On Fascism ---- and the Georgites

Column No. 14 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH- May 27, 2004

Increasingly, in dealing with the Georgite Regime’s actions, programs, and policies the words "fascist" and "fas­cism" are being used to describe them.  However, the terms are most often used without definition.  Since they then become nothing more than epithets, I think that this is not particularly useful in serious politics and for serious historical analysis.  In this column, I take a different approach to the subject.

I came across the following comprehensive definition of the term”fascism” in Appendix II of the rather obscure book The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2002, first published in 1996.  (I have been told that this book, written by the pseudononymous “Jonathan Westminster,” is shortly to be re-released, with a New Introduction, prepared by the print-on-demand publisher Xlibris.  It will be available though their website, http://www.Xlibris.com, as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.) According to the book’s author, this definition (admittedly quite lengthy) was not drawn out of thin air.  It was based on Westminster’s analysis of the historical experience in those countries that have acknowledged themselves as fascist, especially Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

I think that this definition is a very useful one.  I present it here.  For most of its 14 elements, I also present one or more those actions, policies, and programs of the Georgite Regime that happen to be entirely consistent with it.  The reader is left to make his/her own judgment as to whether the “shoe fits” the Georgite foot that is if, walking and quacking like a duck, it’s a duck.

A Definition of Fascism (with the major elements of the Georgite profile that fit following each):

Fascism is a political, social, and economic system that has the following baker's dozen plus one of major defining charac­teristics:

1.    There is complete executive branch control of government policy and action. There is no independent judicial or legisla­tive branch of govern­ment.

Examples of Georgite fascism: Taking over the judiciary and making it subservient to the executive branch, through appointments, the use of the law and rule-making, and selective refusal to abide by the present judiciary’s decisions.  Limiting Congressional authority to the extent possible; while through admonition and political threats and bribery, making Congressional Republicans as subservient to the White House as feasible.

2.    There is no constitution to which government is subject and that is recognized by all political forces as having an au­thority beyond that claimed by the regime in power, to which that regime is subject.  The rule of men, not law, is supreme.

Example: The increasingly frequent referral by George Bush to his dependence on his belief in a “higher power,” one that, as Scalia and Thomas have said for years, stands above the Constitution in authority.  Since there is no possibility of independent determination of what this “higher power” has to say, its/his/her word, of course consequently is whatever George Bush says it is.  Ergo, the rule of man, not law.

3.    There is only one political party, and no mass organizations of any kind other than those approved by the government are permitted.

Example:  As of now, with the unprecedented moves to redistrict in non-census years, the DeLay/Cheney/Bush Republicans are certainly moving to establish at least the first element of a single party system in our country.

4.    Government establishes and enforces the rules of "right" thinking, "right" action, and "right" religious devotion.

Examples: take your pick from among illegalization of the right to freedom of belief, for all persons regardless of age or sex, on the matter of when life begins, to the campaign to remove homosexuals from the purview of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, to the drive to retroactively put “God” (the Christian Rightist concept of “God,” of course) into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (preferably above it).

5.    Racism, homophobia, misogynism, and national chauvinism are major factors in national politics and policy-making.

Examples: I don’t need to spell out this one.

6.    There is no recognition of inherent personal rights.  Only the government can grant "rights." Any "rights" granted by the government may be di­min­ished or removed by it from any individual or group at any time with­out prior notice, explana­tion, or judicial review.  Thus, there is no pre­sumed freedom of speech, press, religion, or even belief, automatically accom­panying citizenship.  There are no inherent or presumed protections against any violations of person­al liberty committed by law-enforcement or other government agencies.

Examples: the “Patriot Act” has demolished the Fourth Amendment (protection against arbitrary search and seizure), the Fifth Amendment (guarantee of due process of law), and the Sixth Amendment  (guarantee of a jury trial in criminal cases) for, if the Georgites get their way, US citizens as well as all others.  Just wait for “Patriot Act” II. Then there is the claim that whatever rights we do have are granted by “God,” rather than being inherent.  As in (2) above, that of course means that both the rights and whoever may be their beneficiaries are whatever and whoever the Georgites say that “God” says they are.

7.    Official and unofficial force, internal terror, and routine torture of cap­tured opponents are major means of governmental control.

Examples:  Hey, if foreigners can be routinely tortured, why not American citizens labeled as “enemy combatants by George and John?

