Reaction to the Death of George H.W. Bush

     George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, passed away on November 30th, 2018. I wrote the following as a response to his death, and as a reaction to the media's fond remembrance of him (too fond, if you ask me):

     I was pleased to discover recently that in the 1980 Republican presidential debate, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both expressed pro-immigration sentiments. But while it's true that George H.W. Bush was more pro-immigration than Donald Trump is - and more pro-immigration than most Republicans today - that fact alone doesn't make him a good person.

     Bush led the C.I.A. before becoming president, for a year in 1976-1977. He was president during the Noriega fiasco in Panama (in which both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. funded Noriega), and during the Gulf War (the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf, to defend Kuwait from Saddam Hussein).

     Bush started sanctions of Iraq that eventually resulted in the starvation deaths of half a million people (with the assistance of Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright, who continued them). Some politicians today, namely Rand Paul, say that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein than it was under and after American occupation. I believe that is an accurate assessment.

     Not only did Bush get America involved in foreign conflicts unnecessarily, he may have covertly killed several beloved public figures. Bush may have been in Dallas on the day JFK was killed. A George Bush worked at the CIA at that time, but Bush Sr. claims that it wasn't him. Some believe Bush had a very direct role in planning and executing Kennedy's death.

     In addition to Kennedy's death, Bush was probably involved in the Reagan assassination attempt. Bush arguably had the most to gain from an assassination of Reagan. Not only that, but the Bushes were friends with Reagan's shooter's brother and father. The father was John Hinckley, Sr., head of Vanderbilt Steel.

     Additionally, Bush's C.I.A. might have even hired John Lennon's shooter (Mark David Chapman, a former Marine stationed in Arkansas and Indochina) and paid the doorman at the Dakota building that night (a Cuban dissident named Jose Perdomo).

     Perhaps most worrisome of all, Bush was a member of a Skull and Bones lodge, the Yale secret society that has roots in the 17th century opium and slave trades. He reputedly received a nickname from Skull and Bones for being its most sexually experienced member.

     And who could forget, Bush Sr's father Prescott Bush managed the American accounts of Fritz Thyssen, the steel and rubber magnate whose slave labor camps eventually became death camps.

     Prescott Bush fed, clothed, and sheltered his whole family with the money that the U.S. government let him keep after Brown Brothers Harriman was convicted of violating the Trading with the Enemy Act by trading with Nazi affiliated companies.

     The whole Bush family are Nazi war profiteers, including George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, and the rest of them. The family might not have survived if it weren't for the U.S. government allowing them to keep their Nazi war profits.

     George H.W. Bush spent his last moments telling his son George W. Bush that he loved him. Anyone who loves George W. Bush - who continued his father's war, which led to the deaths of millions more, and the birth of mutated babies due to depleted uranium use in Fallujah - is not worth admiring.

     Not only am I glad that Bush is dead, he is one of a small group of people whose eventual deaths I can honestly say I've been cheerfully anticipating for several years. No amount of charity, friendship with Democrats, or love of his own family or love of people from Mexico, could convince me that he is worthy of admiration or even fond remembrances.

     Good riddance.

Post-Script:

     For an explanation of my claims about Bush's possible involvement in the deaths of John F. Kennedy and John Lennon, and the shooting of Ronald Reagan, please read my March 2012 article "Bush Family, World Vision Behind JFK, Lennon, Reagan Shootings" at the following address:

     http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/03/bush-family-world-vision-behind-jfk.html


    To read about Prescott Bush's link to Nazi war profiteers, read the following article from the Guardian:
     http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar


     Click this link to watch Bush and Reagan discuss immigration:
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok




Second Post-Script:

     I would have also wished to mention Bush's involvement in the C.I.A.'s funneling of drugs into inner cities, his role in covering-up and ignoring the H.I.V./A.I.D.S. crisis, the "Highway of Death" during the Persian Gulf War, and Bush's possible involvement in the trafficking of prostitutes and the Franklin cover-up.
     It would have been difficult to name all of Bush's major crimes against humanity on the first try. I regret neglecting to mention them, and I encourage my readers to do their own research about those topics.

Reaction, Introduction, and Post-Script Written on December 1st, 2018
Second Post-Script Written and Published on December 4th, 2018

Edited on December 1st, 2018

Originally Published on December 1st, 2018

Comments on the Obama-Trump Transition

Written on January 8^th, 11^th through 13^th, and 17^th and 18th, 2017

 

 

 

            On the evening of January 10^th, 2017 - the same night that Obama gave his farewell address from McCormick Place in Chicago - I attended a Steve Earle concert elsewhere in the same city.

