GREENS, IN A PRE-SPEECH REB’STATE OF THE UNION’ CLAIMS OF SUCCESSUTTAL, BLAST BUSH’S
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576,
nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
mclarty@greens.org
GREENS, IN A PRE-SPEECH REBUTTAL, BLAST BUSH’S
‘STATE OF THE UNION’ CLAIMS OF SUCCESS
Last year’s State of the Union address was a list
of lies to justify the invasion of Iraq, say
Greens in a review of the Bush Administration’s
assaults on democracy, the environment, and human
needs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Green Party of the United
States is urging Americans to be skeptical of
President Bush’s list of proposals and claims of
success during the past year in his January 20
State of the Union address.
The real Bush victory, say Greens, has been a
massive transfer of wealth and power from the
American people over to major corporations,
especially Halliburton, Bechtel, Boeing, Lockheed
Martin, the Carlyle Group and other defense
contractors, oil companies, insurance firms and
HMOs, and drug manufacturers.
This goal is what every Bush policy and proposal
has in common: Medicare reform, cuts in public
services (especially by defunding them, bypassing
the legislative process), huge tax cuts for the
wealthy, the invasion of Iraq, outer space
missile defense, withdrawal from the Kyoto
accords on global warming, executive ‘fast track’
power to negotiate trade, support for
international trade authorities, trips to Mars.
Greens have also criticized the extent to which
Democrats have endorsed White House policies and
actions.
Lurking behind every word of Bush’s speech will
be the ideology of America the global empire.
The Green Party has a different vision: America
the beacon of democracy, global justice, human
rights and freedoms, and a safe, ecologically
sane future.
Below are Green comments on four areas in which
the Bush Administration has been most reckless
and destructive: Iraq; global warming; health
care; the erosion of U.S. democracy. (This is
not an exhaustive critique of the entire Bush
record.)
The invasion of Iraq
Greens urge all Americans to acknowledge that all
the major reasons — not just 16 words — that
President Bush listed in his last State of the
Union address (January 28, 2003) to invade Iraq
have proven to be false: weapons of mass
destruction (never found; the U.S. has virtually
given up on the search); Saddam Hussein’s
attempts to obtain nuclear weapons materials from
Africa (the evidence was forged); Saddam’s
collusion with al Qaeda; Iraq’s purported
imminent threat to the U.S. and Iraq’s own
neighbors. Bush officials, especially Vice
President Cheney, have deliberately promoted the
wrongful impression that Saddam was involved in
the 9/11 attacks.
The administration no longer uses any of these
justifications, and now claims that the invasion
was necessary to depose Saddam and liberate Iraq.
Greens are glad to see Saddam removed, but note
that Donald Rumsfeld and numerous American
corporations (AT&T, Bechtel, Caterpillar, Dow
Chemical, Dupont, Hewlett-Packard, IBM
<http ://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php>)
helped provide Saddam with arms (including
biological and chemical weapons materials) during
the 1980s, his worst period of mass murder,
torture, and political repression. Will they be
held accountable?
President Bush will boast in his address that the
world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of
power. Greens respond that the world is not
better off with a lone superpower that declares
for itself the right to invade other nations, to
break treaties, and to violate international
laws, the U.N. charter, and the Nuremberg
precepts against war in the absence of an
immediate threat. The world is not better off
when the White House can use massive deception of
the American people and the world to justify a
war. The U.S. is not better off when Democrats
join Republicans in handing Congress’s
constitutional power to declare war over to the
White House.
Former Secretary of State Paul O’Neill recently
revealed that the Bush Administration had planned
to overthrow Saddam Hussein since the beginning
of 2001, that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to
do with the attacks of 9/11, and that the
motivation was in part to gain control of Iraqi
oil. In fact, Vice President Cheney, Secretary
of State Powell, Mr. Rumsfeld, and other high
ranking Bush Administration staff have been
urging such measures since 1992, in defense
policy papers and through the Project for a New
American Century
<http ://www.newamericancentury.org>. In 1998,
the Project sent a letter to President Clinton
urging him to invade Iraq
<http ://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm>.