8.   There are few or no employee rights or protections, including the right of workers to bargain collectively.  Only government-approved labor unions or associations are permitted to exist, and that approval may be removed at any time, without prior notice.

Examples:  Trying to end guaranteed overtime for certain groups of workers is only the beginning on this one.

9.    All communications media are government-owned or otherwise government-controlled.

Examples: Fox “News” and Right-Wing talk radio are certainly openers on this pathway.

10.   All entertainment, music, art, and organized sport are controlled by the gov­ernment.

Examples: Hey, nobody’s perfect (but once upon a time George was of course part-owner of a baseball team).

11.   There may or may not be a single charismatic leader in charge of the gov­ernment, i.e., a "Dictator."

Examples:  Both President Bushes have expressed interest in this idea.

12.   The economy is based on state supported and subsidized capitalism, with tight central control of the dis­tri­bution of resources among the producers, and strict limitations on the free market for labor (as noted above).

Examples:  Again, hey, nobody’s perfect (yet).  But again, the Georgites are moving in that direction with, for example the extraordinary care and attention they lavish on the extractive industries.

13.   The fascist takeover of the government of a major power always leads to foreign war and adventurism sooner or later.

Examples: No comment necessary.

14.    Built as it is on terror, repression, and an ultimately fictional/self-delusional representation of historical, political, and economic reality [emphasis added to the original Westminster definition], fascism is inherent­ly unstable and always carries with it the seeds of its own destruc­tion.  To date, such seeds have always sprouted within a relatively short historical peri­od of time.

Examples: Well, they got the “fictional/self-delusional” stuff right.

The book from which this set of history-based definitions is quoted was published in 1996.  So my question is this: did the Georgites read it first, or are they just coming to it naturally?

To conclude, if you don’t like long definitions, here is my own short definition of fascism for our era (which I think fits the Georgites pretty well too): “Fascism is a political system that, standing on a base of an unfettered, oligolopic, expansionist, capitalist economy the creed of which is greed, through the use of State power and force establishes the ultimate denial of the rule of law, the existence of inherent human rights, and human free will and autonomy.”

On Fascism ---- and the Georgites

Column No. 14 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH- May 27, 2004

Increasingly, in dealing with the Georgite Regime’s actions, programs, and policies the words "fascist" and "fas­cism" are being used to describe them.  However, the terms are most often used without definition.  Since they then become nothing more than epithets, I think that this is not particularly useful in serious politics and for serious historical analysis.  In this column, I take a different approach to the subject.

I came across the following comprehensive definition of the term”fascism” in Appendix II of the rather obscure book The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2002, first published in 1996.  (I have been told that this book, written by the pseudononymous “Jonathan Westminster,” is shortly to be re-released, with a New Introduction, prepared by the print-on-demand publisher Xlibris.  It will be available though their website, http://www.Xlibris.com, as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.) According to the book’s author, this definition (admittedly quite lengthy) was not drawn out of thin air.  It was based on Westminster’s analysis of the historical experience in those countries that have acknowledged themselves as fascist, especially Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

I think that this definition is a very useful one.  I present it here.  For most of its 14 elements, I also present one or more those actions, policies, and programs of the Georgite Regime that happen to be entirely consistent with it.  The reader is left to make his/her own judgment as to whether the “shoe fits” the Georgite foot that is if, walking and quacking like a duck, it’s a duck.

A Definition of Fascism (with the major elements of the Georgite profile that fit following each):

Fascism is a political, social, and economic system that has the following baker's dozen plus one of major defining charac­teristics:

1.    There is complete executive branch control of government policy and action. There is no independent judicial or legisla­tive branch of govern­ment.

Examples of Georgite fascism: Taking over the judiciary and making it subservient to the executive branch, through appointments, the use of the law and rule-making, and selective refusal to abide by the present judiciary’s decisions.  Limiting Congressional authority to the extent possible; while through admonition and political threats and bribery, making Congressional Republicans as subservient to the White House as feasible.

2.    There is no constitution to which government is subject and that is recognized by all political forces as having an au­thority beyond that claimed by the regime in power, to which that regime is subject.  The rule of men, not law, is supreme.

Example: The increasingly frequent referral by George Bush to his dependence on his belief in a “higher power,” one that, as Scalia and Thomas have said for years, stands above the Constitution in authority.  Since there is no possibility of independent determination of what this “higher power” has to say, its/his/her word, of course consequently is whatever George Bush says it is.  Ergo, the rule of man, not law.

