Horrors of Halloween
By
Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com
The
week before Halloween was an ugly one in Washington. A sad and silly
season it was, too. It wasn’t the rainy weather or the looming day
of witches and goblins that was the horror. It was the exercise of
power in the White House and on Capitol Hill that produced fear
and revulsion,
as well as a dose of ridicule.
Fear
came with the sinking sensation that the drive toward a new war with
Iran might be underway. This even as “the nightmare with no end in
sight” continues in Iraq. Saber rattling was the order of the day
in DC. There was a sense of déjà vu about it all. The
administration talked of diplomacy, and imposed sanctions. It evoked
the prospect of World War III if Iranians acquire the mere knowledge
to make a nuclear bomb. Although there won’t be an invasion this
time –even the Bush administration is not that crazy — these scare
tactics seem designed to justify an air assault against Iran. It
doesn’t appear that the decision to go military has been made but
the political conditions are being prepared in case that it is.
Revulsion
was
the feeling that came over you after the Senate defeat of the Dream
Act, a law that would have given undocumented immigrant children
brought to the United States by their parents a chance to become
legal residents. Such is the hysteria against “illegal immigrants”
that 44 Senators could not see past it and realize the promise that
these young people, who have to graduate from high school to qualify
for legal status and finish two years of college or military service
to be able to apply for citizenship, represent for this country.
Such
was the hysteria that 8 Democratic Senators joined the Republicans to
kill the Dream Act while 11 Republicans bucked the tide of xenophobia
in their own party and voted in favor. The lack of a straight
party-line vote, however, should not obscure the big picture
concerning which party overwhelmingly supports inclusion and which
massively opts for exclusion: 84 percent of Democratic Senators
supported the Dream Act compared to 23 percent of Republicans.
Revulsion
also
was evoked by President’s Bush threat to once again veto a bill
that would provide health insurance for millions of children. In
issuing the veto threat, Bush was not swayed by the fact that the new
version of the law was crafted to respond to criticisms from
Republicans that the previous version was not targeted sufficiently
on lower income groups. Instead, the President said the measure was
too costly. This statement came the same week that it was announced
that the official estimate of what the Iraq war will cost before it
is over is now $2.4 trillion!
Revulsion
also was elicited by the news that the Bush administration had once
again subverted science and perverted truth in the interest of
ideology. It accomplished this when it censored the Congressional
testimony of Dr. Julie Gerberding, the Director of the Centers for
Disease Control, in order to downplay the threat that global warming
poses for the American people, and particularly for the poor,
minorities, and other vulnerable populations.
Overwhelming
revulsion
was produced by the realization that the White House lied in saying
that the sections of the Gerberding text that were deleted were cut
because they contradicted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC). In fact, a side-by-side comparison of the
IPPC text and the unedited Gerberding testimony shows the truth is
the exact opposite: the deleted portions accurately reflect the
findings of the IPCC.
Revulsion
also
might
be an appropriate response to President Bush’s much- ballyhooed
“new initiative” on Cuba. But the tone and tenor of the
announcement and the hackneyed and vacuous nature of the measures
only managed to evoke ridicule.
It was
much ado about nothing except bluster and hot air.
With
the exception of the most extreme and partisan sector of the exile
community, which expressed its ecstasy, that is exactly how Bush’s
rare speech on Cuba was received.
Andrea
Mitchell, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, heaped scorn on
the whole thing, saying on National Public Radio that the
announcement was purely “cosmetic” and that it was rather silly
for Bush to threaten the new leadership in Cuba about what would
happen if it did not follow the U.S. line on transition because
transition had already taken place and nothing has happened.
Even
The
Miami
Herald’’s
Andrés Oppenheimer, the most consistent Cuba-basher in the
U.S. mainstream media, found the speech sorely wanting and even
counterproductive. Oppenheimer also used the occasion to criticize
much of Bush’s past Cuba initiatives as smacking of interventionism
while praising the President for speaking out on human rights.
A
Western diplomat speaking anonymously to The
Miami
Herald
summed it all up nicely: “When you convene the foreign diplomatic
corps, you expect it’s going to be something new, a new
initiative…It was really nothing.” It is a statement that
indicates that, like U.S. policy toward Cuba as a whole, this latest
initiative, which aims, for the hundredth time, to convince the rest
of the world to adopt U.S.-style policies toward Cuba, is a
non-starter.
The
week before Halloween was ugly in Washington. With Bush in the White
House and enough Republicans and faint-hearted Democrats in Congress
to block progress on every front, there probably won’t be much to
be politically thankful for next month either. That is all the more
reason to work to give new meaning to Thanksgiving 2008.
