December 3, 2003
Different head, same dick
What the ousting of a president in Georgia says about the next US presidential election
What the ousting of a president in Georgia says about the next US presidential election
By Stephen Gowans
Bushflash.com has an irreverent online music video, titled "The idiot
son of an asshole," the identity of the idiot and his asshole father being
rather obvious. You can watch it at http://www.bushflash.com/idiot.html
. Slanging Bush pere and fils has its attractions, and the video's disrespect
is a refreshing antidote to the cloying "Hail to the Chief " fawning of
the media. But when you think about it, the video has all the substance
of a newspaper astrology column. For fun and amusement only.
You can call the idiot a few names and impugn his smarts, but so what?
Does it matter that he's an idiot? And if he wasn't, would things be different?
Bush's policies have been smart for corporate America. Corporate taxes
are lower, US arms manufacturers, like Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon are
raking in the cash, and the coffers of US contractors in Iraq are brimming
with reconstruction contracts. And ordinary Americans, as always, are footing
the bill. From corporate America's perspective, Bush looks pretty smart,
and the idiots look like the tens of millions of saps who voted for him,
despite having a whole lot to lose, and absolutely nothing to gain, except
maybe the psychological satisfaction of knowing that a president who's
"strong on defense" is probably going to provide plenty of vicarious thrills
as peasants and Third World armies get their assess kicked by Uncle Sam.
The Canadian comedian Mary Walsh wonders whether the Republican party should
ditch the elephant and replace it with a condom. A condom, she points out,
gives you a sense of security as you screw people. And it covers dickheads.
All of this doesn't, however, mean that Democrats are Einsteins for
having cast their ballot for the other fellow. Much as the "anyone but
Bush" crowd takes comfort in the fantasy that anyone but Bush has to be
better, it's very unlikely that a Democrat in the White House would
be pursuing policies today that would have differed in any fundamental
way from either those of the idiot son, or the asshole father. Maybe a
Democrat as Commander in Chief would have had the "support of our allies"
and a UN imprimatur in his back pocket before ordering the Pentagon to
march on Baghdad, but that would hardly have made the conquest of Iraq
all right, or any less a corporate grab.
Or maybe a Democrat in charge would have carried on in the Clintonian
fashion, waging war against Iraq in all but name, maintaining genocidal
sanctions, hurling a few cruise missiles at Baghdad every now and then
(without a UN imprimatur), and shooting up a few Iraqis every few days
while flying sorties over the illegal no-fly zones. This is war as Bush
wages it, with one exception: no US casualties. Democrats have no problem
blowing away or blockading to death a few million brownskins, so long as
"none of our brave men and women in uniform" have to make "the ultimate
sacrifice." This is an antiwar position, watered down with generous dollops
of pro-American Chauvinism, a fitting position for American liberals.
So, what line of reasoning leads inevitably to the conclusion that anyone
but Bush would be better? This smacks of the kind of superstitious thinking
that has burned holes in more than a few gamblers' pockets. "My luck's
been so bad lately, it's bound to turn around with the next roll of the
dice," rolling the dice being a fitting metaphor for electing a president.
You never know what's going to turn up. Or do you?
Think about it. There have been more than one idiot, and more than one
asshole, who've served time as US President. Nixon ranked pretty high on
the asshole scale, Reagan was an arrant moron, and while hardly an idiot,
Clinton -- whose penchant for bombing countries in violation of international
law was matched only by his penchant for smoking cigars that may have had
one or two pubic hairs still clinging to them -- was also an asshole, though
a charming, Oxford-educated one. How can a system that allows idiots and
assholes to make life and death decisions over the lives of numberless
human beings not be flawed? Indeed, how can a system that allows people
of impeccable character and outstanding intelligence make life and death
decisions over the lives of numberless human beings not be flawed? That
being the case, how does rolling the dice one more time make things better?
I'd say the problem isn't Bush, because the policies he's pursued --
at least the ends to which the policies are directed -- are not Bush's
alone. Sure enough, he, and his cabinet and advisors, craft the way the
ends will be pursued, and in that sense the policies bear his, and his
advisors', signatures, but the goal of organizing policy in the interests
of corporate America is one every president has been attached to, and,
I dare say, must be attached to, if his life in the White House is to be
free from the kinds of violent tremors that recently shook Eduard Shevardnadze
-- an object lesson in the dangers of refusing to dance with the
one who brought you to the ball -- from his pedestal.