3.    There is only one political party, and no mass organizations of any kind other than those approved by the government are permitted.

Example:  As of now, with the unprecedented moves to redistrict in non-census years, the DeLay/Cheney/Bush Republicans are certainly moving to establish at least the first element of a single party system in our country.

4.    Government establishes and enforces the rules of "right" thinking, "right" action, and "right" religious devotion.

Examples: take your pick from among illegalization of the right to freedom of belief, for all persons regardless of age or sex, on the matter of when life begins, to the campaign to remove homosexuals from the purview of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, to the drive to retroactively put “God” (the Christian Rightist concept of “God,” of course) into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (preferably above it).

5.    Racism, homophobia, misogynism, and national chauvinism are major factors in national politics and policy-making.

Examples: I don’t need to spell out this one.

6.    There is no recognition of inherent personal rights.  Only the government can grant "rights." Any "rights" granted by the government may be di­min­ished or removed by it from any individual or group at any time with­out prior notice, explana­tion, or judicial review.  Thus, there is no pre­sumed freedom of speech, press, religion, or even belief, automatically accom­panying citizenship.  There are no inherent or presumed protections against any violations of person­al liberty committed by law-enforcement or other government agencies.

Examples: the “Patriot Act” has demolished the Fourth Amendment (protection against arbitrary search and seizure), the Fifth Amendment (guarantee of due process of law), and the Sixth Amendment  (guarantee of a jury trial in criminal cases) for, if the Georgites get their way, US citizens as well as all others.  Just wait for “Patriot Act” II. Then there is the claim that whatever rights we do have are granted by “God,” rather than being inherent.  As in (2) above, that of course means that both the rights and whoever may be their beneficiaries are whatever and whoever the Georgites say that “God” says they are.

7.    Official and unofficial force, internal terror, and routine torture of cap­tured opponents are major means of governmental control.

Examples:  Hey, if foreigners can be routinely tortured, why not American citizens labeled as “enemy combatants by George and John?

8.   There are few or no employee rights or protections, including the right of workers to bargain collectively.  Only government-approved labor unions or associations are permitted to exist, and that approval may be removed at any time, without prior notice.

Examples:  Trying to end guaranteed overtime for certain groups of workers is only the beginning on this one.

9.    All communications media are government-owned or otherwise government-controlled.

Examples: Fox “News” and Right-Wing talk radio are certainly openers on this pathway.

10.   All entertainment, music, art, and organized sport are controlled by the gov­ernment.

Examples: Hey, nobody’s perfect (but once upon a time George was of course part-owner of a baseball team).

11.   There may or may not be a single charismatic leader in charge of the gov­ernment, i.e., a "Dictator."

Examples:  Both President Bushes have expressed interest in this idea.

12.   The economy is based on state supported and subsidized capitalism, with tight central control of the dis­tri­bution of resources among the producers, and strict limitations on the free market for labor (as noted above).

Examples:  Again, hey, nobody’s perfect (yet).  But again, the Georgites are moving in that direction with, for example the extraordinary care and attention they lavish on the extractive industries.

13.   The fascist takeover of the government of a major power always leads to foreign war and adventurism sooner or later.

Examples: No comment necessary.

14.    Built as it is on terror, repression, and an ultimately fictional/self-delusional representation of historical, political, and economic reality [emphasis added to the original Westminster definition], fascism is inherent­ly unstable and always carries with it the seeds of its own destruc­tion.  To date, such seeds have always sprouted within a relatively short historical peri­od of time.

Examples: Well, they got the “fictional/self-delusional” stuff right.

The book from which this set of history-based definitions is quoted was published in 1996.  So my question is this: did the Georgites read it first, or are they just coming to it naturally?

To conclude, if you don’t like long definitions, here is my own short definition of fascism for our era (which I think fits the Georgites pretty well too): “Fascism is a political system that, standing on a base of an unfettered, oligolopic, expansionist, capitalist economy the creed of which is greed, through the use of State power and force establishes the ultimate denial of the rule of law, the existence of inherent human rights, and human free will and autonomy.”

