[Nettime-bold] Bush, China, and The Left....

[Stefan Wray <swray@io.com>]

Bush, China, and The Left....
by Stefan Wray

Damn... Time flies when youıre not having fun with Bush as the assumed
president. Itıs about 6 months since the ill-fated 2000 presidential
election of last November. And the grim reality of George W. Bush as leader
of the so-called free world is starting to set in. The pre-Dubya world
begins to become a fuzzy memory.

I remember a big rally in Austin when Ralph Nader came to town last fall.
People packed a big public meeting hall. Lots of people. Even if youıre an
anarchist and donıt vote, there was something in the air. An excitement.
There was the smell of change. The anticipation of something different. Sure
we knew Nader had no shot at it. But just the fact that he was able to gain
so much attention - if not in the end many votes - meant something.

Now. That sense of anticipation has changed to dread. The monstrosity that
we imagined Bush to be has started to come to life. (Yes. I know. Itıs not
really Bush, but Cheney, Powell, and the whatıs-his-face defense secretary
that are running the show).

Just in the period of a few weeks, a bunch of seemingly unrelated incidents,
proclamations and policy moves splashed out of Washington onto our TV
screens and newspapersı pages.

Clashes with China. A new list of terrorist rogue state threats. A new
defense strategy that says ³fuck you² to earlier nuclear weapons treaties.
An energy policy based on continued greed that belittles conservation and
pumps up the value of nukes. (And on less of a national scale, a nuke waste
dump sails through the Texas senate.)

What does it all spell? Bush wants to drag us into a new Cold War with
China, and at the same time use the threat of nuclear terror from ³rogue²
states internationally and the energy crisis domestically, to reinvigorate
the nuclear-defense industry - a Star Wars-like defense system and more
nuclear power plants.

Talk about Deja Vu... Reminds me of the early days of Reagan. Itıs as if
Georgy Boy wants to come in and pick up where Reagan left off. Weıre
returning to the early 1980s all over again. Kind of makes sense, the people
pulling his strings are all his dadıs pals and surely old friends of brain
dead Ron.

But why another Cold War? Because itıs an easy game to play. Itıs a game for
half-wits. In the simplistic Cold War world, there are good guys and bad
guys. Itıs the us and them game. Easy to divide up the world that way rather
than deal with subtle shades of gray and complexity.

Who wins in Bushıs New World Order Revisited? Defense contractors. Nuclear
contractors. All kinds of big cash cows that suck millions of dollars of tax
payers money. Who loses? Just about everyone else.

And where is the Left in all of this? Well, since Iım rather isolated from
the Left on a national level here in this little bubble of Austin, Texas, I
can only comment on the Left in Austin.

I guess first we need to define the Left. I say Left for lack of a better
term and because it has generally been used as a term historically to define
people to the left of the political spectrum. I donıt really like the term
anymore. Anyway...

Iım talking about all the various groups that periodically come together to
try to make some positive change here in Austin and in the rest of the
world. Campus groups like the Radical Action Network, Accion Zapatista, or
the ISO. Community groups like PODER, the Green Party, the Campaign To End
The Death Penalty. And coalitions like the Austin Peace and Justice
Coalition and the relatively newly formed Democracy Coalition, that
explicitly formed to fight Bushıs agenda.

Granted, the Democracy Coalition organized a decent-sized protest when Bush
was inaugurated on January 20, hosted a teach-in on resisting Bushıs agenda,
and more recently put together events around the FTAA - which only covers
one aspect of the Bushıs corporate world.

But overall something is lacking. There is not a sense of crisis and
urgency. I donıt see groups marshalling forces and resources to confront,
both intellectually and organizationally, the new Cold War rhetoric spewing
forth. Iıve not heard of any forums or public discussions about the current
U.S.-China wrangling. I donıt see any mention of it among the rather thin
content passing by on some of Austinıs progressive listservs. Simply, I am
not seeing signs of discontent about Bushıs foreign policy fiascos waiting
to happen. And this worries me.

Itıs a speed thing. Bush and his entourage have an incredible machine that
can continually and rapidly manifest shifts and changes in course. We have
no machine. We are slow and laborious to react. Weıre still dealing with the
mess that Bushıs father created. Not to diminish the importance of the End
The Sanctions on Iraq movement, but this effort is based on incidents that
began over 10 years ago.

Itıs painful to think about how swiftly big government is impacting history
and how slowly we move to position ourselves.

What should we do? Thatıs always the question, isnıt it? First start with
what we can do. And clearly one thing we can do is to talk about what is
happening NOW. And then figuring out what might be an appropriate course of
action.

But to undertake this first step, to inspire the conversation, to get a
dialogue going requires leadership. It requires inspired intervention. And
Iım not sure where that is coming from. I donıt see anyone spitting mad
about Bushıs new Cold War rhetoric. No one is on fire yet.

The dry tinder is there. Branches have been falling from the trees. It
wouldnıt take much of a flame to spark a roaring blaze.

One thing we can do as Texans (ha, Iım no Texan but for media purposes we
are all Texans, right?) is to publicly and globally denounce Bushıs China
policies and his other heinous foreign policy measures. We could place a
full-page ad in the New York Times completely distancing ourselves from
Bushıs agenda signed by people from Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio.

In such an ad we could: 1) affirm that his presidency is illegitimate; 2)
declare that he does not represent the people of the United States in any of
his foreign policy ventures; 3) apologize profusely to the rest of the world
for his existence and our inability to stop him from taking control; 4) urge
the rest of the world community not to take anything he does or says
seriously; 5) pledge to work with people in other countries, whenever
possible, to undermine his administrationsı authority.

This is just one idea for a course of action. It may not be the best. If
anyone has a better one, please put it forward.

We are only beginning to feel the impact of Bushıs presidency. We best brace
ourselves for a long 4 years. And we best be prepared to act swiftly lest we
be left wiping the trail of dust out of our eyes, wondering what happened.


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