There's much that's unclear about the events surrounding Shevardnadze's
ouster as president of Georgia, but it seems fairly clear that the ex-Communist
who'd become the darling of free enterprisers wasn't swept from power by
a popular revolt, but by a carefully staged putsch, engineered by his former
backers.
Three years ago the former Communist Party bigwig was feted by Clinton
as a leader who "had taken to democracy with the zeal of a convert," and
"stayed the course when the price was high,'' despite having presided over
electoral abuses for years [1]. For his devotion to democracy, Shevardnadze
received the W. Averill Harriman Democracy Award from the US National
Democratic Institute, part of the notorious National Endowment for Democracy,
a US government funded organization whose professed aim is to teach the
world the ABC's of democracy (this from a country whose president had fewer
votes than his rival), but which, in more sober language, does what the
CIA used to do covertly [2] -- get people elected overseas who are on corporate
America's side. In recent days, Shevardnadze, who'd taken to democracy
and rigging elections with equal zeal, lamented that there had been too
much democracy in Georgia.
In fact, there had been, and remains, very little democracy in the former
Soviet republic. Shevardnadze was able to sit pretty so long as he made
the right noises about joining NATO, set the stage for the US electricity
firm AEL to make huge profits, and provided security guarantees for an
American-backed pipeline that would compete against a Russian rival. And
this he did, presiding over one flawed election after another, while Georgia
rapidly returned to the Third World, as all other former Soviet republics
have, ever since it was decided Communism had failed, and a good dose of
capitalism would clear the cob webs away. So much for theory. According
to the UN, 54 nations are poorer today that they were in 1990, 17 of which
are Eastern European and former Soviet republics. [3]
"The economy is in free-fall as factories and enterprises have long
shut down. An energy crisis means vast swathes of the country are cut off
from heat and light throughout the winter months. By the side of the main
Tbilisi-Batumi highway there is evidence of the wholesale destruction of
orchards and woods, cut down to provide fuel for local inhabitants. Running
water is an intermittent luxury, even in the cities...Meanwhile, people
gather in the lobby of parliament begging for help in a scene reminiscent
of the middle ages when the King was petitioned to cure the suffering from
scrofula." [4]
These days, Georgia's economic collapse is attributed to mismanagement
and corruption, but if mismanagement and corruption are to blame, how is
it that growing poverty -- it has tripled in the region since 1990 [5]
-- is widespread throughout the newly "democratized" and "economically
reformed" countries of the former Eastern Bloc? Is mismanagement and corruption
as much a part of economic reform as bullshit is part of every Fox newscast?
And why is it that we heard nothing of mismanagement and corruption
when Shevardnadze was the West's golden boy, picking up prizes for his
zealous dedication to democracy? The descent into poverty hasn't happened
between Shevardnadze's elevation to champion of democracy by Clinton and
his ouster last month. No, the pauperization of the Georgian people began
earlier than that, back when the West was still smitten.
Indeed, all was fine until the Georgian debutante started to fall under
the spell of another suitor -- corporate Russia. Corporate America had
brought him to the dance, but he began to wonder whether corporate Russia
might have a little more to offer. And so he inched, little by little,
toward Russia, and grew more and more estranged from the US. His enthusiasm
for joining NATO dampened, and he started to make noises about neutrality.
His kindness to AEL faltered, turning, in the end, to outright hostility,
as the company, unable to make the kinds of profits it expected to make,
pulled out, making way for a Russian rival. And then he signed a deal with
the Russian natural gas giant, Gazprom, sparking a controversy over a pipeline
Washington is banking on, that sent US Ambassador Steven Mann, Bush's point
man on fixing things right for corporate American in the oil-rich Caspian
basin, hurrying to Tbilisi, with a warning: Don't "do anything that
undercuts the powerful promise of an East-West energy corridor." [6]
Shevardnadze's dalliances with corporate Russia were an invitation to
be overthrown. And sweeping the former golden boy aside wouldn't prove
to be too difficult. The infrastructure was already in place. US billionaire
George Soros was backing the anti-Shevardnadze opposition, including a
television station, Rustavi 2, the anti-Shevardnadze newspaper, 24 Hours,
and a student direct action group, Kmara! (Enough!), modelled on Yugoslavia's
Otpor (Resistance), also bankrolled by Soros [7]. Plus, a successor had
already been anointed: US-trained lawyer, Mikhail Saakashvili, zealously
pro-US, whose glitzy biography, paid for by the US government, could be
bought in Tbilisi bookstores, bursting with photographs of the rising Georgian
star with the US political elite: George Soros, John McCain (who Saakashvili
says he's closest to politically), Edward Kennedy, Attorney-General John
Ashcroft, and FBI Director Louis Freeh [8]. What's more, the great man
himself, Soros, had personally conferred the Open Society award, named
after his Open Society Institute, on Saakashvili [9].
