depending upon one’s perspective) occupied major positions of power in the Regime, in the summer of 2001, those invasion plans were no closer to implementation than it had been when Bush as elected. What happened to those plans post-9/11 we know all too well.

As for parallels on the civil liberties front, as noted above, for months the Nazis and their Right-Wing allies had been itching to go after the KPD and to a lesser extent the SPD and eliminate them from the domestic political scene. On Feb. 27, 1933, those plans were no closer to fruition than they had been when Hitler took power on Jan. 30, 1933.  But by March 24, 1933, they were fully in place.  And so we come to the matter of the “USA Patriot Act.”  It is about 340 pages long, filled with dense legal language.  It provides for major changes in many aspects the US criminal justice system, especially in the way it gives the President to suspend any individual’s Constitutional Rights on his own authority, simply by declaring someone an “enemy combatant” or a “material witness” in the War Against Terrorism, U.S. citizen or not.

Under the Act, the President is empowered, for example, to deprive such a person of: the protection against unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, due process of law as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the right to an open jury trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.  Thus the Act effectively repeals these provisions of the Constitution without even going through the formality of the Amendment process. At least when Hitler wanted to get the Weimar Constitution amended in order to eliminate similar civil liberties protections, he went through the formality of the amendment process (although, as noted, he did rig the Reichstag membership and quorum rules to assure himself of the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution).

The Patriot Act was introduced into Congress within two weeks of the 9/11 Tragedy.  It was brought to a vote before few if any members had time to much more than glance at it.  Due to its length and complexity, it is virtually impossible that it was actually written between 9/11 and when it was introduced.  That means of course that it was written before the latter date.  And that means that the Georgites, who knew that there was no way of getting such an Act through Congress in the absence of a 9/11 disaster, were at the least waiting, if not prepared, for one to happen.

Then there are the recently revealed Justice Department (2002) and Pentagon (2003) memos in which groups of lawyers came up with ways that Bush could, according to them, legally authorize the infliction of torture.  “To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture,” the Dept. of Defense memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws in question is “inherent in the president.”

However, it happens that there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that could be interpreted to provide such "inherency" in the Presidency.  In fact the Presidential powers that are spelled out in Article II are quite limited.  The Commander in Chief clause refers specifically to the Army and the Navy and nothing else. These lawyers have written their own Enabling Act without even bothering to go through the process of amending the Constitution.  At least Hitler did the latter, on paper at least.  Under this Pentagon reasoning, the President could theoretically declare virtually any occurrence he didn’t like “an act of terrorism,” or “aiding and abetting terrorism” and then invoke his “inherent powers as Commander in Chief” to do anything he wanted to those individuals involved, up to and including indefinite detention and torture. And no one would access to anything other than the will of the President.  This Pentagon proposal provides for nothing less than a bloodless coup d'etat to establish a Presidential dictatorship.

The Reichstag Fire led directly to the Nazi dictatorship and all of its horrible outcomes for the World and Germany itself.  9/11 lead directly to the Iraq Invasion abroad and the USA Patriot Act and the vetting of the “inherent powers” theory at home.  As the readers of this column know well, we in the United States still have the chance to stop the possible further progression towards out-and out fascism (as defined in my column of May 27) here.  Although the parallels are not exact, I think that bearing them in mind may well assist in the campaign to achieve the goal of preventing that progression from happening, and protecting, indeed strengthening, US Constitutional Democracy.

One last note, on what the Kerry Campaign should begin to consider focusing on.  The two major issues at this time are Iraq and the economy.  The former, with the new transitional government in place, under the authority of a UN resolution, might just begin to settle down.  Both the violence and US casualties might decline.  Although the country would remain a terrible mess physically, as it is now, Americans would be exposed to little of that, as they are now.  The long-term prospects for bringing the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, who have been at each other’s throats for centuries together peacefully are not good.  And long-term, the Georgites still want to figure out a way (certainly Kurdish autonomy in some kind of Federal state would do it) to get their hands on all of that oil.  But from now through Election Day, with the UN now standing behind it just as many Bush opponents have been asking for, the US might be able, again for domestic consumption at least, to fashion some sort of temporary peace.  As for the economy, the recent modest improvements in it might just continue.  Whatever improvements there are would certainly be trumpeted by the Georgites as the outcome of their economic policies.

