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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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April 1, 2007
by Jerry Kroth, Ph.D.
Two other symbolic events also strafed the landscape of the Bush presidency and, like 9/11, both fell out of the sky.
The symbolic anomalies mount up.[1] Less than a month before we go off on a pre-emptive war to stop Iraq from developing nuclear weapons, we note that inside the belly of Columbia is an Israeli who engaged in the same pre-emptive attack twenty years earlier. On an ominous Chinese holiday a simulacrum of America falls out of the sky sounding an alarm and carrying messages in her hold that concern preemptive war, Iraq, nuclear weapons, even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . an eerie symbolic cargo indeed! Few Americans know that the Israeli lobby in Washington, AIPAC, has been an aggressive advocate of war with Iraq from the very beginning.[2] Aided and abetted by insiders Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Pearle, the war in Iraq has claimed between 36-77,000 Iraqi lives -- some professorial types allege as many 600,000 -- and it has blinded, maimed, and wounded upwards of 500,000 Iraqi citizens. Close to 3,200 US soldiers have been killed with 22,000 wounded at this writing.[3] This American-initiated carnage, was predicated upon misrepresented, false, perhaps even fraudulent intelligence, and sought to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in a country which did not have any and which never posed any overt threat to the United States. Some 52 percent of Americans currently feel that the US is in greater danger from terrorism today than before we invaded Iraq.[4] This causes one to wonder if AIPAC, Wolfowitz, and Pearle agitated so aggressively for this war more to defend American interests or Israeli. Both gentlemen were incessant, even obsessed, with the vaporous Iraqi nuclear threat but doltishly mute on what experts say is Israel's secret stockpile of over 200 nuclear weapons, including a hydrogen bomb.[5] In 2005, 82% of Iraqis were "strongly opposed" to a continued US presence,[6] and 59% of Americans wanted our troops to leave as soon as possible.[7] In 2006 those positions still hold with a majority of Iraqis wanting the US to leave now![8] Some 62% of Americans believe our getting involved in Iraq in the first place was a mistake.[9] But when Congress was presented with a resolution to remove U.S. troops, fewer than 1% of its members voted for it,[10] a clear sign that AIPAC, Christian extremists, and Halliburton-type special interests have gained such access and influence as to nullify the democratic will of the majority of Americans and Iraqis. Recall that the crash of Columbia was caused by a damaged and weakened undercarriage. Down here on earth -- and on the other side of this metaphor -- there are numerous fissures in the underbelly of the Bush administration: Kofi Anan called the invasion of Iraq a crime and a violation of the UN Charter. A Belgian international tribunal is considering charging Bush, Rice, Wolfowitz and others as war criminals. The EU is livid over America's secret prisons and the transport and torture of citizens within its territory, clear violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.[11] [12] And revelations about presidential domestic spying on US citizens without court orders[13] has persuaded legal scholars to announce that Bush has admitted to an "impeachable offense."[14] Bush's popularity is at an all-time low with 62% disapproving of how he is handling the job as president, and almost a majority of Republicans feeling the same way (about 47%), while a whopping 75% disapprove of how he is handling the war in Iraq as we near the end of 2006.[15] The situation on the ground is dire and rapidly devolving into civil war, with over a million Iraqis leaving the country as refugees along with a third of the entire professional class. Over a hundred lecturers at Baghdad University alone have been murdered, mostly for teaching women.[16] But these Iraqi-related issues are mere perforations and pockmarks compared to the gaping hole in the underbelly of the nation caused by the financial bludgeoning it has endured under the Bush administration.
A month after Bush's second term began, a plane painted REELECT BUSH crashed into the Florida everglades. The photograph captures a palpable sense of helplessness, engulfment, and sinking[19]. . . our third symbolic omen. In his private life George Bush presided over numerous failed business ventures[20] and, as president, he may be leading the nation to a level of insolvency which makes all his earlier failures pale by comparison. The ship of state is taking on so much debt, so rapidly, economists from every political hue warn that it cannot handle such a load without sinking.