On John Ashcroft --- and Jefferson Davis

Column No. 13 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – May 20, 2004

Introduction

Although racism is ever-present in Georgite politics, policies, programs, and Court appointments, it is hardly ever overt.  It is at times actually subliminal.  At present, the “type of person” targets that the Republicans have placed prominently in their sights as part of their electoral strategy are women who don’t believe that life begins at the moment of conception and the homosexual members of our society.  But that hardly means that down the road the Republicans could not once again put racism to the fore, as it was by them in the original Goldwater/Nixon “Southern Strategy.”

John Ashcroft is the Minister of State (figuratively and literally) from the Christian Right to the Georgite Regime.  He is also the most powerful person in law enforcement in the nation.  The Christian Right can hardly expect to persuade very many people beyond their own true believers (less than 10% of the population) to voluntarily support and comply with their policies and programs.  Thus, because of their fundamental numerical and philosophical weakness in our society as a whole, they have no other choice but to seek to use the criminal law to impose their will.  They are in the process of doing this in dealing with pregnant women and homosexuals.  Their Attorney General is central to the implementation of their current offensive.

Seeking to broaden the rifts in society that they feed upon, the Right could once again turn openly on the African-American population.  Far-fetched, you might say. But if it did, their current Minister to the Georgites would be right there with them.  Just consider the (generally hidden) racist background of the man who is leading the drive to gut many central elements of our Constitutional rights and liberties, Attorney General John Ashcroft.  Examining this background of his under the light is quite revealing.

On the “Southern Patriots”

In an October 1998 interview with the magazine Southern Partisan (Riverfront Times [St. Louis, MO], Dec. 28, 2000)[a copy of the Ashcroft interview can be found here – Talking Points Memo] then Attorney General-designate Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri had this to say about the principal leaders of the Confederate States of America:

“Your magazine helps set the record straight.  You’ve got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Confederate Gen. Robert E.] Lee, [Confederate Gen. “Stonewall”] Jackson, and [Confederate States of America {CSA} President Jefferson] Davis.  Traditionalists must do more.  I’ve got to do more.  We’ve all got to stand up and speak in this respect or else we’ll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda.”

It is interesting to examine some of the positions taken by the leader of the Confederate Rebellion, Jefferson Davis, on the principal questions of his time, including slavery and secession, to see which ones then-Sen. Ashcroft might have felt needed defending, or protecting from the thought that those positions were part of a “perverted agenda.”  It is fascinating that a man who would become the nation’s leading law enforcement officer would think that Jefferson Davis’ agenda was not in any way “perverted.”  One must wonder if this man, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and with many direct powers to do so, had ever read the Constitution, especially the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, specifically designed to discard Jefferson Davis’ agenda from the national body politic.

The quoted material used below is all taken from the absolutely fascinating book The Approaching Fury: Voice of the Storm, 1820-1861 by the Civil War Historian Stephen B. Oates of Amherst University (New York: Harper Collins: 1997, page numbers in parentheses.

Would, for example, then-Sen. Ashcroft have wanted to defend the following statement Davis made about Ashcroft’s own party (the Republicans)?

“Your platform on which you elected your presidential candidate denies us [the slave-holding states] equality in the Union.  It refuses us equal enjoyment of the territories . . . I ask you, do you give us justice; do we enjoy equality? . . . Without equality, we would be degraded to remain in the Union . . . . “Your votes refuse to recognize our domestic institutions which existed before the formation of the Union, our slave property which is guarded by the Constitution. . . . The leading members of your party . . . made speeches after the election announcing that the Republican triumph signaled the downfall of our domestic institutions!  And you dare to ask us, ‘What is the matter?’” (p. 368).

Or perhaps it is the following statement that some might teach as indicating that Davis was following a perverted agenda, one for which then-Sen. Ashcroft would want to set the record straight:

“The state of Mississippi gave warning and declared her purpose to take counsel with her southern sister states whenever a President should be elected on the basis of sectional hostility to them.  With all this warning, you paused not.  Such a President [the first Republican] has now been elected.  The quarrel, then, is not of our making.  Our hands are stainless.  It is you who are the aggressor. . . . “If in the pride of power, if in contempt of reason and reliance upon force, you say we shall not go, but shall remain as subjects to you, then, gentlemen of the North, a war is to be inaugurated the like of which men have not seen before [emphasis added]” (p. 369).

Or perhaps the following is a statement of Davis’ that some critic might perversely use to further his or her own agenda:

“I would, however, say a word to those who have attacked our social institutions by evoking the Declaration of Independence and its phrase ‘all men are created equal.’  By that Jefferson clearly meant not equality of the races, but the equality of the men of the political community at that time.  The phrase had no reference to Negroes, who were not then regarded as citizens” (p. 371).

