Bush's inaugural address, like most of his speeches, seem to work on the basis that if you mention "liberty," "freedom" and (official) US history enough then any policy can be justified. Yet even on the basics, Bush got it wrong. He said, for example, "from the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth." Sadly, no, as the US Constitution (Article I, Section II) explicitly considers the "matchless value" of a Black slave to be three fifths of a white property owner's.
Nor did the US state consider "every man and women" to have the same rights and dignity. The poor and women were excluded from the right to vote by the Founding Fathers. How much "dignity" can you have if you are subject to the laws others (a rich, male elite) make in your name? But, then again, the Bible is well known for its tolerance of slavery and misogynist viewpoints. Should we be surprised that "the day of our Founding" reflected such nonsense? Nor should we forget to mention the Bible's historical role in defending monarchy and other forms of authoritarianism as "God's will" -- so much for Bush's suggestion that the struggle against oppression was ordained by god.
Bush proclaimed that "all who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you." We are sure that Bush will be down on the picket line when workers rebel against the tyranny they are subject to during working hours. Will Bush be strengthening trade union rights? Of course not, so the economic totalitarianism of capitalist hierarchy will continue and, more over, it will be strengthened by the Bush Junta as it acts to implement the wishes of its backers.
The key issue is that the Bush's vision of liberty is impoverished. It is a capitalist vision of liberty, one in which you are free if you pick your masters (although in the case of Bush, his cronies ensured that the US people got him no matter what). It limits (its extremely restricted form of) freedom to the political sphere, ignoring the fact that because of wage labour billions of people across the world have no (official) say in what happens to them for most of their waking hours. Bush operates on its assumption that once you have picked a master, you do what you are told. So when Bush committed the US to the spread of global democracy and "ending tyranny in our world" we can safely assume that the autocratic structures within capitalist industry will be safe from workers' democracy in the workplace.
Ultimately, the "freedom" Bush is talking about is the freedom of the elite and corporations to do what they want. The majority of Americans are to get squalor, unsafe working conditions, unsafe food, disease, and no legal means to do anything about it. The rich and powerful get the freedom, the rest of us get the sacrifices that are "necessary."
Even in terms of foreign policy, Bush's claims are palpably untrue. The US (as it did in the twentieth century) is busy supporting tyrannies around the world. For example, the dictatorship of Teodoro Obiang in Equatorial Guinea, to name just one, is being propped by the US in pursuit of oil, with American bankers handling his loot, oil companies playing by his rules and the Bush Junta wooing him. This is no isolated event. Some of the Junta's key allies in the war against terrorism - such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan - are dictatorships, ranked by its own the State Department as among the world's worst human rights abusers. It has played down China's human record to enlist it in its aims. Expansion of freedom in all the world? This will come as news to those in the autocratic states Bush calls allies.
And not only does the Bush Junta actively support existing authoritarian regimes, it also acts to destroy any expressions of democracy which conflict with its geopolitical interests. Venezuela springs to mind, where in 2002 it backed a coup which installed a pro-US, pro-business regime. Only massive street protests restored the democratically elected Chavez.
We get a better idea of the "democracy" means for Bush when we look at Iraq. After the elections of January 30th, the next Iraqi government will be constrained in its economic policy by US pressure. Its economy will be run on the discredited neo-liberal model in order to gain debt relief and IMF funds. Thus one of the first things the US did in Iraq was abolish almost all government regulation of business (while keeping the ban on trade unions) and put the country up for sale to foreign corporations. That's Bush's freedom, once the capitalist class is free then you can have all the democracy you want -- as long as you don't vote to change that.
Bush asserted that "some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty," yet no one has ever said that. The opposition to the invasion of Iraq was based on the common sense analysis that the US state would not spend billions of dollars and not expect some kind of payback. It has occupied the country for nearly two years, reshaped its economy in neo-liberal lines and is building permanent military bases. It postponed elections in order to do this and to ensure a favourable outcome. And, of course, at the time the "liberation" of the Iraqi people was tacked on as an after thought to the main rationale, namely the "threat" from Iraqi's non-existent WMD.
So, all in all, Bush has acted pretty much as most US administrations have done. He has just added more rhetoric about freedom and added god to the mix. The reality of Bush's soaring rhetoric is that the US will use the word liberty to justify invasion of countries which hinder its interests. It will not promote the growth of democratic movements and institutions worldwide when this is at odds with the needs of US imperialism. If that is achieved by close relations with repressive governments across the globe then so be it. If these regimes do not play ball, then it will support those movements will do so -- democratic or not.
So, apparently, it is the job of the American voter to spread freedom across the world in the next four years. Strangely they have not given this a high priority in the election campaign or in any of the post-election polls. Rather voters want Bush to focus on getting out of Iraq and working on domestic issues like the economy, education, and dealing with health care. Invading Iran is not something they want to do. Perhaps that explains why Bush did not mention the sacrifices already made in Iraq and Afghanistan for his failed war on terror?
However, perhaps this fact can explain the comment that the "concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies' defeat." In other words, due to the quagmire in Iraq the US cannot invade Iran by itself so you better get ready to help out. As for "all the allies of the United States can know: we honour your friendship, we rely on your counsel, and we depend on your help," well that will come as a surprise for the demonised "Old Europe."
