The Bush Power Machine

Confidence in Bush Policies Drops

Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the U.S. mission in Iraq, saying the United States should reduce its spending and scale back its efforts there, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. . . . SIXTY-NINE PERCENT of Americans polled say they are very concerned (40 percent) or somewhat concerned (29 percent) that the United States will be bogged down for many years in Iraq without making much progress in achieving its goals. Just 18 percent say they’re confident that a stable, democratic form of government can take shape in Iraq over the long term; 37 percent are somewhat confident. Just 13 percent say U.S. efforts to establish security and rebuild Iraq have gone very well since May 1, when combat officially ended; 39 percent say somewhat well.
Jennifer Barrett, Newsweek on MSNBC, 8/23803

Political machines in the early twentieth century like Tammany Hall in NY and Richard J. Daley's Chicago a little later were local organizations where political favors and "honest" corruption were well understood and generally accepted as the way of the world.  The machine favored some powerful ethnic and economic powers that returned favors by ensuring the machine's continued power and the prosperity of the machine's leaders.  Common people sometimes received some small favor from the machine and owed allegiance while many others simply accepted the dark side as an acceptable price for a local government that maintained some level of civil order and public services.

George W. Bush is the leader of a similar political machine at a global and imperial scale.  Bush has several favored constituencies and the American public accepts a level of "honest" corruption in order to ensure civil order and American dominance. 

Four Bush Constituencies

1. The Theocrats of the Religious Right – John Ashcroft the administration high priest with support from Rove, Pickering and the hard core born-again crowd have blessed Bush as divine and keep him in line with a dollars and the huge voting block of the committed.

2. The Business Bandits – Led in pure greed by Chaney, Bush Sr., Halliburton and the Carlyle Group, they have provided Bush with the muscle of international cartels and Eisenhower’s feared military-industrial complex to spread corruption in the guise of free enterprise.

3. The Historical Imperialists – Speaking through Yale historian Donald Kagan (“Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century,”  for the Project for the New American Century, September 2000), Rumsfeld, Perl and others provide the somewhat easily impressed Bush with the grand vision based on the inevitable course of history.

4. The Media Moguls – From the entrenched political machine of the Republican Party has come the awesome power of the Great Communicator linked to control of the FCC and with friends at Fox News and talk radio there is near continuous repitition of the administration's simple but not so true, slogans such “No Child Left Behind,” “WMDs, ”tax cuts for everyone,” etc.) and patriotism. 

Together, these four groups are moving our democracy toward empire.

For a graphical view of the constituencies click HERE.