The media took a break from Trump this week to mourn the passing of the 41st president, George HW Bush. For our next meeting, we will reflect on the life of Bush 41. Here is just one of many tributes on the news:
Mostly missing from these media tributes is Bush's record of environment protection; see THIS article. Bush passed legislation to require a periodic assessment of the national impact of climate change. Here is Bush speaking about the environment:
The latest climate assessment declared a climate emergency and the need for global reduction of carbon emissions. This was a perfect lead-in to COP 24, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which started this Sunday and will last for two weeks. Here is the importance of this particular convention and its bleak outlook:
Here are the other videos shown at the meeting:
- The George H.W. Bush promise that changed the Republican Party
- How Bush’s 1988 Campaign Ushered in a New Era of Racial Politics
A capitalist free-market system is great at innovation, which can be very good for most consumers and producers, but there is no one other than government that can promote the common good. In other words, it is just the opposite of socialism in its assumptions. That is, these two systems are mirror images of one another, with the weaknesses of one being the strengths of the other (socialism not being so good at innovation). Hence the need for every country to try to find the sweet spot where they can maximize their economic system’s benefits and minimize its weaknesses. By recognizing a role for government in managing the environment, Bush implicitly acknowledged this inherent weakness in a capitalist economy. However, since his predecessor had so successfully established government as “the problem,” Bush had a dilemma: given Reagan’s popularity he could hardly challenge the man’s legacy directly, so he came up with the “kindler gentler” sentiment perhaps as a “kind and gentle” push back against the Reagan philosophy. It was not particularly effective. His and every administration since has had to avoid a direct challenge to Reaganomics and pretend that the problems created by unfettered competition is, well, more competition. As long as at least a majority of the Electoral College supports this philosophy, nothing is likely to change. Maybe the market will produce another technological solution in time, a “magic bullet,” but such solutions typically create a new set of problems. So far, at least in the US, neither fires, nor hurricanes, nor floods, nor shrinking ice caps, nor disappearing glaciers, nor international pressure have forced on us any rational control of the situation. But we’ll see.
ReplyDeleteI think that the adulation of GHWBush is overblown. He was not our worst president (his son certainly surpassed him in that category), and of course there's Trump, but he certainly was not the gentleman saint that he is being portrayed as. As Reagan's VP he was looked on as being wimpish; so possibly to counteract this after he became president, he set out to show how macho he was, by picking on relatively defenseless countries; i.e., Panama, Grenada, and Iraq. (Of course there was also the Iran-Contra business.)
ReplyDeleteAmy Goodman, Democracy Now! had as her guests yesterday (Tuesday), Greg Grandin, author of "The Panama Deception," and Ariel Dorfman, author of "Darwin's Ghost." Grandin claims that Bush used Panama as a weapons lab (similar to what Israel does with Gaza). The excuse for the attack on Grenada was a bit of a stretch - to protect the safety of US students there. Re Bush's attack on Iraq. Prior to Iraq's taking action against Kuwait for its slant-drilling of Iraq's oil field on the border between the two countries, April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, informed Hussein that "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." This encouraged Hussein to proceed with an attack on Kuwait, which Bush then used as one of the justifications for invading Iraq. (Glaspie was later widely blamed for allowing or even encouraging an Iraqi invasion.) Bush is lauded for his restraint in the US attack on Iraq in 1991, electing to stop before deposing Hussein from power. Other reasons which Bush used included Iraq's having WMDs, Hussein's being an oppressive dictator, etc.... any propaganda was welcome. (Unfortunately, the media are always eager to go along with anything which produces news, especially wars.) (The real reason, in my opinion, was that Iraq posed a potential threat to Israel; so the neo-cons here along with Israel, pushed for this war.(Qui bono? is always a good start in finding any culprit.) The US is usually all too eager to go along with whatever Israel wants. Prediction: imminent war with Iran.
I had forgotten that, at one point, Bush had threatened to stop a $10B aid package to Israel. It could be that this was the real reason for his presidential defeat. AIPAC, CUFI, and other Zionist organizations, have an amazing hold over our politicians.
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ReplyDeleteWhen George Bush, Sr. took on the Israel lobby, and paid for it
Alison Weir reports that in 1991 President George H.W. Bush held up a $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel. Bush said he was "one lonely little guy" against powerful forces. He won the battle, but eventually lost the war, a lesson that politicians have remembered ever since (contains videos)… Read the rest of this entry