Then-Sen. Ashcroft referred to “traditionalists,” saying that they “must do more.”  One wonders if that would include doing more “to stand up and speak,” for example, about Davis’ view of the institution of slavery:

“The abolitionists, howling at us from afar, could not see how well treated our slaves were.  They called slavery a sin.  By what standard did they measure it?  Not by the Constitution, which recognized property in slaves.  Not by the Bible; that justifies it.  Not by Christianity; for servitude was the only agency through which Christianity reached the Negro race.  Not by a comparison of the slave’s lot to that of the free black in the North; the one well provided for in all his physical wants and steadily improving in his moral condition; the other miserable, impoverished, loathsome from deformity and disease which follow after penury and vice.  Negroes were not fit for freedom because they were unable to care for themselves.  As the descendants of Ham, the graceless son of Noah, they carried God’s curse on Ham and so were slaves by divine decree.  How then could slavery be a sin?  It is, in fact, a moral, social, and a political blessing” (p. 219).

Finally, there was the famous explication of the theory of white supremacy uttered by the CSA Vice-President, Alexander Stephens.  About it Jefferson Davis said: “what Stephens said was true, perfectly true” (p. 382).  To defend that theory, and the institution of slavery too of course, Davis and Lee and Jackson gave their lives (literally in Jackson’s case) and subscribed “their sacred fortunes and their honor.”

Here is what Stephens had to say about the theory of white supremacy, which theory would presumably be, to then-Sen. Ashcroft’s way of thinking, not a perverted one:

“Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were, and are in violation of the laws of nature.  Our system commits no such violation of nature’s law.  With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law.  Not so with the Negro.  Subordination is his place.  He, by nature, or by the curse against Cain, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.  Our new government is founded on the opposite idea of the equality of the races.  Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the Negro is not equal to the White man; that slavery --- subordination to the superior race --- is his natural condition.” (pp. 381-2)

Notice the Biblical references used by Stephens, above, and Davis in the previous (but hey, guys, I’m confused: is it the curse of Ham or the curse of Cain that is primary here?)  Sounds just like the Christian Right justifying their policies and programs by the use of selected references to the “inerrant" Bible, doesn’t it?  So if they can use what one particular English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek translation of a Hebrew translation of an original Aramaic text to inform national social policy (backed up by the force of the criminal law) in dealing with pregnancy and homosexuality, who says they could not return to it to inform policy on what they call “race?”

And so, we now have as Attorney General of the United States a strong Christian Rightist who has characterized as “patriots” men like Lee, Jackson, and Davis who had subscribed “their sacred fortunes and honor” to defend a political philosophy and economic system based on the theory of white supremacy and the institution of slavery.  Since they all, as former officers in the U.S. Army (and Davis was Secretary of War, 1853-57, under Franklin Pierce) had sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, by taking up arms against it, actually they were all traitors.

Here is Ashcroft defending them and saying that he had “to do more” in carrying out that task.   Yes, this is the same man who has characterized anyone who dares simply to disagree with Georgite foreign and military policy as a traitor.

So, no return to open racism under a re-elected Georgite regime?  I wouldn’t be too sure.

Possible Explanations for Bush Behavior and 9/11

Column No. 11 Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - May 6, 2004

Despite the swirl of revelations over the past months, the public remains facing a large set of unanswered 9/11 questions, glaring inconsistencies, and seeming lies-at-the-time and very possibly lies now, combined with a drive by the Georgites to withhold as much information as possible (cover-up, anyone?).  Only extreme political pressure can force further key disclosures.

The subject of this writing is not a comprehensive review of that data.  As a follow-through to the “Condi Rice ‘Testimony’” column published on 4/22/04, I will present here just a few prime cases that have raised unanswered questions.  The subject of this column is to take a look at possible explanations for the Georgite response concerning events and non-events before, during, and after 9/11, in the hope that someday, sooner rather than later of course (and hopefully before the next election), the true story will be revealed.  Please note that I wrote this piece on April 19, 2004, so that any information revealed after that date does not play into it.

First, let’s see a few examples of what we do know about specific information the Georgites had and what they did with it -- and some of the resulting actions they did and did not take. They are presented here not necessarily in either chronological order or order of importance.  Most readers of The Political Junkies will be very familiar with this material, which Steve Gheen and others have reviewed in detail. But for the record, let’s go through it anyway.