Guitarist and vocalist Earle told the audience that he was sad to see Obama go. Earle dedicated a song to Obama, said "I don't mind the drones", and added that he thinks Hillary Clinton is smart.

I've never seen so many people pat themselves on the back for helping to elect "the first black president" as I did last night. Do they do that all the time? Have they ever stopped to consider that to call a mixed-race person "black" - when he does have white heritage - could be perceived as labeling Obama a non-white "other"?

 

            On the way out of Earle's show, I heard someone who attended the concert tell his friend that Obama dropped 26,000 bombs within some time frame or another. Remember, Barack Obama renewed the same kind of steadily increasing Israeli aid package that George W. Bush signed, expanded troop presence in 40 countries in Africa, and failed to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

            As confident as I am that Trump will destroy the lives of Palestinians (and undocumented immigrants) more than President Obama has, I'm still not sad to see Obama go. Obama's true legacy will be remembered as electing Trump, and making him look good by comparison; just as Hillary Clinton's legacy is making Nixon look good by comparison.

Obama was able to replace U.S. soldiers in Iraq with mercenaries (also called private security contractors), as well as with U.S. soldiers working for private security contracting firms. This allowed liberal media to skew the numbers about U.S. troop levels in Iraq, because the number of U.S. soldiers had technically drastically declined, while the level of total Western security agents remained more numerous than the public was aware several years into the Obama Administration.

Additionally, failed to close Guantanamo like he pledged, failed to reverse the growth of executive power and reverse the damage done to due process in the wake of 9/11. Obama didn't reverse the attack on civil liberties as he promised; he continued to detain alleged enemy combatants who were found not guilty, and his orders resulted in the deaths of American citizens abroad - adult and of minor age alike - without charges and without due process.

Barack Obama's drone strike orders have resulted in the deaths of children; in Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries. During the Obama Administration, military experts complained about the high number of civilian casualties the military was prepared to risk in order to take out medium-value targets.

 

Trump says he likes Obama, although they have some disagreements. On the health policy front, Trump has said that he wants universal health care. But he has also stated that he wants to get rid of the lines around the states, that make it impossible for people to purchase health insurance policies across state lines, even when those policies comply with the regulations of the state of the policy buyer's residence. Trump has also said that he wants to keep the provision of Obamacare that prohibits insurance companies from denying people based on pre-existing conditions.

To recap, Trump has stated a desire for universal health care, said Big Pharma is "getting away with murder", and wants to keep the Pre-Existing Conditions provision. This is not a right-wing position on health insurance; it is a welfare-warfare-statist one. So, people with pre-existing conditions, despite my objections to Trump's and Obama's shared position on this, have no fear about being denied coverage.

But to those of you who support Obama more than Trump on health: are you going to attribute every treatment you receive over the next four years to Donald Trump, the same way you did with Obama? You've heard that Trump might just keep most of Obamacare but change it slightly and call it Trumpcare, right? Obama isn't Imhotep (the Egyptian god of medicine), and Trump isn't either. Appreciate the doctors who help you; not the politicians who say they want to help you but can do nothing but get in the way.

Obamacare did as much to hurt health insurance companies and young insurance subscribers as it did to help them. It bound all citizens together into territorially determined health insurance pools, and makes a mockery of what the federal role ought to be in ensuring that free enterprise in the medical industries survives.

I don't drink alcohol, and yet I have to be in the same health insurance pool as people who drink alcohol. I have to pay for retirees and seniors who drink, to stay alive on Medicare and Social Security, while I probably won't get mine. I have to work to pay for them to live forever, when I can't even manage to convince them that living forever will soon be medically possible. So as a result, they're demanding to live forever, while insisting on living as if they're dying.

They consume diet sodas and artificial sweeteners, and sulfites in cheap subsidized pork and in wines. They drive drunk on the nice, smooth roads we have - that the alcohol sales taxes probably pay for - putting myself, themselves, and their loved ones and neighbors in danger in the process. They get to live irresponsibly, while my generation gets stuck with the bill, deprived of our entitlements, payment still forced on those who don't even want those benefits, while the Baby Boomers deride Millennials as lazy and entitled.