What would the Kerry Campaign be left with?  If those two primary issues swing in the Georgites’ favor, the old standbys of the environment, health care, education, and etc. aren’t going to do the trick.  The one major Georgite policy that will not, indeed cannot, change is that in order to achieve its major goals they must repeal traditional US Constitutional Democracy.  This is because of the way they think, as revealed by the Justice and Defense Dept. memos written by their lawyers, and because of their dependence on the votes of the Christian Right.  For it to achieve its stated long-term goal of establishing a theocracy in the United States, of course the Constitution must essentially be repealed. The Constitution is remote and abstruse for many Americans.  But there are ways and means to make it up close and personal for the American electorate.

I hope the Kerry Campaign will begin to take serious look at how to do just that.

‘The Ralph Nader Problem’ --- A Re-run plus

Column No. 17 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH -  June 17, 2004

“The Ralph Nader Problem” is well-known to most readers of The Political Junkies.  I considered it in one of my first columns in this series, No. 3, published on March 11, 2004.  TPJ, “A Word (or two) on Ralph Nader”

In the course of this Spring, Mr. Nader seems to have mellowed somewhat, politically.  He still will not recognize, publicly at least, that he bears any responsibility for the outcome of the 2000 Presidential election.  However, he does seem to recognize that the re-election of George Bush would be a catastrophe for our nation, to say nothing of the world as a whole, that Sen. Kerry is truly different from Bush, and that he, Ralph Nader, has a positive role to play in the prevention of that occurrence.  .

Mr. Nader has met with Sen. Kerry on at least one occasion.  They have had kind words to say about each other.  Mr. Nader has recognized their mutual interest in the defeat of George Bush.  At present, it is unclear as to how many states will have Mr. Nader’s name on the ballot.  Nevertheless, unlike Dennis Kucinich who is still running for the Democratic nomination, Nader is still running for President.  Thus, his candidacy still may, in the end, constitute a major obstacle to achieving the objective of sending the Georgites home in November.

Among Bush opponents an increasing amount of attention is being paid to “The Nader Problem.”  In fact, there is now a website devoted entirely to dealing with it.  In this column, I am first revisiting the analysis and recommendations that I made in March.  Then I will introduce you to “TheNaderFactor.com.” In my view, its website is very well worth visiting.

As I said back in March, how should progressive Democrats react to the continuing Nader candidacy?  Yes, we could talk about why, if one is really interested in changing the Democratic Party, one didn’t do what Governor Dean and Rep. Kucinich did, enter the Democratic primaries?   Yes, we could engage in an analysis of Nader’s ego needs. We could ask if, regardless of any other considerations, is it really helpful for progressive politics and policies for Nader to be doing what he is doing?  Apparently he really, really, deep down thinks that it is, and so that is that.

It should be noted that Nader hardly gives one the impression that he is easy to negotiate with.  However, he at least is talking with Sen. Kerry, and that kind of personal reaching out is new for him.  One still has to wonder how much change in the Democratic Party, in the current historical context, would be enough for him?  It has already changed a great deal in the last nine months, due in large part to the early efforts of Dean and Kucinich, and the more recent ones of Kennedy, Gore, and even McAuliffe.  As one observer of the latest Nader raid said, the Democratic Party “needs to grow up.”  Well, yes, if “grow up” is taken to mean really differentiate itself from the Republicans, shed the DLC, return to its 20th century, Progressive Era/New Deal roots, and focus firmly on its fundamental differences with Bush on everything from what Constitutional Democracy really is to the role of government in ours.  That process is, finally, underway.

In my view, trying to change Ralph Nader’s behavior is a truly difficult task.  This man is totally convinced of his own rightness.  He finds it hard to listen to leading Democrats who agree with him on many of the issues, and even to a number of his own advisors, former and possibly even present.  He marches to his own drummer, whose drumbeat is so loud in his ears that other sounds seem to have difficulty getting through.  In my view, that task is best left to Sen. Kerry and his advisors, in private conversations with Mr. Nader and his advisors.  So, as I said back in March, what we on the outside need to do now is ignore Ralph and aim rather at getting through to the Nader voter, past and potential.  Here are a few suggestions for how to do that.