And now the election of over, Bush need not worry about the opinions of the people he claims to represent. He has a "mandate." Under capitalist democracy this means giving the government carte blanche to do as it will for four years. You have picked your master and are expected to do what you are told until you pick another in four years time. It is this impoverished vision of freedom and democracy which Bush plans to export to the rest of the world after spending the last four years attacking liberty at home. But it does ensure control by corporate elites.
While Bush argued that "rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed" his administration has systematically restricted the rights of Americans to protest against it. At the coronation itself, for example, anti-Bush protestors were restricted from the public space of the inaugural parade route. And it would be churlish to mention the PATRIOT act, of course. So Bush has done his best to utilise 9/11 to restrict liberty in the USA -- for those who disagree with him. And by undermining environmental and labour regulations he has increased it for those whom he represents, big business.
Bush talked much of hope and freedom, yet the security at the coronation shows the reality of has happened to the USA. Snipers were dispatched to rooftops and bomb-sniffing dogs into the streets. Thousands of armoured and armed police patrolled the streets (and controlled "free dissent"). Miles of metal barricades gave a fortress-like feel to the city, which is well acquainted with post-Sept. 11 security. America has become an armed camp, its civil liberties eroding, with limitations on state power shattered by threats and propaganda by an administration with no shame.
Ironically, Bush also informed us that "the public interest depends on private character - on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives." Which is a joke, given the right's attacks on gays, liberals and anyone who dares hold another opinion to God (as interpreted by the right). Not to mention the "integrity" it took to lie about Iraq or Social Security reform or "the rule of conscience" on display with such corporate scandals as Enron, the military using torture and creating concentration camps across the continent, ignoring the Geneva Convention, Halliburton, the systematic disenfranchisement of blacks, and the waging of ongoing class warfare against the working class?
"Eventually," Bush said, "the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul." If the Bush Junta is anything to go by, it will be a long time before it gets to the Republican right.
Bush has other goals at home. He talks about a "broader definition of liberty" and "in America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of labouring on the edge of subsistence." Yet he plans to "reform" (i.e. privatise) Social Security and so push more people to the edge of subsistence. The Junta is also waging another war on programmes against poverty on the grounds that the federal budget cannot afford welfare (thanks to the tax cuts for the elite he imposed). For Bush, welfare cuts are progress to an ownership society -- one in which the rich get hefty tax cuts paid for by the poor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the poverty rate increased under Bush from 11.3% (or 31.6 million Americans) in 2000 to 12.5% (or 35.9 million) in 2003.
So when Bush promised to "give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will . . . build an ownership society" perhaps he meant that the poor will be given the option of selling themselves outright to the rich rather than just renting themselves as they do now? He aims to "give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal." Yet inequality increased under his last four years to new, even more obscene, levels while social mobility fell to new lows!
Needless to say, his privatisation plans will raise poverty rates. His personal accounts mean the "freedom" to invest a fixed proportion of income in one of a small number of privately managed index funds. The only thing being increased is the level of risk individual's face (and, of course, the profit levels of the companies that will manage the funds). They will not make any meaningful choices about anything. And, by definition, exactly half of private accounts will under-perform the average account. And so in the real world Bush wants to create an America where (at least) half of retirees will be living their lives in poverty. More, if the stock market under-performs (and if it does not, then Social Security as it stands is fine).
It should, therefore, come as news to his subjects that it is Bush's job to prepare "our people for the challenges of life in a free society" by blowing up the safety net that has protected our society from the social Darwinism that the Republicans have clearly wanted to foist upon the American people for the last 60 years. But, then again, some of them may have thought they had been living in a free society before he took office!
Ultimately, the belief that the goodness of a cause constitutes a reason to believe in the inevitability of its success is a dangerous delusion. It also fosters a "the ends justify the means" approach. After all, the logic is that the president means well and so how can you question the means used to achieve these idealistic goals? Thus the Iraq War must be good because the US wants liberty and the people fighting must, therefore, be against liberty (and some of them use repugnant tactics). The world doesn't work this way. Means determine ends and just saying you believe in something does not make it true. Nor, for that matter, does a proclaimed belief in something mean that your policies will actually advance it.
Ultimately, even if the Bush Junta actually believed its own rhetoric, they don't have the policies to achieve it. They are sullying the ideal of freedom by associating it with their neo-corporatist, imperialist and authoritarian agenda. It is up to all real believers of liberty to fight the Bush Junta and that will need a broader understanding of liberty than the capitalist one Bush is using to cloak and justify his actions. In the words of a true believer of, and fighter for, freedom, Emma Goldman:
"We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged. Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world? We further say that a democracy conceived in the military servitude of the masses, in their economic enslavement, and nurtured in their tears and blood, is not democracy at all. It is despotism--the cumulative result of a chain of abuses which, according to that dangerous document, the Declaration of Independence, the people have the right to overthrow.
. . . the struggle must go on . . . the incessant human struggle towards the light that shines in the darkness--the Ideal of economic, political and spiritual liberation of mankind!"