I did not give Baby Boomers heart disease and cancer; their ignorance and naïveté about F.D.A. standards is their own fault. They ignore what our generation has to say about food safety, they rub elbows with well-paid yes-men who tell managers who poison our foods, and they have difficulty conceiving of the way future technologies will affect the economy and regulations. I already have to listen to them give me unsolicited advice that only made sense in 1979; I shouldn't have to help take care of them.

But that's not to say I don't want to be in the same insurance pool as people with pre-existing conditions; I do, I just want to be in the same pool as sick people whom I know and trust, not people who live thousands of miles away from me, whom I will never meet.

 

I won't miss Obama, and you shouldn't either. When politicians can sweep future expenses under the rug, and delay payments to our creditors, the deficit will look smaller. All the statistics about Obama improving the budget deficit and the employment rate are deliberately distorted, and the importance of the strength of the Dow Jones to the needs of average Americans is overblown. If you don't know what Major Fiscal Exposure is – or don't know the difference between unemployment and non-employment, and how they're measured - then you've been deceived.

Labor force participation and home ownership are down since 2009, and although the deficit is the lowest it's been under Obama, it's higher than it was under Bush in 2008, and the national debt is higher than ever (having almost doubled since Obama entered office).

The dichotomy used to characterize the Obama-Trump transition has been overblown. Trump is not far-right; and Obama is not far-left. Neither of them offer a perfect world, nor anything close to it; they each only offer trade-offs. The best that either of them can do is move their food around their plate; shuffle our nation's problems around, so that the set of problems becomes 50% different every four years.

I gave Obama a chance, he failed to live up to his promises, so I won't miss him. I'll give Trump a chance, most of his promises are ridiculous so I don't care whether he lives up to his promises, he'll solve a few problems but start a whole bunch of new ones, and I won't miss him when he goes either. So I say good riddance to Barack Obama, and "don't let Mrs. o'Leary's cow set you on fire on your way out of the city".

 

It's the new year, and we have a new president. That's not to say that we're obligated to give Trump a chance, nor are we obligated to obey his orders; I will never stop believing in the rights of non-violent resistance and conscientious objection.

What we do have an obligation to do, is to be intellectually honest and responsible with the information we take in and put out. Regardless of our political affiliation, each of us has a responsibility to one another to say what we think, and to use science and research to back it up. We should also make it clear when we're only speculating about something, versus whether our conclusions are based on said research. We must also remember that we're not responsible for what other people do, based on what we state might be true (unless we intend to incite a riot with our speech).

It's time to stop mincing words. It's time to stop blowing racist dog-whistles, and stop virtue-signaling. You can't emote your way out of a rational political discussion; nor use fear about racism and xenophobia to manipulate people, without offering substantial evidence thereof.

Trump's interactions with the media, and comments on political correctness - in addition to the rising tide of throngs of students pulling fire alarms and blocking entrances to ensure that other students can't attend conferences by persons criticizing immigration or the transgender community - mean that we simply can't do that anymore. It's dishonest, it only shows that you've stooped to the level of your political rivals, and it only opens you up to criticism, which will enhance the feeling of victimization which you would not have if you bothered to do some research.

 

It is no better to be ashamed of your race (or ethnicity) for bad things that other people did, than it is to be proud of your race for the good things that other people belonging to your race did. To say otherwise is to hold millions (or billions) of people collectively guilty, or collectively responsible.

We must remember that not every action called "a terrorist attack" by media are terrorist attacks. Nor is burning down a Holocaust museum "an act of free speech". We should look at recent terror attacks, but also some historical atrocities, as crimes; committed by particular individual persons, against particular individual persons, sometimes with hatred or racism as a motivator, sometimes not.

 

We must be intellectually honest with one another. We must not shy away from using certain words that we feel are appropriate, simply because some people out there would like to intimidate us into not using them, or into using different words.

Being privileged is not bad; everybody should have privilege. It's being spoiled - and having unequal privilege (especially when the privilege is institutional, and not meritocratic) that's the problem. We must stop calling for privileged white kids to be punished more, simply because non-white, non-privileged kids are punished so harshly. Especially if it's a victimless crime, like non-violent possession and trade of illicit drugs.

As a way to diminish the disparity in sentencing across race, Barack Obama pledged to make powder cocaine and crack cocaine offenses equally punishable. He did so, not by decreasing punishments for crack cocaine, but by increasing penalties for powder cocaine. This accomplishes nothing, aside from teaching non-violent offenders how to become violent people in order to survive in prison.

