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The Public-Poll Undoing of George W. Bush Lev Navrozov The approval rating (as the average of polls) of George W. Bush has gone down from 85 percent in 2001 to 31 percent in May 2006, and his disapproval rating has gone up in the same period from 10 percent to 60 percent. An outsider may think that he is an imposter, foisted on the country and exposed in 2006. Actually, he was elected by a majority or near majority of those who cared to vote in 2000 and 2004. Having repeated Churchill's dictum that "democracy is the worst form of government except all others," let us ask how on earth could a majority of the electorate in "the worst form of government" know in 2000 or 2004 that George W. Bush, and not anyone else, should be the U.S. president? Of course, the richer half of the U.S. population expected him to lower taxes (spent on social benefits to the poorer half of the U.S. population). Yet the ultimate evil of world history today is not taxation but the development in China, since 1986 and now in cooperation with Putin's Russia, of post-nuclear superweapons, able to destroy enemy means of nuclear retaliation; that is, to circumvent Mutual Assured Destruction, on which world peace has rested since World War II. If the United States had at least one internationally, or at least nationally, audible political thinker, he might have said what is said above and be heard all over the West, or at least in the United States. But the last such American thinker, Sidney Hook, had been forgotten even in the United States years before he invited me, in 1982, to his 80th birthday dinner. The public opinion has been formed by mainstream TV hosts and reporters, mostly young women, usually with a standard "fashionable hairdo." I remember how the ravishing Barbara Walters (who had 74 million viewers of one of her programs in 1999) announced to her audience how she would like to have a love affair with Fidel Castro (who intended at one time to fire Soviet nuclear missiles at the United States, but whom she represented as a dapper freedom fighter). Why should a lifelong TV viewer of the ravishing Barbara conclude, unless he craves lower taxes, that the U.S. president should be George W. Bush, and not Fidel Castro? If so many Americans disapprove of George W. Bush in 2006, what was their choice of him worth in 2000 or 2004? Has he changed to such an extent as to seem to them just another human being? The U.S. mainstream TV never said in 2000 or 2004 that the dictator of China had founded in 1986 "Program 863" to develop post-nuclear superweapons in seven fields. Why should this be expected to be known by George W. Bush (or John Kerry, his Democratic opponent in 2004)? Story Continues Below
Those decisions of George W. Bush that have led to the dramatic deterioration of his ratings were heartily approved by "a majority of the American people," including John Kerry. What right do they have now to blame him? He has been unable to defeat the Sunni guerrilla war in Iraq. But how could he know anything about Iraq in 2003 if the CIA and the British Intelligence Service knew nothing about it in 2003 except their own WMD inventions? At school, George displayed a comical ineptness in English, but that was a private school, and such schools (as we saw when our son went to such a school in New York on a scholarship) are apt to keep even those of their pupils who are clinical idiots, once the payments for their tuition are ensured. Owing to his parents' money, George studied business at Harvard. He was an oil businessman and the governor of Texas. But the world is not a business firm or the state of Texas. On the contrary, the dictatorship of China uses business as its weapon in that silent war of the Chinese labs, developing post-nuclear superweapons to be able to shashou jian (incapacitate at a blow) the West. Owing to his parents' money again, George also studied history at and graduated ("at the bottom of his class") from Yale. Our son also studied at and graduated from Yale on a partial scholarship, and he could live comfortably at Yale and translate Russian poetry into English as his private pastime to publish his translations in London. We saw that as far as the humanities are concerned, Yale was zero, even if a graduate is not "at the bottom of his class," as George was. Published in the 1990s by Republicans were the books "about the China threat." The value of these books was nil, except that they implied that Bill Clinton was a traitor, betraying the United States to China, an enemy. But George W. Bush was not a Democrat. So such books, gathering dust in libraries, had no relation to him, and, indeed, their publication declined during his presidency. Suppose he had learned by accident about Program 863 in China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which China and Putin's Russia founded in 2001. What should George W. Bush have done? To have announced the impending disaster! Right? But then he should also have announced how he would save the West from this global disaster. The solution has been simple and was tested. To defend the country against Hitler's nuclear weapons, Roosevelt was determined to develop U.S. nuclear weapons ahead of Germany. Hitler would not nuke the United States if he knew that the latter would nuke Germany – including him – in retaliation. Mutual Assured Destruction thus began – to last until adequate post-nuclear superweapons are developed to circumvent it. But I have not heard a single publicly audible American who would suggest such a solution. Why should it have occurred to George W. Bush? True, Charles R. Smith (or I) could have enlightened him in this respect. But what VIP such as an ex-governor of Texas, oil businessman and now U.S. president would