There’s the famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) that seems to contain some very strong warnings of what eventually happened, well beyond what Rice described as “historical” information (and speaking as a sometime historian, what’s wrong with that anyway, if it prompts understanding the present?) There’s Rice’s dancing to one tune in one place, on CNN not under oath, and quite another, when under oath, about just what was in the PDB, as well as about a lot of other material.

There’s the apparent fact that Ashcroft told Mr. Pickard, Acting Director of the FBI in the summer of 2001, not to bother him with talk about terrorism and counter-terrorism, while at the same time Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial flights.  There’s the famous quote from Richard Clarke about Bush, immediately post-9/11 asking him/telling him to find a connection between bin Laden and Saddam.  That now doesn’t look quite so possibly “made up,” as Rice and the rest of the White House media operation claimed, when placed in the context of what Bob Woodward, once a Georgite fair-haired boy, is telling us in his new book about how early, and secretly, Bush started planning the Iraq pre-emptive war.

There’s Bush, according to Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian (UK, April 15, 2004), “Hear no evil, read no evil, speak drivel,” not reading anything; whether it’s his PDBs or a 17 volume State Department report entitled “The Future of Iraq”, warning of nearly all the post-Iraq war pitfalls that have been encountered.  Bush just listened to what his advisors told him or worse yet, what the real decision-makers, if they are not he, had already decided to do but were kind enough to let him in on.

Just in case any reader doesn’t agree with my position that Bush really believes the religious doctrines he says he stands by and for, as quoted by Blumenthal, Bush says, “I also have this belief, strong belief that freedom is not this country’s gift to the world.  Freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in the world.  And as the greatest power on the face of the earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom.”  I should note that I am writing this column at a time when Bush is going around the country plumping to make the Patriot Act permanent.  Apparently he believes that he can sell “freedom” abroad, by force, of course, while taking it away right here at home.  One must wonder what the Iraqis think about the example of what the “freedom” is that the Georgites are trying to sell to them/force down t heir throats at the barrel of a gun.

Then there’s all the background about the Georgites trying to prevent the formation of the 9/11 Commission in the first place, then under-funding it, then not cooperating with it at all until forced, then cooperating with it as little as possible, and so on.  That is combined with the peculiar non-reaction of our Air Defenses (NORAD) on 9/11 once it was known, and it was known very early on, that at least one plane had been high jacked that awful morning.  Plus, there’s the Great Commander continuing to read to school children after being informed of the first collision of plane with building, and then spending the rest of the day flying around the country on Air Force One. Then there is the mystery of assisting, on 9/12, all those Saudis, including members of bin Laden’s family, to fly out of the country during a time when nothing else was flying in U.S. airspace. The litany could go on.

And so, what possible explanations might be offered for this series of events, non-events, actions, and inactions?  I see at least six.  They fall neatly into two groups of three.  The first set assumes, at the worst, incompetence.  The second set assumes rather more than that.

1.  We, the White House and the agencies, did everything we could have, and anyway it was all Clinton’s fault.  One variation of this or another seems to be popular with Bush, Rice, and Ashcroft.

2.  Mistakes were made, but not by the White House of course (remember the famous Bush non-answer to that question at his April, 2004 news conference --- since they are so rare, one doesn’t have to give an exact date to date it), but rather by the agencies.  They should have been more on the ball.  But heck, everyone makes mistakes.  Nobody’s perfect (except us).

3.  Beyond agency mistakes, the Georgites were, and are, incompetent.  They should have been paying attention, but because of other priorities and bureaucratic bungling just didn’t.  It could have, and should have, been played much better.  The dots were big enough and close enough together so that if appropriate attention had been paid at the appropriate levels of government, the attack might well have been prevented. This is a good argument for Kerry.

4.  The Georgites knew something might happen, but didn't know what.  They surely thought that if something did happen, it wouldn't be on the scale of WTC.

5.  The Georgites knew pretty well what bin Laden wanted to do but:

a.  Thought they had a deal with the Taliban to prevent him from doing it, but the Taliban either didn’t have the power to do so, or double-crossed the Georgites.

b.  Thought they had a deal with bin Laden either not to do anything or to do something small, and he double-crossed them.