Powerful corporations with White House
connections such as Halliburton and Bechtel have
profiteered from the occupation. The U.S. has
opened ownership of Iraqi businesses and
resources to foreign corporations, violating the
1907 Hague conventions (signed by the U.S.) and
the U.S. Army’s rules against pillage.
President Bush, in his 2004 State of the Union
address, will call the invasion a victory in the
war against terrorism, but the invasion has made
the U.S. and the world less secure and may
motivate new terrorism. The Green Party has
called for the impeachment of President Bush for
his fraudulent justifications for an illegal
invasion, and has called for the quick return of
U.S. troops and transfer to the U.N. of primary
authority over humanitarian relief, Iraq’s
reconstruction, and formation of a new government
in Iraq <http ://www.uniting-for-peace.net>.
Since the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in
retaliation for 9/11, the effort to install
democracy in Afghanistan has failed, with U.S.
troops still present, daily violence, warlords in
charge of most of the country, revival of the
opium trade, widespread nostalgia for the
Taliban, and renewed human rights violations
against Afghan women. Greens also note the Bush
Administration’s hypocrisy in claiming that the
goal of invasion and occupation was democracy for
the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, while it
continues to support and send millions of dollars
in aid to regimes in nations like Saudi Arabia,
Uzbekistan, and Equatorial Guinea, which
imprison, torture, and execute political
dissidents.
Global warming
In March 2001, President Bush withdrew the U.S.
from participation in the Kyoto Protocols, after
President Clinton had already obstructed
enactment of the protocols in November 2000,
during the international Hague conference. The
Bush Administration has refused to acknowledge
the human agency behind global warming and has
sought to block urgent information from reaching
the public. In September 2003, the White House
heavily censored a report from the Environmental
Protection Agency, removing all important
information about global warming.
The Bush Administration has zealously maintained
its ties and dedication to the energy and fossil
fuel industries, gutting the Clean Air Act, and
refusing to comply with congressional and public
demands for information on how Vice President
Cheney and his energy task force drafted national
energy policy.
The Green Party warns that the reliance on oil
and drive to control the world’s oil resources
represent both an environmental and a security
threat. Greens, who have called the the Kyoto
effort to reduce greenhouse gas output by 12.5%
by 2010 a first step but severely inadequate, say
that the U.S. must dramatically reduce its
dependence on fossil fuels, and must undertake a
massive effort to convert to safe and clean
solar, wind, and fuel cell energy. The
alternative is a global ecological and health
catastrophe.
Medicare and Health Care Reform
President Bush may be proud of his Medicare
reform and health savings account plans, but
Greens call them privatization schemes and a
public health swindle. The Wall Street Journal
reported on January 8, 2004 (”U.S. Drug Subsidy
Benefits Employers”) that the Medicare plan
rewards companies that cut off seniors who need
prescription drug coverage most, giving them a
lavish tax break.
A National Academy of Sciences panel found that
the U.S. must find a way to cover all Americans
by 2010: “Culminating the most detailed,
authoritative examination of the impact of
leaving millions of Americans without health
insurance, a committee of the academy’s
prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) for the
first time formally recommended that the United
States guarantee health insurance for every
citizen.” (The Washington Post, January 15,
2004). The panel called the situation “dire and
ready to worsen.”
Mr. Bush and the leading Democratic presidential
contenders want to maintain control by insurance
firms and HMOs over health care, even though
corporate-based coverage has proven disastrously
inefficient and wasteful, with over 43 million
Americans uncovered. All corporate-based plans
are bound to fail, because corporations do not
consider it profitable to cover people who need
health care most, and because they save money by
limiting and refusing to pay for necessary
treatment and medicines.
The Green Party and its candidates agree with the
8,000 physicians who have signed on to a
statement in 2003 that the only remedy is
single-payer national health insurance, in which
every American is covered for quality health care
and medicine, regardless of ability to pay,
income, age, or prior medical condition.