read such obscure writers or the Web sites that post them? To be heard, such writers should appear regularly on a national television program, even if with some fashionable twaddle, to be forgotten next week. So, here was George W. Bush, facing the greatest catastrophe in the history of the post-Roman West, without understanding how to avert it. Besides, the solution would have required an unprecedented transformation of the West – possibly beyond the willpower or ability of George, and perhaps beyond anyone's ability. So the sensible way out was to treat China's dictator, Hu Jintao, as the best friend at the head of a friendly country, a major trade partner (or trade fleecer, owing to cheap labor in China) and creditor. When the West surrenders unconditionally, George will have a good chance of being a Chinese colonial official as a reward for his restraint in preventing China's takeover. This is the worst scenario for George W. Bush, except all other scenarios, such as death by Chinese torture. Meanwhile, ever since the inauguration and even before it, a stimulating pastime was bequeathed by Bush Sr. to his dear son: to overthrow the socialist Saddam Hussein and make Iraq a democracy in which U.S. oil corporations would receive a maximum profit with maximum impunity (see Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003). Iraq is a small and technologically backward country. So Saddam Hussein was defeated within seven weeks by the U.S.-led Coalition, and the event was duly celebrated as a Napoleonic victory. But Napoleon had the same difficulty the United States had in Vietnam: guerrilla war. Yet George W. Bush did not probably know even this phrase, "guerrilla war," since the Pentagon never used it in its Vietnam War descriptions or memoirs. So the guerrilla war in Iraq may remain unnamed, yet win – as it did in Vietnam. The U.S. mainstream media ignore the world outside the United States unless it is war or crime in a country. Naturally, George W. Bush conceives of the world as a world United States, part of which is deprived of "freedom and democracy" by its tyrants, whom the United States should replace with elected governments. Well, Afghanistan is now ruled by elected government officials. Freedom and democracy! But when an Afghan Moslem, Abdul Rahman, decided last February to become a Christian, he was arrested. The police had found a Bible in his possession: the smoking gun of his heinous crime, punishable by death. His crime was so odious that he could not find a lawyer. His wife immediately left him and took their children with her. Fortunately for Rahman, outside Afghanistan there are Christians and even predominantly Christian countries that have established this "freedom and democracy" in Afghanistan and have been helping this new political order to survive. Now, Christians in the wide, wide world were no more pleased by the persecution of a Christian than were Jews by the Nazi decision that Jews were guilty of not having become Christians generations earlier and hence were to be put to death. Finally, it was decided by the Afghan "elected government officials" that Rahman's crime was so monstrous that only an insane person could commit it. So he was deemed unfit to stand trial and was released – into Italy, since most Afghans clamored for his death and would kill him without any trial. For George W. Bush to foresee the "freedom and democracy" he has established in Afghanistan (or Iraq) was as impossible as it was for all publicly audible Americans. So why blame HIM? The Cold War of the second half of the 1940s and up to the 1960s was based on the absurd premise that Stalin and his successors were about to invade the United States. Actually, Stalin, and especially his successors, were developing post-nuclear superweapons able to destroy the West's means of nuclear retaliation. But such superweapons were not ready by 1991, when the Soviet dictatorship collapsed, and the initiative went over to China. How did the Cold War become a universal faith in the West, and then was gone in the 1970s precisely when Soviet Russia launched an especially intense stage of development of post-nuclear superweapons? By conformity. Everyone publicly audible said what was said by everyone else publicly audible. Owing to conformity, there may grow a Cold War against China, based on the absurd premise that Hu Jintao or his successors will launch a conventional war against the West with conventional weaponry, such as "nukes," which have become conventional weapons. Post-nuclear superweapons developed by China will fail to be noticed, as they were not noticed when the Soviet dictators were developing them. Due to conformity, most Americans believed in the false premise of the Cold War against "Soviet Russia." Similarly, most Americans may come to believe in the spurious Cold War against "Communist China." How will that second Cold War affect the approval and disapproval ratings of George W. Bush? He will then be blamed for his "treason" in the first six years of his presidency. Why in hell did he attack Iraq, a moth, while the tiger was about to pounce on the West? Why did he start that hustle-bustle with Iran instead of concentrating public attention on China, the biggest dictatorship in recorded history, about to launch an all-out war on the United States? During the Cold War against Soviet Russia, the U.S. mainstream television showed its remarkably stupid film about how Soviet troops occupied the United States and machine-gunned all members of the U.S. Congress. This film can be adapted for the Cold War against "Communist China" to the final public-poll undoing of George W. Bush. You can e-mail me at navlev@cloud9.net
Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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