6.  The Georgites were either directly or indirectly party to the bin Laden plan, and thus knew something would happen, possibly even as to day and time.

“Conspiracy theories,” you are thinking. That’s the disdainful epithet the Rightists always throw out when such speculation arises, in the hope that the discussion will turn to the propriety of developing conspiracy theories rather than the substance of the suppositions.  That’s what right-wingers always do: try to get away from dealing with substance.

But looking more closely, why not think “conspiracy?”  We’ve got a post World War II Republican President. Such folks have been at conspiracies for a long time. Think Eisenhower, through the Dulles boys; Iran, Guatemala, and the sabotaging of the 1954 Geneva Agreement that ended the French-Indochinese War.  Think Nixon and Watergate and Chile.  Think Reagan and Iran-Contra.  Think Bush I and the Kuwait War, which happened in part because just before he invaded, Saddam was told by the-US Ambassador April Glaspie “We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.”  Think of the kind of private, “off the shelf” intelligence agency, as Bill Casey described the one he created for Reagan, some version of which operated in all of the above instances. No conspiracies?

In the summer of 2001, the Georgites were apparently in negotiations with the Taliban to permit the laying of a gas pipeline across Afghanistan, from the huge natural gas fields of Central Asia, through Pakistan and on into India.  The purpose was, in part, to provide cheap energy to run a huge energy plant being built by, guess who?  Enron!  Bob Scheer wrote about this before 9/11 in the LA Times, May 22, 2001: “Bush’s Faustian Deal With the Taliban.” See also “RA in LA, “The Coward in the White House,” on Buzzflash, 4/2/04.

During that summer, remember, the Georgites weren’t doing so well politically.  The economy was sagging and all George was doing it about was offering tax cuts to the rich.  The Enron bubble burst.  Cheney wouldn’t tell (and still won’t) what he had talked about with his oil cronies (energy prices? Enron? invading Iraq to gain a secure supply for many years to come, perhaps?)  Then there were the so-called neocons, led by Perle and Wolfowitz, taking over most of the major foreign-policy positions in the new Administration, and looking for some pretext upon which to justify an invasion of Iraq, a policy they had been advocating quite openly, at least in neocon publications, since the mid-1990s.  Majorly about oil and something called “establishing American hegemony.”

Further, interestingly enough, the document that became the Patriot Act was already secretly being written.  Why do I say secretly?  For two reasons.  First of all, the Patriot Act is about 340 pages of dense legal language.  Among other things, it overturns, conveniently enough by statute, not by Amendment, major portions of the Constitution, such as the Fourth Amendment which guarantees protection against unreasonable, non-judicial, search and seizure, the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees due process of law, and the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees jury trials in criminal cases.  The bill was introduced into Congress only some two weeks after 9/11.  Try writing a 340-page bill in two weeks.  Moreover, if you are already writing such a bill (that would be DOA in normal times) and you really wanted to get it passed, wouldn’t you hope for, or worse yet try to create, times so abnormal that you could rush the legislation through a panicked Congress?

Maybe I have read too many spy novels.  (Just think of what a left-wing Tom Clancy could do with some combination of 4, 5, and 6 above.)  There is a lot more to say about these suppositions and I hope to return to them in a future column.  Maybe more information will come out, either to support some combination of 1, 2, and 3, or 4, 5, and 6.  Richard Ben-Veniste of the 9/11 Commission has been saying on our own left-wing radio network Air America (and if you haven’t discovered it yet, rush to http://www.airamerica.com and find out how you can get to hear it; it’s on AM 1190 in NYC) that he wants the Commission’s final report to be so definitive that there will be no cottage industry in conspiracy theories as there has been on the Kennedy Assassination.  A nice wish.

Perhaps and just maybe there was no conspiracy.  Maybe it was just the Georgites moving really quickly to take advantage of public fear and panic, among other things, to rush through the Patriot Act, with a long-range view of being able to smash dissent at home without bothering with the judicial system.  Can anyone say “Reichstag Fire?”  (That is a subject to which I plan to return.)  But then there are the loose ends, like Ashcroft’s not flying commercial, and Ashcroft turning down a request to massively expand the FBI’s anti-terrorism budget, on 9/10/01, like the inaction of the air defense system, like flying the Saudis out of the country immediately. The pieces of the puzzle fit ever more clearly.

I am going to stop here.  This is one we will likely come back to, but I did want to get my speculations on the table.