Single-payer also allows choice of health care
provider, unlike manage care. (See: Physicians
for a National Health Program
<http ://www.pnhp.org>; “The Cost to the Nation,
the States and the District of Columbia, with
State-Specific Estimates of Potential Savings”
NEJM, Vol. 349:768-775, August 21, 2003, No. 8
<http ://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/349/8/768>;
“Proposal of the Physicians’ Working Group for
Single-Payer National Health Insurance”, JAMA
2003 290: 798-805)
The refusal of Republicans and most Democrats to
consider single-payer national health coverage is
a direct result of the millions in campaign
contributions from firms involved in health care
and coverage. (See data compiled by the Center
for Responsive Politics
<http ://www.opensecrets.org>.) The influence of
corporate pharmaceutical lobbies has similarly
stymied efforts to make AIDS drugs available to
millions of infected, ailing, and dying people in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
An ABC News - Washington Post Poll released on
October 20, 2003 found that the public, by a 2:1
margin (62% to 32%), favors national health
insurance to the current system. National health
insurance will be achieved through a sustained,
uncompromising public demand and through the
election of candidates — such as Greens — who
reject corporate influence.
Democracy in danger
Greens compare the current administration’s
disregard for American democracy and the rule of
law to the McCarthy inquisition and to
revelations of White House abuses of power
related to the Watergate scandal, and foresee
permanent damage to human rights and freedoms
unless the Bush Administration’s assaults are
resisted. But Greens also note that some of the
worst assaults on democracy were initiated by the
Clinton Administration or were rubberstamped by
most or many Democrats in Congress during the
Bush Administration.
– The USA Patriot Act, passed with full
bipartisan support in Congress rapidly after 9/11
with only two hours of hearings, allows
government to pry into library withdrawals,
charge card records, medical and financial data,
e-mail, conduct a wiretap under a general
warrant, declare someone a ‘terrorist’ for
political dissent and search his or her home
without a warrant. Thousands of aliens have been
detained, with no criminal charges filed, under
the Act. Already in the works is an expansion of
the Act: the Patriot Act II (Domestic Security
Enhancement Act) would allow indefinite detention
without charges, end restrictions on spying on
religious and political organizations, and enable
government cancel an American’s citizenship for
civil disobedience. Greens, who have helped
numerous cities pass resolutions against the USA
Patriot Act, call for the legislation to be
substantially rewritten to address real security
concerns, asserting that parts that subvert the
U.S. Constitution and basic freedoms and rights
must be removed.
– The Department of Homeland Security issued an
advisory on terrorism in May 2003 warning law
enforcement agencies to watch any American who
“expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of
the U.S. government”, implying that legitimate
dissent could be equated with terrorism. The
Department, established in the wake of the 9/11
attacks, does not guarantee its employees
protection for whistleblowers, a policy which
will enable massive abuses of power.
– Under orders from the White House, U.S.
military authorities may hold a prisoner
indefinitely as an ‘enemy combatant’, a term used
to bypass Geneva Convention protections for
prisoners of war and U.S. constitutional law .
Military tribunals may now sentence a prisoner to
death without appeal. Military authorities,
prohibited by U.S. law from employing torture to
extract information from prisoners, transfer them
to nations that place no restrictions on the use
of torture.
– Federal and local law enforcement officials
have reintroduced racial, ethnic, and religious
profiling, calling it justified in the wake of
the 9/11 attacks. The Department of Justice,
citing the War on Terrorism, now violates the
Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the
guarantee of attorney-client privilege.
– Bush Administration officials have refused to
comply with demands from a congressional
investigatory panel that they hand over documents
related to information that the White House may
have had about impending terrorist attacks before
9/11. Greens have demanded a thorough
investigation into the Bush Administration’s
prior knowledge about the possibility of
terrorist attacks
<http ://www.gp.org/press/pr_05_19_02.html>.
Thanks to the lack of cooperation from the White
House, North American Aerospace Defense Command,
and Federal Aviation Administration, the panel’s
work is clearly incomplete at this point.