The United States accounts for half of all military spending on earth. With troops stationed in over 119 countries[23] -- all ostensibly fighting for freedom rather than any whiff of imperial hegemony[24] -- we spend more on defense than Russia, China, Japan, Britain, France, and Germany combined.[25] If we add onto these enormous outlays America's list of unfunded liabilities, military and civil service pensions, the prospect of 70 million baby boomers retiring, a third with no retirement savings at all,[26] we can more fully appreciate Mr. Greenspan's astringent parting words that Bush's profligate deficit spending spells potential disaster for the nation. The United States is going into debt at the rate of some $1.6 billion per day -- gasp if you will -- but the federal deficit is only half the problem. This deficit has an ugly twin, the trade deficit, which this year will reach 866 billion (amounting to another $2 billion borrowed per day).[27] Foreign central banks now hold 40% of total U.S. government debt.[28] Japan has a $1 trillion supply of dollars. China recently reached the $1 trillion benchmark itself, and South Korea, Taiwan, Russia, and India together hold close to that as well. Foreigners currently own, or are owed, $10 trillion in U.S. assets.[29] As Pat Buchanan opines,
The collapse of the twin towers, the crash of Columbia with Israel's first astronaut aboard, and the sinking of the Bush reelection plane represent symbolic graffiti scribbled on the walls of our collective consciousness. All three symbolic moments italicize "implosion," "crash," "collapse, "sinking," Do such symbols and synchronicities merely syncopate with modern life, and should we look at them as nothing more than curious decoration garnering our daily lives, or are they more structural than that? Are they oracles or 'leading indicators' arising from the collective unconscious which point to a reality yet to unfold? In other words are our deepening involvement in the Middle East, the relentless pressures of the Israeli lobby (to increase troops in Iraq and even bomb Iran[33]), plus the inscrutable doctrine of preemptive war sucking the US into a financial black hole? Are these symbolic "crashes," in other words, the foretaste of a real crash? As this is written, markets are volatile but doing well. The Dow reached an all-time high recently. Bullish sentiment still outscores bearish by a hefty margin. Panglossian financial commentators reassure us that the stock market outlook for 2007 will be boasting a predicted gain of about 8%,[34] and we probably ought to fold up our analytic couches and conclude there is no basis for symbolism to interfere with our investment plans.[35] Unfortunately a phalanx of heavy weights and paragons of realism have stepped into the ring on this one. Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Peter Peterson, says we are on a path of 'economic meltdown.'[36] Warren Buffet echoes the same warning. Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute, warns of financial chaos so severe it would "make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a walk in the park."[37] Robert Freeman believes we are in the beginning phase of a "deficit death spiral." Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin forewarns of a day of reckoning, and ex-Fed chairman Paul Volker estimates the odds of a financial crisis at 75%. Lesser-known pundits have also stepped up to the plate one predicting a collapse of the Dow to 6000,[38] while disconsolate bear, Robert Prechter, sees an all-out depression by November, 2007.[39] So perhaps these symbolic events are not just frivolous symbolic outcroppings which ornament the landscape of our awareness, but harbingers of a reality looming large. With the REELECT BUSH plane crashing in Jeb Bush's home state of Florida, and the debris from the Columbia falling a hundred and fifty miles from brother George's home and hearth in Crawford, Texas, these omens from the sky mysteriously co-mingle themselves with the Bush presidency itself. So if "crash" and "collapse" are appropriate words for America's day of reckoning, we should be placing that 9-1-1 call sometime prior to Jan. 19, 2009, the official endpoint of the Bush presidency. We have a choice it seems: If we think that reading these symbolic tea leaves is turning us into frightened Cassandras for no reason, then investment advisor Abby Joseph Cohen has a few stocks she thinks we ought to buy. But if these symbolic omens rightfully scare us and accurately point to a real and present danger to the nation, we might consider taking refuge in the precious metals which, even at the bottom of a Florida swamp, never seem to lose their luster.
Footnotes: 1. Photo source for Columbia crash is http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/Colimbia-explosion.html. Return 2. An interesting and controversial article on AIPAC's influence on US policy if given by two professors, John Mearshimer and Stepen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books, March 23, 2006. President Jimmy Carter's recently released book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, similarly emphasizes the little known connection between the Iraq war and the Israeli lobby's overwhelmingly disproportionate influence on Congress and the Senate. Return 3. From Iraqbodycount.net and Paul Craig Roberts, "A catastrophe calculator." At antiwar.com. In the latter publication, the ratio of killed to wounded is 7.6; if this ratio is applied to the estimated 70,000 Iraqis killed, it implies over 500,000 wounded. Return 4. http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm. Return 5. http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Israel/. Return 6. Poll, cited at http://usliberals.about.com. Return 7. "Poll Bush ratings hit new low." CBS News Polls, Oct. 6, 2005. Return 8. Amy Paley, "Most Iraqis want US to leave now." Sept 27, 2006, San Francisco Chronicle. Return 9. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/12/news/policy.php. Return 10. Vote of 403 to 3 against amendment forwarded by John Murtha, D-PA. Return 11. Gallup poll, August 3, 2006. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950052. Return 12. CNN poll; CNN.com October 12, 2006. Return 13. Warren Strobel and Johnathan Landay. "US spy agency may not shake sullied image," Miami Herald, International Edition, Dec. 24, 2005. Return 14. Susan Page. "Skepticism trails Bush's defense of domestic spying." USA Today, Dec 20, 2005. Return 15. Washington Post poll; Dec 2006; http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm. See also Ellen Goodman, "Stay or leave? Ask the Irais" Miami Herald, Dec. 18, 2006, p. 9A. Return 16. Simon Jenkins. "America is finally waking up to its horrific failure in Iraq." The Guardian, Oct. 18, 2006, p. 33. Return 17. Drew Brown, "Costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach $549 billion, McClatchy Newspapers, Sept. 27, 2006. Return 18. For comparison, the cost of insuring all of Americas 40 million uninsured in roughly 1/4the cost of what has been spent on Afghanistan and Iraq. See "Managed Care Matters, Joseph Paduda, http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/000054.html. Return 19. Source of photo http://jazzcornertalk.com/speakeasy/showthread.php?p=287230. Return 20. Arbusto, Spectrum & Harken energy failures are discussed in Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush. New York: Viking books 2004. Return 21. Robert Freeman, "The Bush budget deficit death spiral," Common Dreams, Oct 22, 2004. Curiously the absolute wealth of the richest 1% has soared under the Bush administration. Currently 400 of America's wealthiest individuals have a combined wealth of $1.25 trillion which is as much as the wealth of 57 million American households. Source: Holly Sklar, "In today's America, wealth flows to the rich." San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 28, 2006, p. 19A. Return 22. Robert Freeman Ibid. See also "Marilyn Geewax, "Tax revenue growth whittles federal deficit to $248 billion." San Francisco Chronicle, Oct 12, 2006, pA3. Return 23. The U.S. Global Empire, Laurence M. Vance. Laurence M. Vance Archives. Return 24. See Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. New York: Penguin 2004. Return 25. USNWR, June 28, 2004. Return 26. Peter Peterson, Running on empty. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2004. Return 27. Martin Crutsinger, Associate Press, "Trade deficit soars to a record." Miami Herald, Dec. 19, 2006, p. 1B. Return 28. Robert Freeman, Ibid. Return 29. Peter Peterson. Ibid. Return 30. Pat Buchanan. "Globalism is sending GM to its grave." San Jose Mercury News, August, 2005. Return 31. James and Marianna Quenemoen,, Global Policy Forum, August, 2003. Return 32. Julian Delasantis "US living on borrowed time and money" Asia Times, Mar 24, 2006. Return 33. Patrick Seale, "Pressures Mount on Bush to Bomb Iran," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Nov. 2006, pp. 10-11. Note that in Dec, 2006 and in sharp contrast to AIPAC, only 14% of Americans favor increasing troop strength in Iraq. Return 34. Barrons, Dec 9, 2006. Return 35. Barrons, Dec 9, 2006. Return 36. Peter Peterson. Ibid., Bookjacket. Return 37. "Expert warns of economic 9/11 for U.S." MoneyNew.com. Return 38. Susan Witty. "How to make money in a bubblequake." Barrons, Nov. 2006. Return 39. Peter Peterson, Ibid. p. 93. Elliot wave theorist, Robert Prechter calls for a severe financial crash sometime before November, 2007 which could bring the Dow down to 6000. See "Prechter trends towards Yelnic view, then predicts crash." Planet Yelnick, Wednesday, March 22, 2006; see http://yelnick.typepad.com/yelnick/2006/03/prechter_trends.html Wed March 22, 2006. I queried Prechter about this prediction, in order to confirm the source, and Prechter replied "Yes, I have expected the stock and housing manias to resolve in a crash. House prices appear to have peaked in the summer of 2005. I expect the stock market will join in (re-join, in real terms) the decline before 2007 is out regardless of how high it goes in the interim. Return
Jerry Kroth, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in California and a member of the International Psychohistorical Association. His most recent work is Conspiracy in Camelot: the complete history of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, New York: Algora Publishers, 2003. Dr. Kroth may be contacted at jerrykroth@yahoo.com
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Enrich your life with a book about politics and current events...
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Most
of us look at symbolism as nothing more than
filigree ornamenting an event. With 9/11, for
example, it is curious that American flight 11
crashed into the twin towers, which looked like the
number 11, and that it all happened on September
11th. Later we learn that construction of the
Pentagon began on September 11, 1941, or that 11
Israeli Olympic athletes were executed by
terrorists on September 11, 1972, or that the U.S.
helped engineer the overthrow of Chilean government
on Sept 11, 1973. Such coincidences -- or
synchronicities as they are often called -- we
generally shrug off as nonsense. Interesting, sure,
but ultimately meaningless. Most take note that
9-1-1 is the number one calls in an emergency, and
this event surely was a national emergency, but
beyond that we don't attach a lot of gravitas to
symbolic or synchronistic happenings.
In
February of 2003, just weeks before we invaded
Iraq, Americans tragically witnessed the crash of
the space shuttle. The name "Columbia" derives from
Christopher Columbus and was chosen by NASA to be a
symbol of the American nation. The crash occurred
on the first day of the Chinese New Year, a
foreboding omen in the East. And most CNN live
coverage originated from "Palestine," Texas.
Sacrificed in this tragedy was the firstever
Israeli astronaut whose cachet was that he flew an
aircraft that bombed Iraq's nuclear facilities back
in 1981.
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