1.    Don’t run guilt trips.  Don’t focus on the 2000 election.  Focus on the 2004 election.  Focus on what happens if the Georgites (as I like to call them) get re-elected.  Focus on the need, therefore, for every possible Democratic vote, in every single election district no matter Democratic it is.

2.    Point out that while neither the Democratic candidate (whomever it might be, most likely Kerry) nor the Democratic platform is or will be perfect, on many of the major issues, both are and will be certainly a lot closer to the interests of the potential Nader voter than are those of the Georgites.  And on some of them, like the principles on which health care and environmental policies should be based, it is virtually the same (unless I have missed something and please, don’t swamp me with detailed differences).

3.    Point out that if Nader voters and especially activists get involved in the Democratic primaries and the Democratic platform-building process now, they will have much more influence than they could have as outside voices, which many Democratic voters and most of the Democratic leadership would look upon with scorn.

4.    Point out that (as mentioned above) because of the efforts especially of Gov. Dean and Rep. Kucinich, both of whom have pledged to support the eventual Democratic nominee even though they won’t agree with him on every issue, the Democratic Party has changed, significantly.  As late as last fall, the message coming from both the DNC and the Congressional leadership, to say nothing of certain prominent candidates, was a primarily DLC-accomodationist, “let’s-not-offend the [supposed] ‘center’” one.  It has now become a full-throated roar from virtually all sectors of the Party (note the absence of the DLC from the chorus) to throw out the Georgites and replace them with radically different people and policies.

5.    Please, please, please, we should say to these folks, if nothing else, don’t ignore what has happened to the Federal judiciary under the Georgites, how that process would be compounded many fold should they be re-elected, and what impact that outcome would have on so many interests that progressives have in this country.

And so.  Let’s focus on the Georgites, let’s focus on the issues, let’s focus on potential Nader voters and what their concerns are, and let’s just forget about Ralph.  If you happen to be interested in payback (not an interest of mine), the worst thing that could happen to him personally is to be finally ignored, and to go down in the history of Presidential campaigns as just another Ralph Stassen/Lyndon LaRouche.

In aid of focusing on the Nader voter, there is this new website, brought to my attention by Democrats.com.  The web address is TheNaderFactor.com.  Here is what they have to say about themselves at the beginning of their Home Page:

What is TheNaderFactor.com? Karl Rave’s greatest dream is for Democrats and progressives to be divided. Let's give Karl Rove his greatest nightmare - a united front of progressive Democrats, former Nader voters and Nader supporters ready to take on the right wing in Washington and put an end to the destructive policies of the Bush agenda. The Nader Factor is dedicated to building a dynamic grassroots community of former Nader voters, Nader supporters, progressive Democrats and others who understand what's at stake and are uniting to change the Democratic Party and take this country back from the right-wing in Washington.

As Bob Fertik, founder of Democrats.com, said in endorsing TheNaderFactor.com:

Every poll shows the race between John Kerry and George W. Bush is neck-and-neck. As in 2000, the election of 2004 could be decided by Ralph Nader, and this would be a catastrophe in every way imaginable.  While many of us - and many of his 2000 supporters - have tried to persuade Nader to pull out of the Presidential race, these efforts have failed. We therefore believe we must reach out to Nader's supporters, in an effort to persuade them to vote for Kerry.  By working together, we hope to build a relationship of trust that will make it possible for Nader supporters to feel good about voting for John Kerry in November.

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

Ronald Reagan’s Legacy

Column No. 16 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - June 10, 2004

Ronald Reagan is gone, but as for long as the history of the Untied States is written, he will never be forgotten.  For he (or if you believe some historians, his handlers and script-writers) changed the U.S. and its politics in fundamental ways.  Reagan left behind many admirers, some of whom admired him for what he seemed to be, and some, particularly among the U.S. power elite, who admired him for what he really was.  He also left behind numerous critics.  I count my self among them.