– The Bush Administration has reduced the
public’s access to information about government,
refusing FOIA requests, and removing valuable web
sites. Elected officials draft policy and
legislation without public participation and
scrutiny; language submitted by corporate
lobbyists with special interests is incorporated
in legislation.
– The Bush Administration has scrapped and
blocked important international treaties and
agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol on
global climate change; the 1972 Antiballistic
Missile Treaty (in order to enact Reagan’s
discredited space-based missile defense scheme);
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (unratified; it
would ban nuclear testing); U.N. Agreement to
Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small
Arms; the formation of a permanent International
Criminal Court for war crimes at The Hague; the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development-sponsored talks in Paris (May 2001)
on offshore tax shelters and money-laundering
havens; the Land Mine Treaty (first blocked by
President Clinton).
– The Bush White House — like the Clinton
Administration and with the support of Democrats
– has ratified and supported international
trade agreements and institutions such as the
FTAA, NAFTA, WTO, World Bank, and IMF, which hold
the power to override democratically enacted
national and local laws that protect the
environment, working people, and human rights,
and to privatize public resources and services.
Decisions are supposedly made on the basis of
market competition and economic development, but
instead foster monopolies, disappearance of jobs,
sweatshop labor, and transfer of wealth from
working people to corporate accounts and
investors. Greens have called for democratic
alternatives to international trade cabals, and
see a ray of hope in the resistance of other
nations to the policies and decisions decreed by
these authorities, especially in the collapse of
the Cancun talks in 2003.
– Federal Communications Commission rulings in
2003 (expanding on the 1996 Telecommunications
Act signed by President Clinton) allow greater
concentration of media ownership by easing
restrictions on the number of radio and TV
stations and newspapers that a single corporation
may own in a single town or city. Media
conglomerates such as Clear Channel and Fox own
increasing media outlets and have damaged the
quality of news coverage and the range of public
debate, as well as the quality of arts and
entertainment.
– With federal encouragement, civilian police
forces have adopted military tactics: police
routinely violate the rights of demonstration
participants, impose ‘free speech zones’ to
quarantine and conceal political dissent from the
media and public, detain protesters for long
periods without charging them or charging them
with minor infractions and specious violations,
brutalize detainees, use provocateurs to incite
violence, infiltrate political meetings (e.g.,
Seattle, November 1999; Washington, DC, April
2000 and September 2001; Democratic and
Republican conventions in 2000; Miami, November
2003). (President Clinton ordered military
training of urban police in the mid 90s to combat
drugs.)
– Mr. Bush has not stated his position yet, but
Congress members are signing on to support the
Federal Marriage Amendment, seeking to enact
President Clinton’s anti-gay 1996 Defense of
Marriage Act as a constitutional prohibition
against same-sex marriages. If passed, it would
be the first amendment that limits the rights of
one class of American citizens.
– The Bush Administration and Congress have
ignored state laws passed by referendum that
allow medical use of marijuana to relieve the
symptoms of AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, and other
diseases, with crackdowns on medical marijuana
providers in California and overruling of a
medical marijuana initiative in Washington, D.C.
Thousands of Americans get imprisoned annually
for nonviolent drug offenses under draconian
laws. Greens have urged the repeal of such laws.
– The 2000 election was decided by vote
manipulation and obstruction (especially
affecting African American votes) in Florida by
Republicans and by the decision of a biased
Supreme Court, despite Gore’s popular majority of
540,000; legitimate votes in Florida and
elsewhere were discarded. Similar perils await
the 2004 elections, as computer voting machines,
now commonly used in elections, provide no ‘paper
trail’ audit of votes. Firms such as Diebold
Inc. that rent them to government have blocked
public scrutiny of relevant software. Walden
O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold assured
Republicans in an August 14, 2003 fund-raising
letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio
deliver its electoral votes to the president next
year.” Greens warn that, without intense citizen
vigilance, U.S. elections in 2004 may be
seriously compromised.
MORE INFORMATION
The Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
