BUSH ON PARADE
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
(Col. Writ. 6/26/01)
When an American president visits, his every utterance is quoted in a thousand media outlets, and his every move is photographed, studied, and micro-analyzed. Given the power and ubiquity of the corporate media, this is not surprising.
But, it is the very nature of the media, its beastly appetite for spectacle over substance, that flocks to the parade while all but ignoring the route taken.
How is a visit (even a heavily photographed one) to Madrid, Brussels and Slovenia, a tour of the European continent?
While the post-Cold War era has situated the American presidency in a role more akin to the Roman imperium than an [s]elected official of a nation-state who received one-fourth of the votes of the eligible electorate, the media glare once more evaded the obvious: Why would America's leading public official claim to tour the European continent, while steering clear of London, Paris, Berlin or Munich?
If a Chinese president were to tour the North American continent, wouldn't we think it a little strange if he went to, say, Providence, Rhode Island, Concord, New Hampshire, or Winnipeg, Manitoba Province, in Canada?
There is, of course, a method to the madness of the Bush White House.
Bush communications people know that wherever the U.S. President goes, the news media follows. If Bush goes to the periphery, then local and global media rush to cover an imperial presence in the hustings, so to speak.
If he were in London, Paris or Munich, however, centers of European economic, political and intellectual power, Bush's presence would've been only mildly remarkable. The cities host global dignitaries and continental princelings almost daily, and an American president evokes less awe than envy.
The French, the Germans or the English would've either guffawed in laughter, or gasped in shock if he told them (as he said elsewhere), "We should never execute anybody who is mentally retarded." Indeed, if he were in Rome or Venice, the Italians probably would've politely asked about several men and women, by name, who were recently executed either in Texas or another American state.
The very week that Bush said this in Europe, his successor as Governor in Texas, Rick Perry, was busy vetoing a bill passed by the state legislature that would've prevented the execution of the retarded.
Russia, on the other hand, is another story. Although it remains the largest country in the world (roughly half of Europe and Asia) it faces the unhappy prospect of further decline from its former status as a superpower.
The U.S. abrogation of the 1972 ABM Treaty, but its adoption of a so-called Star Wars Defense program, seeks to further marginalize Russia, no matter how Bush and Putin schmoozed during the Slovenia summit.
Will even a severely-diminished Russia sit idely by while the U.S. develops a system that makes it's nuclear armaments virually obsolete? Or are we about to see a rearmament binge that hearkens back to the cold war, to overwhelm any such defensive system?
It is a sort of conventional wisdom among the corporate media that Russia is an economic and social basket case. As with much such conventional wisdom, there is an element of truth there. But if history has taught us anything, it is that nations, once motivated by crists, should never be underestimated. Japan and Germany rebounded in the space of a generation after the ravages of a World War. Further, Russia, as the largest nation-state on earth (in land area), has enormous human and natural resources, and also has centuries of memory as an Empire.
The abrogation of the ABM Treaty may be the slap in the face that the U.S. learns to regret.
Copyright 2001 MAJ
Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.International Action Center
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