The Bush Conspiracy (11/18/03)
by Dean Hartwell
Forty years have gone by since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Though the government issued the Warren Commission Report, which stated that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, doubts have persisted. These doubts have fueled belief in theories that a group of people conspired to kill JFK.
We may never get the truth about the assassination. However, government conspiracies run rampant today. That is because our incumbent President, George W. Bush, has worked with others to steal the presidency and to wage destructive policies.
Bush and his cronies conspired to fix the 2000 Presidential Election. They first deleted thousands of likely Democratic voters’ names from the voter rolls of Florida (http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=217), the state that decided the election. Then, to stop rival Al Gore’s legitimate requests for ballot recounts, they asked the Supreme Court for help. What followed was Bush v. Gore, the most blatantly political Supreme Court decision in its history.
The Bush Administration conspired to lie to the public about the need to start a war against Iraq. Bush said in September 2002, for example, that “the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.” His Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld stated that “they [Iraq] currently have chemical and biological weapons.” His press secretary, Ari Fleischer insisted that “we know for a fact that there are weapons there.”
Yet, after the war, U.S. News and World Report revealed that a September 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency report said that there was no “reliable information” that Iraq had such weapons. (Corn, David. The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. New York: Crown Publishers, 2003).
Bush’s Administration has also conspired to assault the environment with his policies. In his book, Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country – and It’s Time to Take It Back, Jim Hightower devotes five pages alone to listing these atrocities. Among them are its plan to recycle radioactive waste into consumer products; exempting chemical plants, utilities and other polluters from public right-to-know laws; and allowing more acid rain from power plant emissions.
Other conspiracies abound as well. Bush has talked secretly with leaders of energy companies to make policy for the United States. He has also fought lawsuits from the public which have sought to release the names of these energy leaders and what they discussed with the Administration. What’s more, President Bush signed a law that keeps secret his Administration’s documents.
If we fail to pay attention to the Bush conspiracies, we will allow him and his team to bury us with lies, theft and destruction. We’d be better off with an assassin’s bullet.