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Nationalism, Islam, Republicanism & Class Warfare

Published: Wed 23 Feb 2005 02:52 PM
Nationalism, Islam, Republicanism and Class Warfare
By Stephen Crockett - co-host of Democratic Talk Radio DemocraticTalkRadio.com
The terrible record of the Bush Administration in the international arena has deep historical roots in the misuse of propaganda by the Bush Republicans in the creation of American public policy. For essentially domestic political and economic reasons, the Republican Party has long advanced the myth that Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union by outspending it using public debt to expand the military-industrial complex. Actually, the Soviet threat was destroyed largely by nationalism instead of capitalism.
The Soviet-American conflict was not really just a clash of economic ideologies as many Republicans contend. The conflict was one between a nation-state (the United States) and an empire largely based on ideology (the Soviet Union). The Soviet Union was almost certain to collapse, like every other multi-national empire in history, because of the internal contradictions and stresses inherent in multi-national empires. The Soviet system was doomed from the day it started by nationalism. It had hundreds of nationalities speaking hundreds of languages held together by a corrupted ideology and force. Truman understood that containing the Soviet threat alone would eventually be sufficient to collapse the Soviet Union. History proved him correct.
Unfortunately, the Republicans had domestic political reasons to convince the American public that American foreign policy and American military spending caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. This myth helped turn Reagan into a hero in American politics despite a domestic record that was largely a failure. Reagan shifted the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle classes. Reagan undermined labor unions and anti-monopoly laws that FDR put in place, during the Great Depression, to fix the damage to the American economy of earlier episodes of rampant Republicanism. Reagan gave us three years of severe recession followed by five years of crazed, excessive government spending on the military-industrial complex financed by debt. These policies were continued by the senior George Bush. Under the current George Bush, these policies have gone to extremes and become a new ideology that completely controls government policy regardless of their real world impact on the American nation or the American public. The overwhelming majority of our national debt time-bomb is the results of political decisions made by Reagan and the two George Bushes!
Republicanism is essentially an ideology of class warfare of the Super Wealthy Bush Class against everyone else. Republicanism has become, since Reagan, an increasingly international ideology to advance the interests and power of the Super Wealthy worldwide. This Super Wealthy international class is best thought of as the Bush Class. It is the real “ownership class” that controls all the major media outlets, the oil companies, the defense contractors and the levers of power around the world. This class owns most of the wealth on the planet.
The Bush Class has used their control of the media to create a so-called “global economy myth” that they declared as inevitable when it really is the result solely of political and policy decisions. International Big Money is financing much of our current national debt and trade deficit. Both the exploding national debt and trade deficit are the direct results of putting Republicanism ahead of American national interests. Patriotism should make curbing both the trade deficit and the national debt the top priorities of the American government. Under the Bush Republicans, American patriotism is being used to sell the American people on a set of public policies that actually are weakening the American nation. Increasingly, international Big Money controls our economy.
The Bush Class does not really believe that the strength of the American nation comes from the middle class and the working class. They believe that the Wall Street CEO class and those living off of massive inherited wealth are those who should determine all public policy in the nation. They are blinded by their Republicanism ideology and selfish greed. Estate tax cuts which real only impact the Super Wealthy get priority over middle class tax cuts and over real earned income!
Republicans spend liberally the taxes and lives of the middle classes and working Americans in Iraq in a war that serves their ideology but not the interests of the American nation. Iraq is really about retaining domestic political power for Republicanism and earning profits for the Bush Class instead of fighting Islamic terrorism. Iraq is creating more anti-American terrorists instead of curbing the threat of Islamic terrorism! The Bush policies in Iraq are again blending Iraq (or Arab) nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism to create a new major international enemy. These policies are not rationally advancing American interests.
The Bush Republicans are trying to create a huge international threat on the scale of the former Soviet Union out of the relatively small threat of the Bin Laden organization in the minds of the American people. They keep American distracted from their economic agenda and erode our civil liberties at every turn by magnifying the size and scope of the Islamic terrorist threat. This tactic allows them to misuse genuine American patriotism to their own selfish ends. It is eroding American freedom at home to no good purpose.
The Bush Republicans have created more myths to advance their selfish political agenda like “they hate us for who we are instead of our policies” and “the threat is a military matter only instead of largely a law enforcement issue.” These myths confuse the real situation and prevent our nation from dealing with the Islamic threat in more effective, appropriate ways. These myths have stopped us from adjusting our foreign policies and directly contributed to the invasion of Iraq. The American people are being victimized at many levels by the propaganda of Republicanism and the Bush Class.

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