Additionally, please stop saying "mansplaining" when you mean to say "condescension". There is no need to bring someone's sex into it, when you intend to call them out for being disrespectful, because they're explaining something as if the person they're talking to is stupid. Men do that, women do that. Using the word "mansplaining" is sexist. Sorry if I'm mansplaining.

Lastly, as I explained above, don't let anyone tell you which words to use, and which words not to use; including myself. Say "mansplaining" and "privileged" all you want, just don't expect me to take you as seriously as I would someone whose diction makes sense.

I guess this has just been my little way of saying "Happy New Year".
Lastly: please quit wearing shit on your lapels. I don't need to send a visible virtue-signal to prove that I'm easy to talk to. Every time I hear people bickering about whether Obama is wearing his American flag pin, or see people wearing safety pins, all I can think about is Nazi armbands and yellow stars of David. Remember, the Jews in Germany wore those stars willingly, because they chose to see being compelled to wear them as honorific. Check out a little movie from 1981 called The Wave.
I close with the immortal words of Huey Freeman (a character on Aaron McGruder's animated show The Boondocks), who said, "Act like you've got some goddamn sense, people!"

Sanders's Foreign Policy Silence Hides Abysmal Record

Written on February 26^th, 2016

Edited on February 28^th, 2016

Thanks to Arthur Alves

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Iraq and Afghanistan

3. Elsewhere in the Middle East

4. Eastern Europe and Africa

5. National Defense and Other Issues

6. Monetary Policy

7. Conclusion

Content

1. Introduction

            Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who describes himself as a democratic socialist, voted against invading Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Sanders calls the second war in Iraq a “disaster” which led to widespread “instability”, and says that he “strongly opposed” the 2003 invasion.

Sanders has criticized C.I.A.-backed coups of democratically elected governments, such as those in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. He has also called for shutting down the Guantánamo Bay prison facility on U.S. soil on the island of Cuba. Sanders also says that war and force should be the last resorts that the United States uses, rather than the first resorts.

However, the senator’s voting record on U.S. military interventions does not reflect that statement. But Sanders has been able to hide that fact thus far, as foreign policy is not as frequent a topic at his campaign events, as is his domestic policy.

2. Iraq and Afghanistan

Although Sanders voted against authorizing Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, later that year he supported a resolution expressing appreciation for George W. Bush’s actions in that war. Sanders has recently called for withdrawing troops from Iraq as soon as possible; however, in 2003, he opposed an immediate withdrawal, supporting a gradual withdrawal instead. Additionally, Sanders voted to fund U.S. operations in Iraq, although he voted against bills funding that war more often than he voted for them.

Not only that; Sanders supported the use of sanctions against Iraq during George H. W. Bush’s presidency, which led to the death of about half a million Iraqis. Sanders also supported the bombing of Baghdad in 1998 under Bill Clinton, supporting the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998; and twice in 1998 he supported resolutions expressing the sentiments that the regime of Saddam Hussein ought to be removed, and replaced with a democratically elected government.

Sanders supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and voted to fund U.S. operations there. In October 2015, Sanders said he supported Barack Obama’s decision to keep troops there past Obama’s exit from office.

3. Elsewhere in the Middle East

            In 1996, Sanders supported a bill calling for sanctions against Iran and Libya. In 2011, he voted for, and co-sponsored, a resolution that called for the Qadhafi regime in Libya to be ended, and called for the United Nations to intervene. Sanders also favors re-imposing sanctions upon Iran if it violates the 2015 nuclear deal that he supported.

            Sanders supported cooperation between the U.S. and the State of Israel on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which cost taxpayers about half a trillion dollars. In 2014, he told a Vermont audience to “shut up” when members interrupted him to argue that the Palestinians have a right to resist the Israeli occupation. In 2014, Sanders voted – along with Democratic senators Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren – to support the State of Israel after its attack on, and subsequent invasion of, the Gaza Strip.

            In the last several years, Sanders has opposed creating a no-fly zone in Syria, and voted against arming rebels in that country. However, he has also supported removing Bashar al-Assad, whom he calls a “dictator”, and supports Obama’s efforts to combat I.S.I.S. in Syria. Sanders has also called for the U.S. and the international community to support a coalition of Muslim nations to go after I.S.I.S., including Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, which he says needs to get more involved in the fight against I.S.I.S. and terrorists in Yemen.

4. Eastern Europe and Africa

            Between 1998 and 1999, Sanders called Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic a “war criminal”, and called for a humanitarian action to take place in Serbia. Although Sanders voted to oppose the invasion of Kosovo, he supported N.A.T.O. bombings of military targets there, which lasted 78 days. Sanders also supported interventions in Bosnia and Albania.

