In the United States and around the world, attention is turned to Washington, D.C., and the advent of a new presidency with promises of all sorts. Much excitement has been generated by the prospect of an African American becoming the leading figure of U.S. politics—a first in U.S. history, which is marred by a legacy of racism.
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Despite how Bush and others in the ruling class shamefully review the “accomplishments” of the last eight years, most people have good reason to joyfully welcome his departure. Bush will be remembered not for demonstrating lack of wit or intellect, but for the many atrocities committed under his command as head of state.
For two presidential terms, the Bush administration carried out one of the greatest arrogant blunders in foreign policy while violating every norm of international law. His attempt to legitimize torture is but one example.
Using the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, as the pretext for war, the Bush administration implemented an aggressive military strategy aimed at subjugating the Middle East and directly controlling its geostrategic oil supply.
His administration unabashedly and unapologetically fabricated claims that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” to politically justify the invasion of a country already battered by past wars and 12 years of crippling economic sanctions.
Bush’s crimes also included carrying out some of the most reactionary measures in domestic policy aimed at stripping the working class of gains won through the struggles of social movements. Because some of the most severe aspects of capitalism were so manifest under his presidency, Bush is perhaps the most hated president ever in U.S. history.
Friend of capitalists, enemy of workers
The rich will view the Bush era through a different lens than the workers and the poor of this country and the victimized countries of the world.
At first, Bush was praised by an overwhelming part of the U.S. ruling class—including the most ruthless and powerful capitalists who looked to profit from the White House’s aggressive domestic and foreign policies following 9/11.
Bill Clinton only tested the waters as the United States emerged as the world’s only superpower following the overthrow of the Soviet Union. Bush, in his turn, plunged headlong. The viciousness of his presidency was the product of capitalism itself, during a specific set of conditions at a particular time.
When the Bush administration was unable to grapple with the political difficulties that arose from the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the plunge turned into a belly flop. The credibility of U.S. imperialism was harmed and its false imagery of democracy and fairness was exposed for all to see. The damage was such that many in the ruling class distanced themselves from Bush and the Republicans.
The ruling-class shift was partly a measure of political consideration to defuse the potential for mass protest. At the same time, Bush earned genuine condemnation from segments of his own class for failing to serve them well. Top Democrats criticized Bush’s bellicose foreign policy not because they opposed it in principle; they criticized it because it failed to advance the interests of U.S. capitalism in the Middle East and beyond.
On sitcoms and talk shows, in television news broadcasts, on radio programs and in the print media, it was considered taboo to publicly oppose the relentless war drive of the Bush administration. Commentary focused exclusively on how to best carry out the war. Simultaneously, the media and those in power openly promoted a racist brand of xenophobia towards people from Arab and Muslim lands..
War at home
This complicity between government and corporate media did not mean Bush’s rule was uncontested. Signs of popular resentment to the government’s war cry began to appear everywhere in the country. On Sept. 29, 2001, just days after 9/11, the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) sponsored a defiant anti-war demonstration of 25,000 people in Washington, D.C.—the first of many mass actions the coalition would organize.
Likewise, immigrants have fought back against the state’s racist attacks. The 2006 immigrant rights movement in response to the ultra-repressive Sensenbrenner bill revived May 1 as a working-class holiday in the United States. That movement crushed the bill, but the government recognized the political threat. The Bush administration responded by making mass ICE raids and wanton deportations into staples of state repression.
The war fever of U.S. rulers ambitiously drove them to also target the working masses in the United States. The Bush onslaught included attacks on affirmative action, women’s rights to choose, funding for public schools and hospitals, cutbacks in legal aid for the poor and reductions in health care insurance for war veterans.
Hurricane Katrina, falsely labeled a natural disaster, illustrated how private property always trumps the needs of people under capitalism. The federal government denied the $250 million needed to shore up the levees—the same amount the Pentagon spent daily occupying Iraq at the time.
The primarily African American residents struggling to survive in the aftermath of the Katrina floods were labeled “looters” and viciously shot at from helicopters. Many of the poor, working-class residents are still displaced, and reconstruction has happened only to the extent that it has promoted gentrification.
Save the rich at the expense of the poor
Under Bush, the economic reality for millions of people deteriorated to unforeseen levels. The ghastly impact the economic crisis has had upon working-class families was played down by the mass media as the bailout of Wall Street and the giant banks was implemented. The reason was obvious: Bush was willing to bail out the rich but not the poor.
In fact, Bush cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work citizens than any president in U.S. history. In November 2008 alone—when the financial crisis was in full swing and banking giants looked eagerly to loot the public treasury—the jobless rate rose from 6.5 to 6.7 percent. In the last year, 2 million people lost their jobs. The hardships involved compounded for many of these families, because they were then left without health insurance.
According to official statistics, unemployment has affected the lives of 10.3 million people. These figures, however, are deceiving, because they do not include prisoners and former prisoners, military personnel, undocumented workers and those who are no longer on the unemployment rolls because they have just given up hopes of ever finding work.
More than ever, working-class youth are forced to decide between seeking an education and risking the trap of student-loan debt, or joining the military and risking being sent to die somewhere in a war of conquest—if they are not already caught up in the circumstances that lead them to crime and incarceration.
Under the Bush administration, more families became agonized by potential or actual homelessness. The mortgage crisis—for which capitalism is solely responsible—has compromised the well-being and safety of children in particular. The severity of this problem has reached a point where at least one child in every U.S. classroom is at risk of losing his or her home because their parents are unable to pay their mortgage or rent. The government’s rescue plan tossed a lifeline to mega-banks while working-class homeowners and renters were left to sink or swim.
Civil liberties under fire
While economic polarization continued to worsen under Bush, the Patriot Act and other repressive legislation created a precedent that granted the police greater powers to intensify racist violence in the most oppressed communities, particularly the Black and Latino communities. Since 9/11, police brutality cases across the country have increased by 25 percent.
It is not a coincidence that while the capitalist economy declined further in the years of the Bush presidency, he pushed for legislation intended to erode civil liberties. It is during this time that prison construction swelled and the number of prisoners skyrocketed. Today, there are 2,319,258 people incarcerated in U.S. prisons. That amounts to 750 prisoners per 100,000 people in this country, the highest incarceration rate in the world.
A brief depiction of the suffering caused by capitalism during the Bush era sums up in a nutshell the “accomplishments” of his presidency. However, we must not forget that Bush, no differently than any other U.S. president, is merely a representative of the capitalist ruling class. A new president will not change the fundamental driving force of U.S. capitalism: the pursuit of maximum profits for the rich at the expense of working-class people at home and abroad.
In the end, the most important highlights of the Bush years are the numerous ways in which people organized to fight back the anti-worker offensive—from the mass demonstrations against the Iraq war even to the immigrant rights movement to the fight for LGBT rights. In the coming political period, only the rise of a militant mass movement opposed to imperialist war, racist oppression and the enslavement of working people can be the decisive factor in a victory against the ravages of capitalism.
