President 41 passes — and the propaganda machine hits high gear again

© 2018 Peter Free

 

05 December 2018

 

 

Let's get those American sheep to mindlessly prancing again?

 

Today is a national day of mourning for George H. W. Bush. President 41.

 

The federal work holiday comes courtesy of President Trump.

 

It arrives for no historically valid reason. Other than distracting the Rabble, meaning you and me, from US society's noticeably large problems. Including our current president's unending, untethered mendacity.

 

 

Democrats and pretend "liberals" . . .

 

. . . who are uniformly suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome — as well as from gargantuan failures of memory and reasoning ability — are using the week to impugn President Trump's obvious crassness with 41's patrician grace.

 

The hagiographic spectacle has been so over the top — that a number of historically minded writers have tried to inject facts into the politically skewed tribute.

 

 

Consider, for example

 

William Rivers Pitt's correction:

 

 

Bush [41's] involvement with and subsequent cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal could give Donald Trump lessons on how to obstruct justice.

 

He became a member of the #MeToo fraternity of scumbags after eight women claimed he groped them during picture-taking sessions.

 

He lied about the threat Iraq posed in order to justify the Gulf War a full 13 years before lying about Iraq and war became the hip family thing to do.

 

US forces deliberately bombed water-treatment facilities during that conflict, actions that were nothing more or less than biological warfare waged upon a civilian populace, also known as “war crimes.”

 

Iraq still glows in the dark from the depleted uranium left behind by all the exploded US ordnance during that war.

 

He tripled down on the Nixon/Reagan “Southern Strategy” during his 1988 presidential campaign by turning Atwater loose with the “Willie Horton ad” that set the low bar for gutter racist politics in the US for a generation.

 

That institutional bigotry also fed Bush’s vicious ramp-up of the so-called “war on drugs,” which even many Republicans now call a giant racist failure.

 

He fathered George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, raised them to be the men they became . . . .

 

The benign, benevolent, grandfatherly figure we’ve been seeing on TV was also . . . one of the more shameless war profiteers of the 21st century.

 

As a board member and unofficial “ambassador” of the private equity Carlyle Group, Bush Sr. made many millions from that company’s weapons sales thanks to his son’s ongoing Iraq catastrophe.

 

© 2018 William Rivers Pitt, George H.W. Bush Empowered Atrocity Abroad and Fascists at Home, TruthOut (04 December 2018) (excerpts)

 

 

But Pete, that's just the American Establishment Way, isn't it?

 

Kill and dispossess bunches of people and make lots of money doing it.

 

 

If in doubt

 

See this more detailed and equally accurate account:

 

 

Medhi Hasan, The Ignored Legacy of George H.W. Bush: War Crimes, Racism, and Obstruction of Justice, The Intercept (01 December 2018)

 

 

The moral? — Whenever American spectacle goes into high gear, so does its plutocratically controlled Propaganda Machine

 

 

When commies or Nazis do this, it's called brainwashing or mind control.

 

When we do it, it's called respect or appreciation.

 

Gotta keep us suitably pliant.