Juan Cole: Top Ten Worst Things about the Bush Decade; Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs

[laststeamtrain]

Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Top Ten Worst Things about the Bush Decade;
Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs

By spring of 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president, and he went on to dominate the rest of the decade. If Dickens proclaimed of the 1790s revolutionary era in France that it was the best of times and the worst of times, the reactionary Bush era was just the worst of times. I declare it the decade of the American oligarchs. Just as the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed the emergence of a class of lawless 'Oligarchs' in Russia, so Neoliberal tax policies and deregulation produced American equivalents. (For more on the analogy, see Michael Hudson.) We have always had robber barons in American politics, but the Neoliberal moment created a new social class. At about 1.3 million adults, it is not too large to have some cohesive interests, and its corporations, lobbyists, and other institutions allow it to intervene systematically in politics. It owns 45 percent of the privately held wealth and is heading toward 50, i.e. toward a Banana Republic. Thus, we have a gutted fairness doctrine and the end of anti-trust concerns in ownership of mass media, allowing a multi-billionaire like Rupert Murdoch to buy up major media properties and to establish a cable television channel which is nothing but oligarch propaganda. They established 'think tanks' like the American Enterprise Institute, which hires only staff that are useful agents of the interests of the very wealthy, and which produce studies denying global climate change or lying about the situation in Iraq. Bush-Cheney were not simply purveyors of wrong-headed ideas. They were the agents of the one percent, and their policies make perfect sense if seen as attempts to advance the interests of this narrow class of persons. It is the class that owns our mass media, that pays for the political campaigns of 'our' (their) representatives, that gives us the Bushes and Cheneys and Palins because they are useful to them, and that blocks progressive reform and legislation with the vast war chest funneled to them by deep tax cuts that allow them to use essential public resources, infrastructure and facilities gratis while making the middle class pay for them.

Here are my picks for the top ten worst things about the wretched period, which, however, will continue to follow us until the economy is re-regulated, anti-trust concerns again pursued, a new, tweaked fairness doctrine is implemented, and we return to a more normal distribution of wealth (surely a quarter of the privately held wealth is enough for the one percent?) It isn't about which party is in power; parties can always be bought. It is about how broadly shared resources are in a society. Egalitarianism is unworkable, but over-concentration of wealth is also impractical. The latter produced a lot of our problems in the past decade, and as long as such massive inequality persists, our politics will be lopsided.

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http://www.juancole.com/2009/12/top-ten-worst-things-about-bush-decade.html

[ixion]

1. don't hold your breath for 'change', Juan

it ain't happenin'.

[swilton]

4. "It isn't about which party is in power;

parties can always be bought."

[mwb970]

2. The malign effects of the bush-cheney debacle will linger for years and years.

I have begun referring to the benighted years 2001-2009 as the Bush Disaster (or just the Disaster) in conversation and in posts I write online. To me, it was just that: an 8-year Disaster of incompetent governance, venal policies, and frightful lies from people who seemed not to care the slightest bit about the welfare of America or its citizens.

Example: What was done about our broken health care system during the Disaster? Nothing at all, of course. They were too busy handing out money to rich people and starting wars for no reason. Why help Americans? Who cares about them?

The Bush Disaster represents the worst period of national politics I have experienced in my 60 years.

[Overseas]

3. K&R. Great column. //nt

[swilton]

5. Only twelve?

[Blue_Tires]

6. One of the biggest things not mentioned is the

fundie, "the-bible-says-it-so-i-believe-it" culture of anti-science and anti-intellectualism...It already existed before, but the Bush era did a LOT to legitimize and mainstream their views...

once upon a time, someone would be ashamed to publicly admit their scientific/cultural ignorance about cut-and-dried issues like homosexuality, HIV, climate change, evolution, foreign cultures and religions, ethnicity, etc... Now they are not only proudly proclaiming their far-fetched bullshit, they are actually making 'documentaries' about them!!

[swilton]

8. +1

[swilton]

7. Only ten?

I would add the suspension of international law a la the Geneva Conventions that have yielded such crimes as are occuring at Guantanamo Bay and other prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I would also add that the coup of 2000 as he describes and the individual (through the president's behavior) and collective behavior of the US at home and abroad have reduced the stature of the US to its allies, adversaries and its citizens.