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Editorial
March 2001
Bush's dangerous new retrogression
With all the sound and fury over former President Clinton's pardon of
wealthy fugitive union-buster Marc Rich, which continues the Right's
attempt to criminalize and destroy what they perceive as his "liberalism,"
the real crime of Clinton's last days in office is being swept under the
carpet. This crime is the failure to grant clemency to long-time Native
American political prisoner Leonard Peltier, after holding out hope that he
might be reunited with his family and comrades after 25 years of unjust
imprisonment.
Peltier said, "It is a terrible feeling and disappointment knowing that
this nightmare has not ended and will continue for many months to
come....The White House gave my attorneys indications that there was a good
chance for my clemency to be granted. I had to prepare myself for being
released because there was no sign that my petition would be denied....Then
Jan. 20 came and went! The White House never even told us what the decision
was. We had to find out through the press that my name was not on the list
of clemencies."
This was indeed a cruel and heartless act. It is clear that the fault here
isn't only Clinton's, though, but a result of his caving in to the
demonstration that was held in Washington, D.C. by hundreds of armed FBI
agents in protest of his decision even to consider granting Leonard Peltier
clemency. And this shows with absolute clarity that we have entered a most
dangerous time for all the forces of opposition in this country.
RELIGIOUS HAND-OUTS
George W. Bush represents a major retrogression but not a transformation
into opposite. Bush's state terrorist bombing of Iraq, for example, is
consistent with Clinton's policy throughout his administration. Clinton's
co-optation of right-wing ideological positions, while at the same time
presenting himself as a bulwark against the far Right, now reveals its
complete failure as what many viewed as a weak rampart becomes a wide open
door for the most reactionary racist, anti-woman, homophobic and
exploitative forces to walk through.
Where the Right had faced some defeats, as in the failed bid to impeach
Clinton, it now looks forward to a period of state-sponsored hothouse
growth at the expense of the public, as with Bush's newly created Office of
Religious Affairs. This would turn over "charitable" government functions
to private religious organizations, breaking down the historic separation
of church and state. Sen. Jesse Helms has proposed extending this to
foreign policy as well.
The appointment of John Ashcroft as Attorney General is especially
revealing. Whatever posturing Bush may do, he has placed at the head of the
country's vast legal bureaucracy an open sympathizer of the racist
Confederacy. This will do nothing to reverse the racist and classist
incarceration of two million souls in the American gulag, the epidemic of
police brutality, the practice of racial profiling that makes targets of
young Blacks and Latinos in particular. And the confluence of right-wing
religion and state power creates the most dangerous situation in decades
for women's rights to control of their own lives and bodies.
The influence of a right-wing paranoid at the top will do a lot to foster
the return (which has already begun in Chicago) and growth of the
once-discredited Red Squads and other forms of political harassment. These
have already been intensifying in the wake of the Seattle demonstrations as
well as others against global capitalism.
THE MILITARIZATION OF REPRESSION
This could already be seen in the unprecedented security presence at Bush's
inauguration, with military-style checkpoints that made Washington, D.C.
resemble old East Berlin. That this trend is international could be seen in
the militarized assault upon demonstrators at the recent World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The upcoming Quebec City meetings on the Free
Trade Agreement of the Americas promise similar measures, while the World
Trade Organization has announced that its next meeting will be heldin the
repressive Persian Gulf state of Qatar.
It would be an illusion to think that the rulers will reserve their forces
for these large-scale occasions. They want to prevent another Seattle 1999
or Los Angeles 1992 and will do whatever they think it takes. The gravity
of this situation can't be minimized, or we will be whistling past the
graveyard of our hopes. The movement for freedom, here and worldwide, will
have to confront the necessity for serious rethinking in order to meet this
new situation in which the most retrogressive forces in American life have
taken control of the world's most powerful machinery of repression.
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