            Although Sanders has opposed sending weapons to the government which took control of the Ukraine in a coup, he says the U.S. must confront Vladimir Putin over Russia’s involvement there. Sanders supported sending $1 billion in aid to the Ukraine’s new government, and he supports using sanctions against Russia, and the freezing of Russian assets.

            In 1993, Sanders supported the U.S. intervention in Somalia. It has been reported that Sanders also supported interventions in Sudan, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaïre), although this information is difficult to find. Sanders also may have voted to support intervention in Haiti.

5. National Defense and Other Issues

            Sanders has stated that many of his votes supporting these military interventions were cast because the passage of the resolutions was unanimous and virtually inevitable, although that is not accurate in all cases.

            Also, Sanders said recently that he supports the use of drones in warfare, and would use them to fight terrorists. In 2006, he opposed impeaching George W. Bush, saying that to do such a thing would be “impractical”.

Although Sanders has opposed most of the National Defense Authorization Acts (N.D.A.A.s) since 1996, he supported the N.D.A.A.s for 2011 and 2013, which opponents criticized on Fourth Amendment grounds. Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky, expressed such concerns, but voted for the 2013 N.D.A.A. after amending some of the language in the bill which he felt threatened civil liberties and inappropriately extended executive power.

Additionally – although he has denounced mass incarceration, and denounced the War on Drugs, as well as other policies which have disproportionately affected minorities – Sanders voted to support the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, and the Omnibus Crime Bill of 1994. Sanders criticized the former, but voted for it.

6. Monetary Policy

Additionally, in 2015, Sanders introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which proposed an audit of the Federal Reserve System. Critics called it a watered-down version of the Audit the Fed bill which Texas Congressman Ron Paul had supported while serving in the House of Representatives.

Sanders’s bill would have reduced Paul’s plans for a full audit, to a one-time audit of the emergency actions taken by the Federal Reserve in 2008. The bill would have exempted the Fed’s agreements with other nations’ central banks from an audit by the General Accountability Office. The bill would have additionally exempted audits of decisions on monetary policy, and audits of discount window operations; operations which allow institutions to borrow money from central banks on short-term bases in order to meet temporary liquidity shortages caused by disruptions.

In 2016, Sanders voted to support Rand Paul’s Audit the Fed bill. Neither Sanders’s 2015 bill, nor the younger Paul’s 2016 bill, nor any of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bills, ultimately passed.

7. Conclusion

            Republican candidate Donald Trump’s bloviating xenophobia, belligerence, unpredictability, and braggadocious macho bravado, seem to provide American nationalists with everything they want in a candidate for commander-in-chief; namely, the ability to stare-down foreign world leaders. However, these traits – in addition to Trump’s calls for increasing the harshness of our military’s torturous interrogations – are not what is needed, if the U.S. is to engage in serious, level-headed diplomacy, giving the country a solid foundation of respect for human rights and civil liberties, from which to criticize and urge change of totalitarian regimes.

            Neither does the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidency bode well for the level of respect and trust of the U.S. around the world. Clinton presided as Secretary of State over a scandal in which several of our strongest allies in Europe discovered that the U.S. was spying on their leaders. Nor does the prospect of peace under Clinton’s watch look good, given her flip-flop since supporting George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, her support for invading Afghanistan and bombing Libya, her support for backing rebels in Syria, her close friendship with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, her animosity towards Iran, and her steadfast alliance with political and business leaders in the State of Israel.

            Bernie Sanders has inspired a generation of young voters, and has reinvigorated the anti-war and anti-corporate left, by calling for a “political revolution”, as well as serious reform of Wall Street. Additionally – although critics question whether Sanders can deliver on financing his domestic policy – he has promised the American people plenty. Thus, he seems like the most honest candidate still in the race for the White House.

However, given 1) his agreement with Hillary Clinton on some of these issues; 2) his support for multiple interventions under Bill Clinton; and 3) his poor – and, arguably, calculating, and perhaps even duplicitous – record, supporting bombing, after intervention, after funding, of war after war, since taking office (and increasingly so, as his tenure continues); it appears that not only might Sanders’s domestic policy be fiscally unsound; but also that his foreign policy is only a few shades more pacifist than Clinton’s.

And as difficult and disappointing as it is to say, it just might be that the senator’s record opposing American intervention, aggression, and imperialism, is more bark than bite.