This article, one of thebest short analyses of the Bush administration's policies, was written for "Vorwarts," the official magazine of the German Social Democratic Party.
In the Western democracies in the last fifty years, we have grown accustomed to governments whose policies on specific issues may be good or bad, but which essentially institute incremental changes to the status quo. The major exceptions have been Thatcher and Reagan, but even their programs of dismantling systems of social welfare seem, in retrospect, mild compared to what is happening in the United States under George Bush-- or more exactly, the ruling junta that tells Bush what to do and say.
It is unquestionably the most radical government in modern American history, one whose ideology and actions have become so pervasive, and are so unquestionably mirrored by the mass media here, that the population seems to have forgotten what "normal" is.
George Bush is the first unelected President of the United States, installed by a right-wing Supreme Court in a kind of judicial coup d'etat. He is the first to actively subvert one of the pillars of American democracy: the separation of church and state. There are now daily prayer meetings and Bible study groups in every branch of the government, and religious organizations are being given funds to take over educational and welfare programs that have always been the domain of the state.
Bush is the first president to invoke the specific "Jesus Christ" rather than an ecumenical "God," and he has surrounded himself with evangelical Christians, including his Attorney General, who attends a church where he talks in tongues.
Perhaps it cannot be stopped, but the first step toward slowing it down is the recognition that this is an American government unlike any other in this country's history, and one for whom democracy is an obstacle.
"Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."
Pablo Picasso
VERY VERY LIBERAL WORKS of ART
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