FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
APRIL 23, 2004
COLUMN OF THE
AMERICAS
By Patrisia
Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
'BUSHIST' AGENDA STRIKES PARALYZING FEAR
"Bushist."
That's an adjective that may soon enter
our political lexicon. It points to a
radical political philosophy -- best
expounded by President George W. Bush
–- that describes both an aggressive
military agenda and the surrendering of
government to the world's most exploitive
and anti-environmental corporations.
In a cultural context, Bushist may also
come to describe a person who continues
to insist the world is flat, even in the
face of overwhelming and damning
evidence. Here are several other
meanings:
Meaning three: a person who remains
completely oblivious to reality, even as
Rome is ablaze. Meaning four: someone who
initiates war, while claiming to be
divinely inspired, doing the peaceful
work of The Father. Meaning five: one who
questions the loyalty and patriotism of
those with divergent viewpoints. Meaning
six: one who continuously flip-flops as a
result of extreme political pressure (as
opposed to one who flip-flops without
political pressure).
The reason Bushist might gain political
currency is because nothing from the past
adequately describes the president nor
his pirating policies, which are
practically a reverse Robin Hood
philosophy. Such policies encourage
permanent worldwide war, the discarding
of human and constitutional rights,
immigrant scapegoating, unbridled
pollution and wholesale lawlessness
(prisoners without rights and the
encouragement of military assassinations
by its allies).
One of the truisms of language is that
overuse deflates even the most powerful
of words. For example, the words
"racist" and
"fascist" virtually have lost
their meaning (though the descriptions
often remain accurate).
Such is the case with the president. He
and his crew so pumped up the Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction threat that
nowadays, continued allusions to WMDs are
greeted minimally with derision. WMDs
have, in effect, become a euphemism for
Trumped Up Fear (which makes him a TUF
guy).
In a similar vein, the president has been
so relentlessly accused of being
untruthful that the word "liar"
is in danger of losing its meaning. Many
from the radical left have also long
described his policies as
"fascistic." Yet that too is
one of those words that have come to mean
little in today's political lexicon.
Fascism, like Nazism, is a relic from the
previous century, or it usually describes
the views of white supremacists.
The president may be a lot of things, but
being part of the lunatic fringe is not a
category that he can fairly be remanded
to. No. He actually belongs in a category
all to himself, not describable by
conventional terminologies. It is his
radical policies -- as enunciated in his
own 2002 doctrine -- that make him a
dangerous man. (It can be argued that
every leader of the Soviet Union/Russia
and the United States has been dangerous
since the advent of the nuclear age.) Yet
it's not his position as commander in
chief, in and of itself, that makes him
dangerous. Rather, it's his policies of
permanent pre-emptive worldwide war -- a
policy that aggressively promotes U.S.
global military domination -- that make
him so.
In the lexicon of the past century, that
doctrine might be described as
imperialism or even Manifest Destiny. But
then again, those words describe a
different era -- a time when U.S. leaders
pontificated that God had chosen the
United States to civilize the continent,
if not the world. In today's political
landscape, the president is smeared by
words that either sound benign or
seemingly have no negative connotation:
i.e., neoliberal and globalist.
The truth is, globalization began with
Columbus and Magellan. The difference now
is simply speed. Neoliberalism aptly
describes the president's agenda, but it
lacks even the power of, say,
"religious fundamentalist."
(Neoliberalism describes policies that
promote the concentration of power into
the hands of multinational corporations
that are nowadays more powerful than
nation-states.)
In radical circles, to call someone or to
label a policy as "neoliberal"
is the maximum insult. The problem,
however, is that neoliberal doesn't quite
pack the same punch nor does it even come
close to capturing the imagination of old
favorites such as: "capitalist
running dog" or "fascist
pig."
Precisely for those reasons,
"Bushist" might one day come to
be the term that best describes the
adherents of the president's delusional
policies. While it may be viewed as
pejorative, it may also strike a
paralyzing fear and panic into the
populace. The problem is that the
president and his supporters might
actually like that.
____________________________________
(c) 2004 Universal Press Syndicate
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