From my perspective, the changes that Reagan and the Reaganites wrought upon our country and indeed the world have brought, are bringing, and will be bringing for the foreseeable future, many, many negative outcomes.  I list those that are to my mind the most important below. Of that list, in my view the single most important one was the change that the Reaganites brought to American politics.  They made what before them had been considered the Far Right respectable.  They firmly placed what before Reagan had been viewed as an agenda well to the Right of the mainstream of American politics at the center of those politics.  That agenda was that of the Goldwater Republicans, considered so far-out only back in 1964, combined with a heavy dose of rising Christian Rightist religious fundamentalism.

Thus, they made Goldwaterism, which had been crushed in the Johnson landslide of 1964, the touchstone of modern American politics.  They made a right-wing Democrat like Bill Clinton seem like a far-leftist.  (Bill Clinton a right-wing Democrat?  Well, consider that among his major achievements were the bringing of the New Deal’s aid for mothers with dependent children program to an end and the announcement in a State of the Union Address that “the era of big government” [the only kind of government that can deal with big problems] was over.)  The Reaganites made “liberal” a dirty word.  They created the atmosphere in which, eventually, a woman (Ann Coulter) who, in ordinary times, would not have much more to offer than long-blond hair and legs that look good in the short skirts she always seems to wear, a political “authority” who could go much further than that: pronounce all liberals as “traitors.”  In short, it was the Reaganites who gave us George W. Bush.

Last Sunday in the Junkies Speak section of The Political Junkies, European Editor Michael Carmichael presented a beautiful critique that in the guise of a conventional obituary highlighted Reagan’s major negative achievements.  But he did it with gentle elegance.  If you want to read a sharp attack, take a look at the column by the journalist Greg Palast entitled “Killer, Coward, Conman --- Good Riddance Ronnie Reagan: More Proof that Only the Good Die Young”

My comment, more of a simple listing of Reagan’s major negative achievements, falls somewhere between the stools of gentle and harsh.  For those readers who would like my columns to be shorter, well, this is one.  For those readers who would like me to stop speculating about possible conspiracies that have possibly occurred and possibly are ongoing in the Georgite Regime, well, I am going to do that (except when I am really sorely tempted to).

However, in this column, the grandest conspiracy ever hatched by a sitting American Administration is going to be mentioned.  Sorry folks, but Iran/Contra really did occur, it really was a conspiracy, it really would not have come to light had that ill-fated pilot who ran guns for it one way and drugs the other not been shot down, and it is really documented at great length in the long-forgotten Final Report of the Republican Special Prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh.

And so, on to the list. “AOL News, June 6, 2002.  ‘Leaders Say Reagan Left His Mark on the World.’ “He sure did.  Here are some of the things most of the mainstream media won't be putting on the list anytime soon.

1.         He firmly established racism as the center of the modern Republican electoral strategy, confirming that the Nixon “Southern Strategy” of 1968 would be permanently ensconced there.  This initiative was symbolized exquisitely when he began his 1980 Presidential campaign at Philadelphia, MI, the site of the Cheney-Goodman-Schwerner civil rights murders of 1964.  Reagan, the master of the “wink and the nod” means of communicating, did not have to say anything more.

2.        Reagan firmly established anti-choice as the Republican position of choice in the matter of belief as to when life begins.  This was something new for mainstream Republicans who up until then had made much about keeping government out of private matters to the extent possible. In fact, Reagan’s choice for Vice-President, George H.W. Bush and his wife had been long-time members of the Board of Directors of the Texas branch of Planned Parenthood.  Of course, that highly principled mainstream Republican, and his wife, quickly resigned their positions to take an openly anti-choice stance during the election.  Paul Erich and other leading Christian Rightists frequently complained that Reagan “didn’t do anything” about their agenda, “he only talked about it.”  Well, now they’ve got someone who is “doing something about it,” and Reagan paved the way for George Bush, II.

3.         The Reaganites introduced ahistoricity into American politics for good.  The Right-Wing has made much hay out of this trend over the years, by frequently referring to the period of “American decline since the 60s,” tracing it back to the “outbreak” of feminism and the anti-Vietnam War movement.  They of course do not note that for all except 12 years since that time, the President has been a Republican and when it has been a Democrat, it has been one of the right-wing variety (sorry, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton fans, but that is what the Democratic Leadership Council is all about, openly).