In fact, Soros did more than put up the cash to fund the infrastructure
that would chase Shevardnadze from power. He set the stage. Last year,
he told a Moscow news conference that Shevardnadze couldn't be trusted
to hold free and fair parliamentary elections in 2003, [10] which was true
enough. Georgia had never had elections that weren't flawed, so why start
now? The question was, why hadn't Soros said anything before?
Going further, Soros issued a warning. He said he'd "mobilize civil
society" to do "what we did...in Yugoslavia at the time of Milosevic."
[11] And true to his word, events pretty well followed the path they had
in October 2000, when Milosevic was forced to step down. And they'll follow
the same path they did after October, 2000, as well.
After Milosevic's ouster, it was generally agreed in the Panglossian
fashion that makes everyone feel better about an outrage committed by our
side, that in the end, Yugoslavs would probably be better off without Milosevic.
You could quibble about outside interference in Yugolsav politics, but
on balance, the scales had tipped in the right direction. In this vein,
Canada's establishment newspaper, The Globe and Mail, grudgingly admitted
that "it would be naive to assume that geopolitics played no part at all"
in Shevardnadze's fall from power, but that "whatever the forces that led
to his ouster, Georgians are better off without him." [12]
Why should we suppose this? Milosevic's successors in Yugoslavia have
hardly been more democratic, and economically, their reform policies have
been a disaster, as they've been for ordinary people everywhere. Life is
only better for Serbs in a negative sense. Quislings aren't bombed and
slapped with sanctions, so now Serbs can get fuel oil to heat their homes
in the winter and go about their daily business, free from worry they'll
become one of the tens of thousands of cases of "collateral damage" the
US military has a habit of producing that US politicians keep deeply regretting.
As for Shevardnadze, it's true enough that he offered nothing to ordinary
Georgians, but why should anyone think that Shevardnadze's presumed successor,
Saakashvili, will offer Georgians relief from grinding poverty, freedom
from being exploited by corporate interests, or will wrest the political
system from the hands of US-funded NGO's and George Soros and put it into
the hands of Georgians, where it belongs? He's backed by the same forces
that originally backed Shevardnadze, he's committed to the same policies
of "economic reform" that plunged Georgia into the depths of poverty, and
he's only different in pledging his heart exclusively to corporate America,
and to his patron George Soros. A velvet revolution? There has been no
revolution. All that's happened is that head office has fired the old branch
manager and replaced him with a new one who's just as keen to see to it
that the employees get screwed.
Which brings me back to Bush. It's true enough he's offered nothing
to ordinary Americans, but why should anyone think that a Democrat successor
(if, indeed, there is one) will offer Americans freedom from being exploited
by corporate interests, or will wrest the political system from the hands
of corporate America and put it into the hands of Americans, where it belongs?
A Democrat will be backed by the same forces that backed Bush, will be
committed to the same pro-corporate policies, and will only be different
in pledging his heart to George Soros, who's spending liberally on Democrat
candidates because he wants Bush out. All that will happen is that the
old manager will have been replaced by a new one who's just as keen to
see to it that the employees get screwed. Different head, same dick.
1. British Helsinki Human Rights Group, "Georgia 2001, Twilight of Shevardnadze
Era: A New Beginning or Rejuvenation of the Regime," November 25, 2001.
http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?ReportID=56&CountryID=10
2. Blum, William, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower,
Common Courage Press, 2000.
3. "UN report says one billion suffer extreme poverty," World Socialist
Web Site, July 28, 2003.
4. Georgia 2001
5. UN report says
6. "Politics, pipelines converge in Georgia," The Globe and Mail, November
24, 2003.
7. "Georgia revolt carried mark of Soros," The Globe and Mail, November
26, 2003.
8. Georgia 2001
9. Politics, pipelines
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. "Ousting Shevardnadze," The Globe and Mail, November 25, 2003.
...
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