4.         "Reaganomics" created the myth that tax-cuts can lead to prosperity and reduced Federal deficits.  Reaganite tax-cuts, which went to the same folks who are benefiting sop much from the Bush tax cuts, lead to massive Federal deficits, to a mini-recession in the mid-80s that the Reaganites managed to ignore, and eventually to the Bush I recession that lead to his defeat.

5.         Related to “4,” Reaganite electoral strategy built upon the success of the anti-tax Proposition 13 in California in 1978.  That strategy succeeded in changing the political discussions about what government should be doing with tax revenues, in other words about government programs, to the amounts of the revenues themselves without reference to what the money was paying for.  Goldwater himself had realized that when he talked about government programs he wanted to get rid of he always lost.  The Reaganites figured out how to do it by making the focus tax cuts not government revenues and their purposes.  The Democrats still have not come up with an effective means of dealing with that one.

6.         Related to “5,” he established the modern Republican approach to Federal spending: cutting it on everything they possibly can except the military, prisons, and favors for wealthy contributors, while reducing tax revenues to the greatest extent possible with tax cuts for the rich.  This leads to the creation of massive deficits that would force any future Democratic Administration to, if it could, raise taxes again only to deal with deficits (see Clinton).

7.         He created the first initiative for the totally wasteful weapons system "Star-Wars."  Back in the days of the Cold War, it was designed as a first-strike weapon, of course.  Now it is just designed as a revenue builder for Georgite supporters in the aerospace industry.

8.         Reagan established mean-ness, every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, as an acceptable attribute.  Did people get it?  They sure did.  I remember listening to a selection of person-on-the-street interviews in Washington, DC, after the John Hinckley attack.  A woman, with what sounded to me like an Afro-American accent, in response to the question “what was wrong with John Hinckley,” said, “he missed.”

9.         With Iran/Contra, Reagan established the precedent that (Republican) Presidents can break Federal law and they will get away with it.  The Iran/Contra scheme directly violated a piece of Federal legislation called the “Boland Amendment.”  It prohibited any US-government direct or indirect interference with the democratically elected Sandanista government of Nicaragua.  The Congressional hearings were a sham.  Reagan clearly committed or at least clearly presided over the commission of an impeachable offense.  But when it came time to form the Joint Committee to investigate the mess, the then-obscure junior Senator from Massachusetts who had gotten the ball rolling, John Kerry, along with Kennedy, Leahy and any other progressive Democrats in the House and Senate, were kept of the Committee by agreement of the Democratic leadership.  “Couldn’t have another impeachment, coming so soon,” they said.

And so, Democrats like then-Congressman Lee Hamilton, made sure that the hearings were relatively benign, and, by giving Oliver North immunity from any prosecution based on his testimony, provided him with a nation-wide platform on which to make speeches justifying the whole action (that just happened to violate the law).  By the way, that’s the same Lee Hamilton who is the Democratic co-chair of the so far pretty mild 9/11 Investigating Committee.

10.        One of Reagan’s first acts when he became President was to cancel, to the extent he could, all Federal government contracts for the development of energy sources alternative to fossil fuels.  Thus the Untied States is now about 25 years behind where it could have been if this top extractive industry policy matter were not at the top of Reagan’s action list.  Did anybody say Cheney’s energy task force?

11.        As to personal attributes, Reagan showed that a not-very-smart, mildly educated, and generally ignorant man can become an Acting President if he is a Right-Winger who command big campaign contributions from corporate special interests, telegenic, speaks well from cue cards, and has the right agents, managers, and promoters.  He also showed that a man with a serious mental illness can be maintained in the Presidency if he is a Republican and has the right agents, managers, and promoters.

12.               Oh yes, he did win what will someday be called “The 75 Years War (1918-1993) Against the Soviet Union by Western Capitalism,” spending into the ground an arteriosclerotic governmental system that was well on its way to collapse anyway, while creating massive Federal deficits at home to do it.

What a record!  What a man!